The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-07-26
TOWERMEN ARE
 RAILROADS NERVES
Duty Is To Detect Trouble As Well As to Direct Operations
 of Trains

FalTOaoS nervous system. AS the nerves direct our muscles so the tow srmen direct the movements of the railroad. They also detect trouble on the road and send word of it to head quarters as our nerves do to the brain. They are most important cog in that wonderful organization which today makes up a railroad.
 Human ingenuity is bent today to- wards reducing much as possible the importance of the human factor More and more do we become mechan- icz1 for in that direction supposedly Hes greater safety. In consequence of this various checks have been thrown around the work of the towerxnan so that he is not in the position perhaps to do so much harm as he once was, that is, on important railroad lines. On smaI1er lines hundreds of human lives may still depend daily on the manner in which he performs his du- ties
 It wae not so many years ago that the toWerman on even the main stem of our great railroad system could set "a signal wrong or throw switch and send a whole train to destruction. To- hay on lines operated by the automatic block signa1 system, such as the New it takes the men in two separate tow CTS to set one signal. "One man must unlock the other se the railroad peo- lple describe it. In ether words. they have multiplied the safety in the hl1- man factor by two. Two brains must work wrong to accomplish such a dis iaster, two sets of hands perform the act which means death on the rail.
 But while the safety of human lives may not depend upon him to quite the same degree as they once did the tow srman remains most important funcr itionary. Let him relax his vigilance or be reuniss in his duties and the whole railroad system may get a bad attack of the collie, may be tied up in ia double bow knot, which will take hours to unraveI
 I If you have ever ridden on the ob- Eervatton platform of a fast train you have undoubtedly seen the man in leach tower as you flashed by survey ling your receding figure from one of lhis little windows. Perhaps you have wondered at his curiosity, remember hnE how many trains he sees in day. lBut 1t is the particular business of the lfowerman to look carefully over your l4rain as it goes speeding by his tower nust as 1t was his particular business 4o set the signals and the switches fright for it.
 i often times fast train not making many stops doesn't know that any ithing ails it at all until 1t Is stopped lat some place unexpectedly by an or fder. Then it finds 1t has contracted l1hat well known railroad ailment-a ihotbox- What stopped the train2 It SyFas some towerrnan away back on the llfne. who scrutinixing the train it went past his lonely perch saw what hhe train crew were unable to see and l4elegraphed 1t in. A freight car in l1ong train may have a loose door, a potential troubIemakeS, for it may Eids-ewipe passing trains. The tower man will see 1t if the train crew ldoesn't And the reason he always hooks after your train is to see if it is displaying the proper signals in the rear
 This inspection work is one of the Iznost important features of the tower mans job His are the eyes which lreaIIy watch the actual opera ton of the road From him comes the alarm If things aren't working right. Up in cant actually watch the road; the towermen must do 1t for them.
 Naturally the towermen are selected with extreme care. They make from s17-20 to s2s a week Promotion for them means a job in the train dis patcher,s ofice. and perhaps some day Chief Train Dispatcher First of all the towernan must be a telegraph op-| orator He usually starts in to learn telegraphy in some railroad station while acting as a. freight or ticket clerk. Some times men will give their time just in return for this tuition in teleEraphy-
 when a man has become proficient reIeETapnY urefve train orders he gets a more im- portant job, such as a ticket clerk or operator at some railroad station on a line without block signals. He will ask for a transfer to the tower service then because it means better hours and better pay
 Towerrnen work in eight-hour stretch es from F to 12. The pay will vary according to length of service and the Srportance of his tower. The tower man has assistants called levermen. They are not telegraph operators Their job is simply to move the switch and signal levers under the tower mans supervision, This is at busy points on the line At Tower T5, just af The entrance Of the yards at New Haven there are four of thaPe lever- men beside the towerman. This is be- cause of the many tracks and signals which must be handled there At points where there are a lot of tracks such as at the entrance of a yard. the switches and signals are all fnteriock- ed, which means that a certain signal must agree with a certain track con dftion- Under this system you can't Eet a wrong eignaI for a switch. These are always busy points for the tower man.
 The, towerman is at all times in communication with the train dis patcher. As has been said. he is the sensftory nerves of the railroad sys- tenn If he sees a train stop for some reason he must notify the train dis catcher perhaps hundred miles away or more He keeps a record of every passing train on his train sheet and this sheet is sent in every day to the superintendent of the division. If a dispatcher wants to stop a train any where and give 1t new orders hs does 1t through the towerman.
 On an electrified railroad such as the New Haven's four-track main line between New York and New Haven the towerman has still another inter estinz duty to perform at times. Tn times of emergency he can turn off the ..1uice'' from his portion of the line s-A bring every train to standstill- fnad rrlr-s a11flrlvir1-- his mart e