Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-07-13
FIRSTS IN RAILROADING
THE first achievements of American rail-

THE first achievements of American rail.
reading are, in the greater number of
cases, lost in the obscurity of tradition and
there have sprung up a host of interesting
stories that go the rounds like Homeric
tales The honor of having created record
or custom that is now commonplace has
had many claimants in nearly every instance.
Take the first train to run mile a minute
The Antelope, an engine on the Boston q
Maine Railroad, according to one of the
most cherished of these legends, pulled the
first train that made this record. Her run
was between Boston and Lawrence, dis
lance of twenty-six miles, and one day in
184S she is said to have made her last four
teen miles in thirteen minutes.
But it is Just as earnestly upheld that the
Davy Crockett of the Mohawk & Hudson
Railroad has this distinction. The Davy
Crockett was the pride of the road in her day.
1t is said that her engineer, David Matthew,
loved her better than he did his family.
But she reached the pinnacle of her fame
locally when, in 1882, sixteen years before
the Antelope was heard of, according to this
other story, she covered fourteen mile
straightaway level stretch between Albany
and Schenectady in thirteen minutes and
made one stop for water besides. A letter
written by Matthew in that year mentions
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her on several occasions.
Running an engine at mile a minute in
those days was many times more dangerous
than it is now. Three-quarters of century
ago the rails were light strips of iron spiked
down to all sorts of ties. There were no tie
or fish plates then, and in hot weather espe-
cially the sleepers and the rails would warp
in the torrid sun and pull apart. Not in
frequently the ends of the light rails would
curve upward from the track, forming the
much dreaded Snake heads which were
the horror of engineers and passengers
alike. Many tales are told of Snake heads y
springing up under the jolting train, pierre
ing the f1imsy car floors, and lmpalng pas
sengers in their seats. Until remedy was
found for these Snake heads by using
better fastenings and more seasoned ties, a
large force of men was continually employed
to walk the tracks and nail them down.
Broken car wheels were another ever pres
ent danger in those remote days. The pres
ent standard gage is said to have been origi-
nally established by taking the distance be-
tween the wheels of the carts used on Eng
fish highways. For the same reason, appar-
emily, the first rolling stock was equipped
not with solid wheels, but with castiron
models of the wooden wagon wheel, though
of smaller diameter. These were not sub
mitted to the drop test that is now universal,
and were of dangerously light pattern. The
result was that often interior defects in the
casting would pass unnoticed until the wheel
broke and the train was ditched. 1t took
bad accident in which numberof people were
killed, so runs the tradition, to bring about
the testing of car wheels by tapping them.
D EAL time saving in running trains did not
~ begin until 1851. Charles Minot, super
intendent of the Erie Railroad, was one of
those given credit of inaugurating telegraph
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