The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1913-09-03
Engineer vs. Chauffeur.

The engineer of railroad train is
usually man long past his boyhood
days. Most Of them that you have
seen or known were very likely gray
haired men, with the wrinkles and
seams of age marring their counten-
ances. The engineer learned his bus
mess by starting in as roundhouse
helper, worked for two or three or
more years there, picking up what
knowledge he could in regard to the
machine he hoped sometime to drive.
Then he fired on a freight train for
some years and picked up some more
information along the line of how to
handle the engine, and the elements
that gave it power and speed. Then
perhaps he was promoted to passen-
ger train and fired the locomotive
that drew the limited across the coun-
try, at as great speed as was com
patable with safety, taking into con-
sideraton the conditions of the road
bed. switches, and the other trains
that were using the same tracks.
After spending number of years
shoveling coal on the limited and
learning all the time, he was pro-
NOTED to the fright hand side" the
engineers station. but he went back
CINE for few more years of train
ing.
His machine was operated on rails
of steel accurately laid and we'll
kept up to certain standard, the
curves were so made that an engine
could travel around them with a
minimum of danger because the track
was laid with mathematical precision,
and during practically every miel of
travel he was under the control of
the man higher up by reason of tele-
graphic orders, block signals, ETC.,
and his punishment for exceeding the
speed limit of safety was the loss of
his job that he had spent so many
years and worked so hard to get.
But modern progressiveness has
brought about new condition. Be-
hold the "boy chauffeur" who, after
days of riding beside an older driver,
though perhaps not an experienced
man at that, he is placed in charge of
the steering wheel of a touring car,
which has as much power in COM
parison with the load it is required to
haul than the locomotive, and given |
the right to go up and down the hills |
and through the valleys of our country
roads, at no time built with any
mathematical guide or accuracy, TAX
ing the turns without regard to the |
safety of the car or his passengers. |
simply because he hasn't the slightest
idea of the principal of safety. The |
chances are that he will travel roads |
that he knows nothing at all about at
much greater speed than the railroad
over a new or unknown path of steel
rails.
Then some other boy with about
the same amount Of training, in the
gentle art of driving comes up be-
hind and race is on, the only thing
that prevents an accident in many
cases being pure luck. Roads that
are obscured by weeds or trees are
taken at a speed that almost makes
a collision certainty should car
be coming from another direction,
and it is we'll known principle that
a driver always has the wrong side
of the road in cases where the track
Is wide enough for two.
The locomotive engineer has had
years of training as to what to do in
the case of sudden emergency. The
chauffeur depends on intuition to tell
him what to do when the time of dan
ger comes and he quite generally does
the wrong thing.
The Observer believes that there
should be at least fraction of the
regulation for an automobile driver
that is required of the locomotive
engineer, for there is really but lit
tie difference in the rate of speed
travelled and what difference there is
is more than compensated for by the
better roadbed and track the railroad
affords.-Logan Observer.