The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-03-17
REPAIRING RAHROAD DAMAGE Qnick Work Done by the New. TIaa-
 ven After fhe Hartford Fire.

A railroad division point may be l likened to one Of the nerve centres Of 1 the human body From it radiate the raiIroadts nerves terminating in towers and signal points by which the railroad is kept in operation With the railroad as with the body, any sn jury to one Of these Important ceh- ters can cause paraIysis. and very serious breakdown of the railroads functions.
 The fire in the Hartford station Of | the New Y ork, New Haven and Hart ford on the afternoon of Saturday, February 2 |. afforded an illustration of how serious may be the consequeE- ces of the destruction of one of these railroad nerve centres and of how quickly a railroad can meet the sit-s uation arising from such 9. cause to the extent of repairing damage before any paralysis can ensue-
 The fire in the Hartford station was one of the biggest emergency jobs the New Haven has ever had to tackle, because that station is the headquar- ters of the Midland division of the divisions-the Midland, Shore Line and West ern.s It is also used by the Central New England trains. As traffic point it is the fourth largest on the New Haven system, with a daily train movement of 132 trains in
 
 The fire, occurring at 2.25 Satur- day afternoon put this station com pIetely out of business at a time when traffic is normally heaviest The station was gi1tted; ticket, baggage, express and despatcher-s offices were destroyed and one of the four tracks passing through the station com pleteIy blocked with debris. The destruction of the despatcher's office and of the division headquarters nec-
 
 l ton of train orders. Besides this, all tickets were destroyed. so that paraly- sis threatened the railroads system
 at one of it's most important points. It is part of the railroad business to be ever ready for emergencies. It l ials ready to repair unexpected dam age by fire and flood, and, like an ar my, 1t must have these forces in mo- bile groups so that.they can be picked up and despatched quickly to the !, point of attack. Tn such eunergen-- cies, too, the railroad man must think and act quickly.
 working in the station at the time of the fire were three despatchers charged with the operation of freight and passenger trains moving over Isevera1 lines, the safety and disposi- ton of which depended upon their octing quickly. When the wires were burned out, one of these despatchers grabbed his train sheet, and, jump ing OH a. switch engine, made for Q the station. From this tower he di-
 rected temporarily the operation of | trains between Hartford and Reading. The second operator turned over the operation of all trains on the Woon- socket branch to Providence, while the third operator made a dash for the Western Union office in Hartford l and from there operated all trains l between New London and Worcester. l Tn this way not over twenty-five min 1 utes elapsed before the railroads nervous system was at work again. In l the meantime work had been begun picking up wires and esta blishing a despatcher's office in the Central New I England's office building in Hartford and by 7:30 all wire communication had been restored and this was in full operation.
 The news of this fire reached the General Managers office in New Ha- ven at 2:45 and at 3:15 General Man ager c. L.. Bardo, with the General
 Superintendent. Telegraph Superin- tendent and others of his staff were on the way to Hartford in a special l train to take charge. In the mean time. by telephone and telegraph, car penters, laborers and hnernen had been collected at points as far away as Boston and six special trains with the railroads emergency equipment l were racing to the scene of the fire. One of these trains carried lumber for l a new station, which was on hand by T o'clock that evening. By D. l na., the railroad had 150 Iaborers at the fire and by D. m. 150 carpenters The emergency boarding train, equip 1 ped with a kitchen and sleeping ac- cornrnodations for 120 men, was sent to Hartford, arriving at D. m., and at midnight this train served dinner I to $50 men. The work of --~ssieving , the tons of debris, of strsns1ng wires. and of building new station, heated and lighted, was divided, each part under a special foreman. By 1o:30 | o'clock Saturday night the north l bound track had been cleared of it's 1 tons of debris and all tracks in ser vice again. The heaviest delay to any single train had been one hour. At o'clock Monday morning a