Connecticut western news., 1916-02-10
CONDUCTOR TANNER RETIRES
Has Run 3,ooo,ooo Miles in 5e Years
 on Same Division.

on Same Division.
 Frederick W. Tanner, of Pittsfeld, who had, of late been in charge of the New York and Pittsfeld express train ill its run between Pittsfeld and Brook | field Junction, has retired from active duty, on pension.
 MT. Tanner has the distinction of l having been ill service on the same division for 56 years and is the oldest railroad man. ill point of years of ser. vice on the entire New Haven system, if not on any system. He enteped the employ of the old Housatonic railroad company 56 years ago, in 1860, at the age of 16, as brakeman on the State Line branch. Shortly afterWard he was promoted to conductOrship, and was for long time both conductor and agent at the State Line station. For some years later he had been a passen- ger conductor on the Pittsfield- Bridge. port and his latest run was the Pitts field Brooklyn Junction "leg" of the l through express, running south ill the morning and back in the evening.
 He estimates that during his long term of service he has travelled about 5000, ,000 miles.
 Fred Tanner has a wide acquaintance with railroad men generally, and is immensely popular with the travelling public for his never. failing courtesy and his genial, accommodating spirit. At the completion of his fifty years of service in April, 1910, he was presented | Ia, e;1 hx- the summer residents of Lenox and Berkshire, as token of their apprecia. tion"aud esteem.
 Although he is now in his 72d year, MT. Tanner is apparently in the full vigor of his prime, erect, active, keen of intellect and bright of eye, and his countless friends will wish for him many years of ease and comfort in which to enjoy his well earned pension. He has witnessed and participated in the evolution of railroad methods from the crude system and equipment of over half century ago to the scientific perfection attained today-from the days of the little wood burning loco- motive with it's big spark -belching balloon smoke stack, to the monster mogul engines of today; from the days when the short light. built wooden pas senger cars, "lighted" with tallow candle at each end and warmed by a sheet-iron wood stove in the center. which roasted the passengers sitting near it while those nearer the doors froze their feet and noses, to the pres ent day capacious solid steel Pullmans, heated uniformly by scientific system of hot air or steam heating, and bril- liantly illuminated by electricity; he was running when all braking was done by hand, by brakemen on the passenger cars, by the baggagemaster in the baggage car, which was always equipped with brake.wheel inside, and by the fireman on the locomotive, the tender of which had another brake wheel; in the days when all hands be- gan to put on the brakes as soon as the train had arrived within a mile of a station and the train of loosely coupled cars would jerk and slam and jump and tremble as the "slack'' was taken up and released by the brakes ill the painful! process of stopping; when the long "shackle" had ample play in the "bumpers". so that the cars could spread apart, leaving a foot of space between the platforms, which were bridged by an accordion mat of adjusta- ble diagonal steel strips, and a pas senger or trainman stepping from one car to another always took his life in his hands; and he has seen those crude methods discarded for the air brake. whereby the engineer by simply twist ing little handle, instantly applies the brakes to every car and the train comes to stop without jar ortremor, and the automatic couplers join the cars together so that with the vestibule doors the entire train, no matter how long it may be, is virtually one single car.
 MT. Tanner has had wealth of rail. road experience out of which he could write book that would be of absorb. ing interest.