The mirror., 1919-03-20
EXPERIENCES OF A FIREMAN
An Instructive Paper on Railroad Life Read at a
Recent Meeting of the Chautauqua Circle
Bv l..
By L. z. J.

11CllOs GuuUs uTSO tllluS duu SuOW
him you are not scared. Well,
don't forget, 7:45."
Our new recruit will do we'll to
pay no attention to this talk, so he
goes to the roundhouse to obtain
the engineers name, then to his
engine to prepare her for the trip.
This preparation will consist of
cleaning the fire, which is already
supposed to be clean, prepare all
the lights, fill oil cans and see that
his tank is full of water and coal
as we'll as the proper tools for
handling the fire. As our friend
acts in a respectful manner, Runt
takes " liking to him and cleans
his fire three or four times and
even fires for him during the trip,
which is a hard one, 16 hours on
duty and all he has had to eat dur
ing the trip is ham sandwich lin
this paper l am not considering the
new 8-hour law he is So hungry
before he gets half through his
days work that it has left him en-
tirely. He hits the bed without ev-
en- tasting q glass of milk, sleeps
81 hours without waking. This
may not be true in all cases of
new firemen though I know it has
happened.
As time goes on he learns the
many ways of efficiency in firing.
He has tried out large percentage
of the freight and switch engines
on the division, some good steam
ers, some bad. He has worked
with accommodating men and
some who bored him.
In the meantime he has been
buying his meals at 1O1 different
places and never got the satisfac-
ton of them as from mothers
cooking, so she is induced to come
and start u restaurant so her boy
who is working so hard may get
enough to eat"
On the majority of trips he has
taken an oath that this would be
his last and as often violated that
oath. Whya There has been
times when he was so exhausted
i that he would stand with his hand
on the firedoor chain looking at
the steam gauge and fall asleep
standing up allowing the pressure
to drop to 100 pounds when it
should be 200. In spite of all this
he is beginning to like his work;
he will spend part of his rest-time
in tiding up the old engine. He
gets a book on air brakes, one on
cumbustion, reads and studies
them as we'll as watching the me-
chanics in the shop.
1t will be we'll to remember that
l have named our friend George,
his engineer in the following we
will call ''Windy.''
On a cold, winter night they are
called for an extra west with IS
empties. to leave at $50 P. M.
This should, under favorable con-
ditions. give them time to make the
first town out for No. 4, which is
due there at 1910, but for some
reason they are delayed 10 min
utes, thus being held at the termi-
nal till No. 4 arrives. When she
does arrive she is Is minutes be-
hind schedule and the drag of emp
ties is froze up tighter than the
river. The best they can do is
take about 10 cars. run them up
and down the track till the jour-
mails have warmed up and then next
10, and so on. By the time they
get the next batch warmed up the
first are frozen again. Nothing
doing but to try it over again
(Which is all the good it does) un-
til George gets good and hungry.
When the dispatcher hears about
the luck, he has orders sent to tie
up.
The next crew gets the drag of
empties out of town about 4