Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-07-28

when you leaned out of the cab: it snatched
at your hand when you held it out. And Con-
rad, standing on the lurching floor plates shov-
eled coal, watched his smoke through the OPEN
ing in the top of the cab, watched his gauges
and built up steam.
long freight train on the opposite track
loomed up and whizzed past throwing dust and
cinders. Stations flicked by and the green
countryside was a swiftly moving panorama
We were flying now
Farther on We slowed down for water The
Senator picks 1t up on the run from long steel
troughs between the rails, as all fast passenger
trains do When the engine reached the troughs
the air brakes had cut from 10 to 20 miles off
her speed.
Five or six times on the way to New York the
Senator scoops up water Eleven thousand GAL
Ions the reserve tank holds, but the boiler drinks
IT up fast, turning it into steam that drives the
flying pistons.
Past Havre de Grace, laundering over bridges.
down grades and up inclined tracks. We headed
into rain squall; 1t was heavy one, regular
downpour. Big drops spattered against the
front sht-like windows of the cab; visibility
was cut down TO minimum. I wondered how
they saw the signals in weather like that, the
track faded out in mist few hundred feet
ahead. But Conrads trained eye picked the
telitale bead out OF the haze-"Clear top!" he
called, the flyer laundering on.
There are signal lights today which shine
through fog, wonderful new bulbs cleaning
from half to mile away But there's an
ADDED precaution on Engine 54Ol in q corre-
spending set Of lights inside the cab Two long
narrow boxes, one in front of the engineers
seat and the other on the firemans side, with
red, green, orange, purple and white globes.
controlled by electric resistance on the rails to
match the signal of the block ahead. And as
1uither factor OF safety there is the automatic
train stop. If the engine passes set" block,
on go the air brakes by themselves.
We slowed down little over the long Susoue-
hanna Bridge, the 5401 kissing steam from the
safety valve-past Elkton on the fly, and at
2:25 we were laundering through Wilmington
and on toward Chester and Philadelphia Train
a1ter train passed us headed in the opposite
direction. First they looked like pencil points
far out ahead, then they loomed up big and
darted by like red arrows
We stayed only minute at the North Phila-
dephia Station, where John Eaton swung off
with his oil can almost before the drivers had
stopped turning and a new superintendent
W. +. Beason. assistant road foreman of the
New York division, climbed on
Then we>were of, rumbling through the city
limits at reduced speed with Eaton at the
throttle again. We left the big city behind and
numbered on into our mad pace once more
Now the signals come closer together and read
two or three blocks at time. Traffic is heavier:
there are more tracks abreast of us; towns fy
by in quicker successions and semaphore lights
flash in maze. 1t takes a sharp eye to read
them now.
There are trains all around us. Long lines
OF 1reights. passengers moving on elevated
tracks and roaring past us parallel headed the
other way. Town after town up there past
Trenton, where the population is thick, and 50
many tracks and switches rushing at us that
they all look tangled up But Conrad keeps
Yelling Clear top!" and the Senator roars OH
through, doing between 60 and TO-