Chapter V (6)

Considerable work must be done in the movement of each lever. The ground connections must be put down with great care, as nearly straight and level as may be, well drained, and protected from ice and snow. All of these difficulties have been overcome in a beautiful pneumatic interlocking apparatus which has been introduced within the last two or three years. In this system the motive power is compressed air. Near each switch is a small cylinder, containing a piston which is attached directly to the switch movement. Compressed air admitted to one side or the other of this piston moves the switch one way or the other. But, as it would take some time for the necessary quantity of air to flow from the signal-tower to a distant switch, a small reservoir is placed near the switch, and the air from this reservoir is admitted to one end or the other of the switch cylinder according to the position of a valve. For transmitting the motion from the tower to the valve compressed air might be used, but, as air is elastic, a quicker movement is got by using in the pipes some liquid which does not readily freeze, and which, being practically non-compressible, transmits an impulse given at one end almost instantly to the other. The signals are worked in essentially the same manner as the switches, except that the pneumatic valves are moved by electricity. The tower apparatus of a pneumatic system in the yard of the Pennsylvania Railroad at Pittsburg is shown in the engraving opposite. In the front of the apparatus is seen a rank of small handles, which can be turned from side to side with as much ease as the keys of a piano can be depressed. Turning one of these handles admits compressed air to the end of a pipe containing liquid. Instantly the pressure is transmitted 500 or 1,000 feet to the valve at the switch to be moved. The small levers are interlocked perfectly, and in that particular perform the duties of the ordinary machine. A model of the tracks controlled is placed before the operator, showing the switches and signals, and when a movement is made on the ground it is at once repeated back by electricity and duplicated on the model. This beautiful system is due to the same genius that gave us the perfected air-brake and the triple valve, and is the greatest improvement that has been made in interlocking in the last dozen years.

(A model of the track is shown above the levers, on which the movements of the switches and signals are electrically indicated after they are completed.)]

(The torpedo is carried forward by the plunger and exploded by the depression of the hammer shown near the rail.)]

If the reader has grasped the full significance of interlocking, he understands that it makes it impossible to give a signal that would lead to a collision or to a derailment at a misplaced switch. The worst that a stupid, or drunken, or malicious signalman could do would be to delay traffic, if the signals were obeyed. Here comes in the failing case. The brake-power may be insufficient to stop a train after a danger signal is given. That is a rare occurrence, but may happen. The engineer may not see the danger signal because of fog, or he may carelessly run past it. Provision against a failure to see and to obey a signal may be made by placing on the track a torpedo, which will explode with a loud report when struck by a wheel. The use of hand-torpedoes in fogs, and for emergencies in places unprovided with fixed signals, is very common. These are little disks filled with a detonating powder, and provided with tin straps that are bent down to clasp over the top of the rail. A simple and very efficient torpedo machine, which has been used for some years on the Manhattan Elevated and elsewhere, is here shown. This machine has a magazine holding five torpedoes. It is connected to a signal-lever in such a way that, when the signal is put to danger, one torpedo is placed in a position to be exploded by the first passing wheel. When the signal returns to the clear position the torpedo, if unexploded, is withdrawn to the magazine. If the torpedo is exploded another one takes its place at the next movement of the signal-lever. One of these machines on the Elevated Road moves about five thousand times every day. In such a case a torpedo would soon be worn out if it was not exploded or frequently changed. When this apparatus is in operation, an unmistakable alarm is at once given to the engineer and to others if a danger signal is passed. On the Manhattan Elevated lines an engineman who overruns a danger signal and can show no good reason for it is suspended for the first offence, and discharged for the second. The torpedo makes it impossible for him to escape detection.

* * * * *

The second great class of signals comprises those which are intended to keep fixed intervals of space between trains running on the same track. These are block signals. The block system is used on a few of the railroads of the United States which have the heaviest and fastest traffic. Much the most common practice in this country, however, is to run trains by time intervals, and under the constant control of the train despatcher. In England the block system is almost universal. About ninety per cent. of all the passenger lines of that country are worked under the absolute block system.

When the block system is not used, it is quite common to protect particularly dangerous points, such as curves and deep cuts, by stationing watchmen there with flags or with some form of fixed signal. The watchman can notify an approaching engine-runner that a preceding train has or has not passed beyond his own range of vision; or can notify him that it has been gone a certain time. Travellers by the Philadelphia & Reading must have noticed the queer structures, with revolving vanes on top, looking like a feeble sort of windmill, which appear in positions to command a view of cuts, curves, etc. These are examples of the devices for local protection. The non-automatic block signal develops naturally from the protection of scattered points. Instead of placing watchmen at points of especial danger, they are placed at regular intervals of one mile, two miles, or five miles. Instead of the watchman looking to see that a train has disappeared from his field of vision before he lets another train pass, he uses the eyes of the next watchman ahead, who telegraphs back that the train has passed his station. Suppose A, B, and C to be three block-signal stations placed at intervals of two miles. When a train passes A, the operator at that point at once puts a signal to danger behind it. This signal stands at danger until the train passes B, and the operator puts his signal to danger, and telegraphs back to A to announce that train No. 1 has passed out of the block A B, and is protected by the signal at B. Then, and not until then, the operator clears the signal at A and allows train No. 2 to enter the block. Meanwhile train No. 1 is proceeding through the block B C, its rear protected at B; and the same sequence of events happens when it arrives at C as happened at B. This is the simplest form of block signalling. In the more elaborate form there are at each block-station three signals--the distant, the home, and the starting. The signals are often electrically interlocked, from one station to another, in such a way that it is mechanically impossible for the operator at A to give a signal for a train to pass that station until the signal at B has been put to danger behind the preceding train.

A B C
-----------------------------

It is seen that no two trains can be in the same block and on the same track at the same time. If all run at a uniform speed, they will be kept just the length of a block apart. If No. 2 is faster than No. 1, it will arrive at B before No. 1 gets to C, but will have to wait there. The block system, therefore, while it gives security, does not always facilitate traffic. The longer the blocks the greater will be the delay to trains; but the shorter the blocks, the greater the cost of establishment, maintenance, and operation.

Various systems have been contrived to have block signals displayed automatically by the passage of trains. This, if it can be done reliably, will do away with the wages of part of the operators, and will also eliminate the dangers arising from human carelessness. But there are very great objections to relying solely upon the automatic action of signals, and automatic block signals are little used except as auxiliary to a system employing operators also. So used, they are of decided advantage, as they make sure that a danger signal is set behind every train in spite of the operator, and that it cannot be again set to the all-clear position till the train has passed out of the block. All this is accomplished by electricity.

Brakes, interlocking, and the apparatus of signalling have been considered at length because they are very much the most important of all the appliances which go to increase the safety of operating railroads. They act chiefly to prevent collisions, but often prevent or mitigate accidents from derailments and other causes. Of all train-accidents happening in the last sixteen years, over one-third have been from collisions, and more than one-half from derailments.

* * * * *

After brakes and signals, the devices next in importance as means of saving life are those for the protection of highway crossings at the grade of railroads. In years to come, as wealth increases and as traffic becomes more crowded, we may suppose there will be few such crossings; but their abolition must be slow, and meantime the loss of life at them is great. The most accurate and complete statistics bearing on this matter are those collected by the Railroad Commissioners of Massachusetts. In 1888, of all those killed in the operation of the railroads of the State, seven per cent. were passengers, thirty-three per cent. were employees, and sixty per cent. were others. The others include trespassers, forty-seven per cent.; and killed at grade crossings, eleven per cent. More trespassers were killed than any other class; but the deaths at highway crossings considerably exceeded those among passengers. The difficulty of preventing this class of accidents is strikingly shown by the fact that, of all crossing accidents, forty-two per cent. were due to the victims' disregard of warnings given by closed gates or flags. It is evident that the efforts of the railroad companies to save people's lives at crossings are largely nullified by the carelessness of the public, and the lack of proper laws to punish those who venture upon railroad tracks when they should keep off them. Still, it remains the duty and the policy of the railroads to protect street crossings by all practicable means. The best protection is afforded by gates with watchmen, and of all forms of gate the most common, because it is the simplest and most convenient to operate, is the familiar arm-gate. This is usually worked by a man turning a crank, but it is also worked by compressed air. On this page is shown a group of gates worked from an elevated cabin by a mechanical connection. A bell fixed at a crossing, to be rung by an approaching train, is a very useful auxiliary to gates and to watchmen with flags, and is considerably used where the traffic does not warrant the expense of maintaining a watchman. There are several good devices of this sort, either electric or magneto-electric. One of the latter class has a lever alongside the rail, which is depressed by each wheel that passes over it. This lever is geared to a fly-wheel, which is set rapidly revolving and causes an armature to revolve in the field of a magnet, and thus generates a current and rings a gong, precisely as is done with the familiar magnetic bell used with the telephone.

About thirteen per cent. of the train-accidents in the United States, in the last sixteen years, were derailments due to defects of road. These include not only defective rails, switches, and frogs, but bridge wrecks. There are, however, few devices used in the track, other than those already mentioned, that can be called safety appliances. This class of accidents is to be provided against only by good material, good workmanship, and unceasing care. Many so-called safety switches and safety frogs are offered to railroad officers, but those actually in wide use are confined to a very few standard forms. The split-switch, which is shown in the engravings on pages 206 and 207, has gradually replaced the old stub-switch, as well as most of the "safety" switches that have been from time to time introduced; although the stub-switch is still in considerable use in yards where movements are slow, and in the main tracks of the less progressive roads. It consists of a pair of moving rails the ends of which are brought opposite to the ends of the main-line rails, or to those of the turnout, as the case may be. It follows that but one of these tracks is continuous at any one time, and a train reaching the switch by the other track must be derailed. The distressing accident which happened at Rio, Wis., in 1886, where seventeen people lost their lives, was a derailment of this sort. Since that time the railroad on which the accident happened has taken out all stub-switches on thousands of miles of main-line track. The split-switch provides against such derailments, for if the switch is set for the turnout, and a train approaches it from the main line in the "trailing" direction, the flanges of the wheels move the switch-rails to make the track continuous. The terms "facing" and "trailing," as applied to switches, are almost self-explanatory. If a train approaches toward the points of the moving rails, the switch is said to be facing. If it runs through the switch from the rear of the moving rails, the switch is said to be trailing. This will be made clear by reference to the illustration on page 206. If a train were coming from the bridge, the first switch reached by it would be a trailing and the second a facing switch. In the newspaper reports an accident will very often be assigned to one of two causes, failure of the air-brakes or spreading of the rails. The chances are that it will be found on investigation to be due to neither of these causes. Those interested to maintain the credit of the air-brake or of the track department are not often on the ground when the reporter gets his information, and the temptation is always great to shift the responsibility to the shoulders of the absent. Probably the displacement of the rail will have taken place after the derailment; but rails do sometimes spread. Loose spikes and rotten ties allow the outer edge of the rail-flange to sink into the wood, and the rail to roll outward enough to let the wheels drop. Sound ties are the first safeguard against such accidents. Metal plates under the rails are useful also; but one of the most efficient means of preventing displacement of the rails is the interlocking bolt shown above. These bolts cross in the timber, and slots cut in the two bolts engage with each other in such a way that when the nuts are screwed down on the rail-flange it is impossible to pull the bolts out. They can only be moved by tearing through the wood contained in the angle between them. This bolt is much used on bridges and trestles, where it is of vital importance that the rails should be held in place and no part of the floor broken.

In 1853 an express train went through an open draw at South Norwalk, Conn., and forty-six lives were lost. This, one of the most serious railroad accidents that ever happened, is still remembered as an historical calamity. The bridge which stands on the same site is shown opposite. In May, 1888, a west-bound express train, consisting of an engine and seven cars, was derailed just as it was entering the draw-span. The train ran three hundred feet on the sleepers before it was stopped. Then it was found that all of the driving-wheels of the engine had regained the rails, but all the other wheels were off, except those of two sleeping-cars in the rear. This was a remarkable escape from a bad accident, and much of the credit of it has been given to the interlocking bolts with which the rails were fastened. They are supposed to have prevented the rails being crowded aside, and thus to have made possible the rerailing of the engine. Besides, they helped the oak guard-timbers to hold the ties in place. The destruction of a bridge in an accident frequently begins by the ties bunching in front of the wheels and allowing the wheels to drop through and strike the floor-beams below. For this reason guard-timbers, notched down over the ties, should always be used.

The traveller will have noticed, on all bridges of various roads, two rails placed inside the track-rails, and curved to meet in a point at either end of the bridge. These are known as inside guard-rails, and their function is to keep derailed trucks in line till the train can be stopped. Besides the bunching of the ties, there is danger in a bridge derailment that a truck may swing around and strike one of the trusses. Then the bridge is very likely to be wrecked. A further provision for the protection of bridges is the rerailing frog invented by the late Charles Latimer, whose name is dear to railroad men all over America. This consists of a pair of castings combined with inside guard-rails, designed to raise the derailed wheels and guide them on to the rails. There is no doubt that it has prevented several wrecks, although it has never been widely used. The subject of bridges should not be left without a word of explanation of the stout timber-posts often seen at either end placed in line with the trusses. These are designed to stop any derailed vehicle which might otherwise strike against and destroy a truss.

* * * * *

There is one track-fixture that has no duty or value except as it promotes safety. It helps only one humble class of railroad employees. That device is the foot-guard. At all places where two rails cross or approach each other, as at frogs and guard-rails, dangerous boot-jacks are formed by the rail-heads. The overhang of the heads of the rail makes it easy for one to so fasten his foot in one of those boot-jacks that it is hard to get it out. If a man finds himself in this position in front of an approaching train, he sometimes has the alternative of standing up to be struck by the engine or lying down and having his foot cut off. Fortunately this class of accidents is comparatively rare; probably not more than two or three per cent. of all deaths and injuries to passengers and employees is caused in this way. Nevertheless, the means of guarding against accidents of this class is so cheap that it should be more generally adopted than it is. It consists simply in partly filling the space between the rail-heads by putting in wooden blocks or strips of metal, or even packing with cinders, gravel, or any sort of ballast. Various wooden and metal foot-guards have been patented. They are all too simple to require description.

* * * * *

Of all accidents to employees the most numerous are those which arise in coupling and uncoupling cars. In Massachusetts, in 1888, the employees killed and injured were 391; of these casualties 154 occurred in coupling accidents. The commissioners of other States, especially of Iowa, have for years published statistics showing nearly the same ratio. Fortunately accidents of this class, although numerous, are not proportionately fatal. Far the greater part of them result in the loss of part of a hand; but they are so frequent as to have caused much discussion, legislation, and invention. Several States have, one time and another, passed laws requiring the use of automatic couplers; and two or three years ago there were on record in the United States over four thousand coupler patents. The laws have been futile because impracticable; and most of the patents have been worthless for the same reason. It was obvious that the business of supplying couplers for the one million freight cars of the country could not be put into the hands of some one patentee unless his device was manifestly and pre-eminently superior to all others. It became important, therefore, to select as a standard some type of coupler general enough to include the patents of various men, and at the same time so definite that all couplers made to conform to the standard could work together interchangeably. Those who read Mr. Voorhees' story[21] of the wanderings of a freight car will understand that any one freight car in the United States or Canada should be prepared to run in the same train with any other car. A few years ago a committee of the Master Car-builders' Association was appointed to choose and recommend a type of coupler to be adopted as the standard of the association. After prolonged and careful study of the subject, the committee recommended the type of which the Janney is the best known example, and that has now become the standard of the association. This action does not give a monopoly to the Janney company, as there are already half a dozen couplers which conform to the type. This coupler is shown by diagrams in the article by M. N. Forney, page 142. A perspective view is herewith given. This device couples automatically, and thus does away with the necessity for the brakeman going between the cars. It can also be unlocked by the rod shown extending to the side of the car, and the locking device can be set not to couple, to facilitate switching and yard work. The mechanical principles of this coupler are a great and important improvement upon any form of link-and-pin coupler; and the coupler question has now come to this point: A type of coupler has been selected by a technical body representing most of the railroads of the United States. It is general enough to avoid the evils of a patent monopoly. It promises to be economical in operation, and will certainly do away with the terrible loss of life and limb which results from the use of the non-automatic coupler. The railroads are adopting it with reasonable speed, perhaps, but not as rapidly as simple considerations of humanity would dictate.

Closely related to the coupler is the vestibule, which within the last two years has become so fashionable. The vestibule is not merely a luxury, but has a certain value as a safety device.[22] The full measure of this value has not yet been proved. Occasionally lives are lost by passengers falling from or being blown from the platforms of moving trains. Such accidents the vestibule will prevent, and, further, it decreases the oscillation of the cars, and thus to some degree helps to prevent derailment. It is also some protection against telescoping. A few months ago a coal train on a double-track road was derailed, and four cars were thrown across in front of a solid vestibule train of seven Pullman cars approaching on the other track. The engine of the vestibuled train was completely wrecked. Even the sheet-iron jacket was stripped off it. The engineer and fireman were instantly killed, but not another person on the train was injured. They escaped partly because the cars were strong, and partly, doubtless, because the vestibules helped to keep the platforms on the same level and in line, and thus to prevent crushing of the ends of the cars.

The number of passengers burned in wrecks is greatly exaggerated in the public mind; but that fate is so horrible that it is not wonderful that "the deadly car-stove" should be the object of persistent and energetic attacks by the press and in State legislatures. The result has been the development, in the last three years, of the entirely new business of inventing and trying to sell systems of heating by steam or hot water from the locomotive, and even by electricity. In fact, the manufacture of such apparatus has already become an industry of some importance, several thousand cars being equipped with it. This whole matter of steam-heating is still in a somewhat crude state, and it does not seem desirable to force it by legislation. It has been demonstrated that it is the cheapest way of heating trains, and the most easily regulated; and it has become a good advertisement to attract passengers. Consequently the whole subject may be safely left in the hands of the railroad companies, and allowed to develop itself naturally in a business way. There is not yet any system of continuous heating so perfected that a railroad company could without hardship be compelled to adopt it for all its passenger equipment.

Fires in wrecked trains have originated probably quite as often from kerosene lamps as from the stoves. The danger of fire from this source, and the desire to give passengers the luxury of sufficient light, have led to methods of lighting by gas and, more recently by electricity. Lighting by compressed gas ceased years ago to be an experiment. In Germany it is almost universal, but in this country it has been brought into use very slowly. The system is almost absolutely safe, not unreasonably expensive, and may be made to give satisfactory and even brilliant illumination; but the ideal light for railroad trains will probably be found in electricity. It is even safer than gas, and is the most adaptable of any known method of lighting. Some sleeping-cars that have been recently put in service on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway are provided with small electric lamps in the sides of the car, between each two adjoining seats, so that the occupants can read comfortably either when sitting in their seats or lying in their berths.

* * * * *

It is not to be supposed that so large a subject as that of safety appliances can be exhaustively treated within the limits of one article. It has been thought best, therefore, to give most of the space available to the two or three devices of greatest and most useful application. There remain various others that are in daily use, and that have important offices, which have not even been mentioned. If the reader has gleaned from these very incomplete notes some clearer notions than he had before of the means by which the power of the locomotive is guided into safe and useful paths, the writer's object has been accomplished.

FOOTNOTES:

[20] The statistics of train accidents used in this article are those collected and published monthly for many years by the _Railroad Gazette_. In the nature of things such statistics cannot be absolutely accurate, but no others are in existence for the whole country. These are sufficiently accurate for all practical purposes.

[21] See "The Freight-car Service," page 267.

[22] See "Railway Passenger Travel," page 249.

RAILWAY PASSENGER TRAVEL.

BY HORACE PORTER.

The Earliest Railway Passenger Advertisement--The First
Time-table Published in America--The Mohawk and Hudson
Train--Survival of Stage-coach Terms in English Railway
Nomenclature--Simon Cameron's Rash Prediction--Discomforts
of Early Cars--Introduction of Air-brakes, Patent Buffers
and Couplers, the Bell-cord, and Interlocking Switches--The
First Sleeping-cars--Mr. Pullman's Experiments--The
"Pioneer"--Introduction of Parlor and Drawing-room
Cars--The Demand for Dining-cars--Ingenious Devices for
Heating Cars--Origin of Vestibule-cars--An Important Safety
Appliance--The Luxuries of a Limited Express--Fast Time in
America and England--Sleeping-cars for Immigrants--The Village
of Pullman--The Largest Car-works in the World--Baggage-checks
and Coupon Tickets--Conveniences in a Modern Depot--Statistics
in Regard to Accidents--Proportion of Passengers in Various
Classes--Comparison of Rates in the Leading Countries of the
World.

From the time when Puck was supposed to utter his boast to put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes to the time when Jules Verne's itinerant hero accomplished the task in twice that number of days, the restless ingenuity and energy of man have been unceasingly taxed to increase the speed, comfort, and safety of passenger travel. The first railway on which passengers were carried was the "Stockton & Darlington," of England, the distance being 12 miles. It was opened September 27, 1825, with a freight train, or, as it is called in England, a "goods" train, but which also carried a number of excursionists. An engine which was the result of many years of labor and experiment on the part of George Stephenson was used on this train. Stephenson mounted it and acted as driver; his bump of caution was evidently largely developed, for, to guard against accidents from the recklessness of the speed, he arranged to have a signalman on horse-back ride in advance of the engine to warn the luckless trespasser of the fate which awaited him if he should get in the way of a train moving with such a startling velocity. The next month, October, it was decided that it would be worth while to attempt the carrying of passengers, and a daily "coach," modelled after the stage-coach and called the "Experiment," was put on, Monday, October 10, 1825, which carried six passengers inside and from fifteen to twenty outside. The engine with its light load made the trip in about two hours. The fare from Stockton to Darlington was one shilling, and each passenger was allowed fourteen pounds of baggage. The limited amount of baggage will appear to the ladies of the present day as niggardly in the extreme, but they must recollect that the bandbox was then the popular form of portmanteau for women, the Saratoga trunk had not been invented, and the muscular baggage-smasher of modern times had not yet set out upon his career of destruction. The advertisement which was published in the newspapers of the day is here given, and is of peculiar interest as announcing the first successful attempt to carry passengers by rail.

The Liverpool & Manchester road was opened in 1829. The first train was hauled by an improved engine called the "Rocket," which attained a speed of 25 miles an hour, and some records put it as high as 35 miles. This speed naturally attracted marked attention in the mechanical world, and first demonstrated the superior advantages of railways for passenger travel. Only four years before, so eminent a writer upon railways as Wood had said: "Nothing can do more harm to the adoption of railways than the promulgation of such nonsense as that we shall see locomotives travelling at the rate of 12 miles an hour."

America was quick to adopt the railway system which had had its origin in England. In 1827 a crude railway was opened between Quincy and Boston, but it was only for the purpose of transporting granite for the Bunker Hill Monument. It was not until August, 1829, that a locomotive engine was used upon an American railroad suitable for carrying passengers. This road was constructed by the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company, and the experiment was made near Honesdale, Pa. The engine was imported from England and was called the "Stourbridge Lion."

In May, 1830, the first division of the Baltimore & Ohio road was opened. It extended from Baltimore to Ellicott's Mills, a distance of 15 miles. There being a scarcity of cars, the regular passenger business did not begin till the 5th of July following, and then only horse-power was employed, which continued to be used till the road was finished to Frederick, in 1832. The term Relay House, the name of a well-known station, originated in the fact that the horses were changed at that place.

The following notice, which appeared in the Baltimore newspapers, was the first time-table for passenger railway trains published in this country:

RAILROAD NOTICE.

A sufficient number of cars being now provided for the
accommodation of passengers, notice is hereby given that the
following arrangements for the arrival and departure of carriages
have been adopted, and will take effect on and after Monday
morning next the 5th instant, viz.:

A brigade of cars will leave the depot on Pratt St. at 6 and 10
o'clock A. M., and at 3 to 4 o'clock P. M., and will leave the
depot at Ellicott's Mills at 6 and 8½ o'clock A. M., and at 12½
and 6 P. M.

Way passengers will provide themselves with tickets at the office
of the Company in Baltimore, or at the depots at Pratt St. and
Ellicott's Mills, or at the Relay House, near Elk Ridge Landing.

The evening way car for Ellicott's Mills will continue to leave
the depot, Pratt St., at 6 o'clock P. M. as usual.

N. B. Positive orders have been issued to the drivers to receive
no passengers into any of the cars without tickets.

P. S. Parties desiring to engage a car for the day can be
accommodated after July 5th.

It will be seen that the word train was not used, but instead the schedule spoke of a "brigade of cars."

The South Carolina Railroad was begun about the same time as the Baltimore & Ohio, and ran from Charleston to Hamburg, opposite Augusta. When the first division had been constructed, it was opened November 2, 1830.

Peter Cooper, of New York, had before this constructed a locomotive and made a trial trip with it on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, on the 28th of August, 1830, but, not meeting the requirements of the company, it was not put into service.

A passenger train of the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad which was put on in October, 1831, between Albany and Schenectady, attracted much attention. It was hauled by an English engine named the "John Bull," and driven by an English engineer named John Hampson. This is generally regarded as the first fully equipped passenger train hauled by a steam-power engine which ran in regular service in America. During 1832 it carried an average of 387 passengers daily. The accompanying engraving is from a sketch made at the time.

It was said by an advocate of mechanical evolution that the modern steam fire-engine was evolved from the ancient leathern fire-bucket; it might be said with greater truth that the modern railway car has been evolved from the old-fashioned English stage-coach.

England still retains the railway carriage divided into compartments, that bear a close resemblance inside and outside to stage-coach bodies with the middle seat omitted. In fact, the nomenclature of the stage-coach is in large measure still preserved in England. The engineer is called the driver, the conductor the guard, the ticket-office is the booking-office, the cars are the carriages, and a rustic traveller may still be heard occasionally to object to sitting with his back to the horses. The earlier locomotives, like horses, were given proper names, such as Lion, North Star, Fiery, and Rocket; the compartments in the round-houses for sheltering locomotives are termed the stalls, and the keeper of the round-house is called the hostler. The last two are the only items of equine classification which the American railway system has permanently adopted.

America, at an early day, departed not only from the nomenclature of the turnpike, but from the stage-coach architecture, and adopted a long car in one compartment and containing a middle aisle which admitted of communication throughout the train. The car was carried on two trucks, or bogies, and was well adapted to the sharp curvature which prevailed upon our railways.

The first five years of experience showed marked progress in the practical operation of railway trains, but even after locomotives had demonstrated their capabilities and each improved engine had shown an encouraging increase in velocity, the wildest flights of fancy never pictured the speed attained in later years.

When the roads forming the line between Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Pa., were chartered in 1835, and town meetings were held to discuss their practicability, the Honorable Simon Cameron, while making a speech in advocacy of the measure, was so far carried away by his enthusiasm as to make the rash prediction that there were persons within the sound of his voice who would live to see a passenger take his breakfast in Harrisburg and his supper in Philadelphia on the same day. A friend of his on the platform said to him after he had finished: "That's all very well, Simon, to tell to the boys, but you and I are no such infernal fools as to believe it." They both lived to travel the distance in a little over two hours.

The people were far from being unanimous in their advocacy of the railway system, and charters were not obtained without severe struggles. The topic was the universal subject of discussion in all popular assemblages. Colonel Blank, a well-known politician in Pennsylvania, had been loud in his opposition to the new means of transportation. When one of the first trains was running over the Harrisburg & Lancaster road, a famous Durham bull belonging to a Mr. Schultz became seized with the enterprising spirit of Don Quixote, put his head down and tail up, and made a desperate charge at the on-coming locomotive, but his steam-breathing opponent proved the better butter of the two and the bull was ignominiously defeated. At a public banquet held soon after in that part of the State, the toast-master proposed a toast to "Colonel Blank and Schultz's bull--both opposed to railroad trains." The joke was widely circulated and had much to do with completing the discomfiture of the opposition in the following elections.

The railroad was a decided step in advance, compared with the stage-coach and canal-boat, but, when we picture the surroundings of the traveller upon railways during the first ten or fifteen years of their existence, we find his journey was not one to be envied. He was jammed into a narrow seat with a stiff back, the deck of the car was low and flat, and ventilation in winter impossible. A stove at each end did little more than generate carbonic oxide. The passenger roasted if he sat at the end of the car, and froze if he sat in the middle. Tallow candles furnished a "dim religious light," but the accompanying odor did not savor of cathedral incense. The dust was suffocating in dry weather; there were no adequate spark-arresters on the engine, or screens at the windows, and the begrimed passenger at the end of his journey looked as if he had spent the day in a blacksmith-shop. Recent experiments in obtaining a spectrum-analysis of the component parts of a quantity of dust collected in a railway car show that minute particles of iron form a large proportion, and under the microscope present the appearance of a collection of tenpenny nails. As iron administered to the human system through the respiratory organs in the form of tenpenny nails mixed with other undesirable matter is not especially recommended by medical practitioners, the sanitary surroundings of the primitive railway car cannot be commended. There were no double tracks, and no telegraph to facilitate the safe despatching of trains. The springs of the car were hard, the jolting intolerable, the windows rattled like those of the modern omnibus, and conversation was a luxury that could be indulged in only by those of recognized superiority in lung power. The brakes were clumsy and of little service.

The ends of the flat-bar rails were cut diagonally, so that when laid down they would lap and form a smoother joint. Occasionally they became sprung; the spikes would not hold, and the end of the rail with its sharp point rose high enough for the wheel to run under it, rip it loose, and send the pointed end through the floor of the car. This was called a "snake's head," and the unlucky being sitting over it was likely to be impaled against the roof. So that the traveller of that day, in addition to his other miseries, was in momentary apprehension of being spitted like a Christmas turkey.

Baggage-checks and coupon tickets were unknown. Long trips had to be made over lines composed of a number of short independent railways; and at the terminus of each the bedevilled passenger had to transfer, purchase another ticket, personally pick out his baggage, perhaps on an uncovered platform in a rain-storm, and take his chances of securing a seat in the train in which he was to continue his weary journey.

After the principal companies had sent agents to Europe to gather all the information possible regarding the progress made there, they soon began to aim at perfecting what may justly be called the American system of railways. The roadbed, or what in England is called the "permanent way," was constructed in such a manner as to conform to the requirements of the new country, and the equipment was adapted to the wants of the people. In no branch of industry has the inventive genius of the race been more skilfully or more successfully employed than in the effort to bring railway travel to its present state of perfection. Every year has shown progress in perfecting the comforts and safety of the railway car. In 1849 the Hodge hand-brake was introduced, and in 1851 the Stevens brake. These enabled the cars to be controlled in a manner which added much to the economy and safety of handling the trains. In 1869 George Westinghouse patented his air-brake, by which power from the engine was transmitted by compressed air carried through hose and acting upon the brakes of each car in the train.[23] It was under the control of the engineer, and its action was so prompt and its power so effectual that a train could be stopped in an incredibly short time, and the brakes released in an instant. In 1871 the vacuum-brake was devised, by means of which the power was applied to the brakes by exhausting the air.

A difficulty under which railways suffered for many years was the method of coupling cars. The ordinary means consisted of coupling-pins inserted into links attached to the cars. There was a great deal of "slack," the jerking of the train in consequence was very objectionable, and the distance between the platforms of the cars made the crossing of them dangerous. In collisions one platform was likely to rise above that of the adjoining car, and "telescoping" was not an uncommon occurrence.

The means of warning passengers against standing on the platform were characteristic of the dangers which threatened, and were often ingenious in the devices for attracting attention. On a New Jersey road there was painted on the car-door a picture of a new-made grave, with a formidable tombstone, on which was an inscription announcing to a terrified public that it was "Sacred to the memory of the man who had stood on a platform."

The Miller coupler and buffer was patented in 1863, and obviated many of the discomforts and dangers arising from the old methods of coupling. This was followed by the Janney coupler[24] and a number of other devices, the essential principle of all being an automatic arrangement by which the two knuckles of the coupler when thrust together become securely locked, and a system of springs which keep the buffers in close contact and prevent jerking and jarring when the train is in motion.

The introduction of the bell-cord running through the train and enabling conductors to communicate promptly by means of it with the engineer, and signal him in case of danger, constitutes another source of safety, but is still a wonder to Europeans, who cannot understand why passengers do not tamper with it, and how they can resist the temptation to give false signals by means of it. The only answer is that our people are educated up to it, and being accustomed to govern themselves, they do not require any restraint to make them respect so useful a device. Aside from the inconveniences which used to arise occasionally from a rustic mistaking the bell-cord for a clothes-rack, and hanging his overcoat over it, or from an old gentleman grabbing hold of it to help him climb into an upper berth in a sleeping-car, it has been singularly exempt from efforts to pervert it to unintended uses.

The application of the magnetic telegraph to railways wrought the first great revolution in despatching trains, and introduced an element of promptness and safety in their operation of which the most sanguine of railroad advocates had never dreamed. The application of electricity was gradually availed of in many ingenious signal devices for both day and night service, to direct the locomotive engineer in running his train, and interpose precautions against accidents. Fusees have also been called into requisition, which burn with a bright flame a given length of time; and when a train is behind time and followed by another, by igniting one of these lights, and leaving it on the track, the train following can tell by noting the time of burning about how near it is the preceding train. Torpedoes left upon the track, which explode when passed over by the wheels of a following train and warn it of its proximity to a train ahead, are also used.

In the early days more accidents arose from switches than from any other cause; but improvement in their construction has progressed until it would seem that the dangers have been effectually overcome. The split-rail switch prevents a train from being thrown off the track in case the switch is left open, and the result is that in such an event the train is only turned on another track. The Wharton switch, which leaves the main line unbroken, marks another step in the march of improvement. Among other devices is a complete interlocking-switch system, by means of which one man standing in a switch-tower, overlooking a large yard with numerous tracks, over which trains arrive and depart every few minutes, can, by moving a system of levers, open any required track and by the same motion block all the others, and prevent the possibility of collisions or other accidents resulting from trains entering upon the wrong track.[25]

The steam-boats on our large rivers had been making great progress in the comforts afforded to passengers. They were providing berths to sleep in, serving meals in spacious cabins, and giving musical entertainments and dancing parties on board. The railroads soon began to learn a lesson from them in adding to the comforts of the travelling public.

The first attempt to furnish the railway passenger a place to sleep while on his journey was made upon the Cumberland Valley Railroad of Pennsylvania, between Harrisburg and Chambersburg. In the winter season the east-bound passengers arrived at Chambersburg late at night by stage-coach, and as they were exhausted by a fatiguing trip over the mountains and many wished to continue their journey to Harrisburg to catch the morning train for Philadelphia, it became very desirable to furnish sleeping accommodations aboard the cars. The officers of this road fitted up a passenger car with a number of berths, and put it into service as a sleeping-car in the winter of 1836-37. It was exceedingly crude and primitive in construction. It was divided by transverse partitions into four sections, and each contained three berths--a lower, middle, and upper berth. This car was used until 1848 and then abandoned.

About this time there were also experiments made in fitting up cars with berths something like those in a steam-boat cabin, but these crude attempts did not prove attractive to travellers. There were no bedclothes furnished, and only a coarse mattress and pillow were supplied, and with the poor ventilation and the rattling and jolting of the car there was not much comfort afforded, except a means of resting in a position which was somewhat more endurable than a sitting posture.

Previous to the year 1858 a few of the leading railways had put on sleeping-cars which made some pretensions to meet a growing want of the travelling public, but they were still crude, uncomfortable, and unsatisfactory in their arrangements and appointments.

In the year 1858 George M. Pullman entered a train of the Lake Shore Railroad at Buffalo, to make a trip to Chicago. It happened that a new sleeping-car which had been built for the railroad company was attached to this train and was making its first trip. Mr. Pullman stepped in to take a look at it, and finally decided to test this new form of luxury by passing the night in one of its berths. He was tossed about in a manner not very conducive to the "folding of the hands to sleep," and he turned out before daylight and took refuge upon a seat in the end of the car. He now began to ponder upon the subject, and before the journey ended he had conceived the notion that, in a country of magnificent distances like this, a great boon could be offered to travellers by the construction of cars easily convertible into comfortable and convenient day or night coaches, and supplied with such appointments as would give the occupants practically the same comforts as were afforded by the steam-boats. He began experiments in this direction soon after his arrival in Chicago, and in 1859 altered some day-cars on the Chicago & Alton Railroad, and converted them into sleeping-cars which were a marked step in advance of similar cars previously constructed. They were successful in meeting the wants of passengers at that time, but Mr. Pullman did not consider them in any other light than experiments. One night, after they had made a few trips on the line between Chicago and St. Louis, a tall, angular-looking man entered one of the cars while Mr. Pullman was aboard, and after asking a great many intelligent questions about the inventions, finally said he thought he would try what the thing was like, and stowed himself away in an upper berth. This proved to be Abraham Lincoln.

In 1864 Mr. Pullman perfected his plans for a car which was to be a marked and radical departure from any one ever before attempted, and that year invested his capital in the construction of what may be called the father of the Pullman cars. He built it in a shed in the yard of the Chicago & Alton Railroad at a cost of $18,000, named it the "Pioneer," and designated it by the letter "A." It did not then occur to anyone that there would ever be enough sleeping-cars introduced to exhaust the whole twenty-six letters of the alphabet. The sum expended upon it was naturally looked upon as fabulous at a time when such sleeping-cars as were used could be built for about $4,500. The constructor of the "Pioneer" aimed to produce a car which would prove acceptable in every respect to the travelling public. It had improved trucks and a raised deck, and was built a foot wider and two and a half feet higher than any car then in service. He deemed this necessary for the purpose of introducing a hinged upper berth, which, when fastened up, formed a recess behind it for stowing the necessary bedding in the daytime. Before that the mattresses had been piled in one end of the car, and had to be dragged through the aisle when wanted. It was known to him that the dimensions of the bridges and station-platforms would not admit of its passing over the line, but he was singularly confident in the belief that an attractive car, constructed upon correct principles, would find its way into service against all obstacles. It so happened that soon after the car was finished, in the spring of 1865, the body of President Lincoln arrived at Chicago, and the "Pioneer" was wanted for the funeral train which was to take it to Springfield. To enable the car to pass over the road, the station-platforms and other obstructions were reduced in size, and thereafter the line was in a condition to put the car into service. A few months afterward General Grant was making a trip West to visit his home in Galena, Ill., and as the railway companies were anxious to take him from Detroit to his destination in the car which had now become quite celebrated, the station-platforms along the line were widened for the purpose, and thus another route was opened to its passage.

The car was now put into regular service on the Alton road. Its popularity fully realized the anticipations of its owner, and its size became the standard for the future Pullman cars as to height and width, though they have since been increased in length.