And the gigantic task of moving this freight and these passengers goes on from day to day, from hour to hour, in the usual course of things, just as the sun rises and sets, almost as though operated by a law of nature and not by man’s exertion7, by the law of gravitation and not in defiance8 of it. And just as people grow accustomed to the miracle of sunrise and cease to wonder at it, so they grow accustomed to the miracle of steam. Only those who, day by day, do battle to keep the great machine in operation realize fully9 what a desperate battle it is. Allan West was soon to have a personal experience with a vital part of the mechanism10 with which he had never before come in contact.
“Allan,” Superintendent11 Schofield said one morning, stopping beside his desk, “we’ve got our new time-card about ready, and I wish you’d arrange to-morrow so you can come and help us string the chart.”
“String the chart?” repeated Allan.
“Yes. It’ll interest you—besides, it’s something you ought to know. We’re going to throw Number Two half an hour later, and make one or two other changes.”
Allan knew that the “time-card meeting” had been held at Cincinnati a few days before. Indeed, Mr. Schofield had talked over with him the projected changes, and the reasons for them.
For it must be understood that railroads everywhere are striving ceaselessly to arrange their time-cards to meet the needs of the public and to secure the greatest possible economy of operation. It is foolish for a road to run two trains when one will do, but while the number of trains is cut to a minimum, they must be run at such hours as will be convenient to the public which they serve, otherwise they won’t get the traffic. A certain number of people, of course, have to travel every day, whether the trains run at convenient hours or not; but with a much greater number travel is a matter of pleasure, of choice, and with them convenience has great weight—much greater than one would suppose.
Thus, in the vicinity of a great city, there must be locals going in in the morning and coming out in the afternoon, so that “commuters” may get back and forth13 to work, and shoppers may be accommodated. These trains must be sufficient in number to meet the demand, and must be run at such hours as will suit the different classes of people they serve. If the train-service is bad, the “commuters” will move, if they can, to a place where it is better—where they can get to and from work more cheaply and easily. Rents will go down in the district which is badly served, real estate will decrease in value, an undesirable14 class of people will move into it, and the traffic from it will drop away to little or nothing. So the road, by carelessness at the beginning, brings its own punishment surely at the end.
Further, it is immaterial as to the time that the through trains pass these points, since they gather practically no traffic from them. A through train considers only its terminals—when is the best time for it to leave New York and arrive at Cincinnati. Can such a train be arranged to leave New York after business hours and arrive at Pittsburgh before them? Two great roads are at the present time running trains between New York and Chicago with the boast that one can go from one city to the other without losing an hour of the business day.
So with through trains, the most important object is to shorten the running time as much as possible. The “locals” can take care of the short-haul traffic, and their hours can be accommodated to it; but the through trains must get from terminus to terminus, with regard only to the time of leaving and arriving.
In consequence, time-cards are constantly changing. Perhaps a curve has been straightened, or a tunnel completed that saves a long detour15; perhaps a grade has been lowered, an old bridge replaced with a new one—such changes as these every road is constantly making. And time-cards change with them.
Or perhaps faster and heavier engines are purchased, and a complete change of time-card is at once rendered necessary. For every through train runs as fast as it can run with safety. And as a road grows older, and time-card after time-card is made out, the running time of the trains is made more and more perfect, until there are long stretches where the engineer does not have to touch his throttle16, so exactly does the running time of the train correspond with the best the engine can do. The passenger who remarks to a companion upon the smoothness of the running, and who glances with approbation17 at his watch as the train pulls into its destination exactly on time, does not know what patient and long experimenting it took to achieve that result.
“Ya-as,” drawled old Bill Williams, sarcastically18, when I read the above paragraph to him. “Ya-as, that’s all very pretty in theory—but how about the practice, my boy?”
I had to confess that I was weak in practice. But I knew that Bill was strong, for he had served over forty years at the throttle before an affection of the eyes had caused him to retire from active service and to open a railroad boarding-house, by means of which he still managed to keep in touch with the life of the road.
“Wa-al,” he went on, taking a deliberate chew of tobacco, and putting his feet up on the railing of the veranda19 which ran across the front of the Williams House, “theory an’ practice air two mighty different things. Time-cards is usually built on theory, an’ it’s up to the engineer t’ maintain ’em in practice. The trouble is that time-cards is made out fer engines in puffect condition, which not one in ten is. So the engineer has to make up fer the faults of his engine—a good deal like a good rider’ll lift his hoss over a five-barred gate, where a bad one’ll come a cropper every time. So when y’ see a train that’s come a thousand mile, pull in on time to the minute, don’t you go an’ make the mistake o’ thinkin’ it was the engine, or the time-card, or even the dispatchers what did it, ’cause it wasn’t. It was the crews what brought thet there train through in spite o’ wind an’ weather an’ other folkses mistakes.”
Nevertheless, even Bill would admit, I think, the necessity of carefully and intelligently prepared time-cards, and certainly there was no one item in the operation of the road to which the officials gave such close and continued attention. Two or three meetings were held at the general offices at Cincinnati, at which all of the officials of the transportation department, as well as the general officials, were present. Here, with data carefully collected, it was decided20 how many passenger and freight trains were to be run, what changes of time were desirable, and at what hour and minute each train was to leave and arrive at the termini of the division. It now remained to provide the meeting-points for these trains, and this task was left to the division officials at Wadsworth. It was this ceremony, known as “stringing the chart,” at which Allan had been invited to assist.
The chart itself was a large map about five feet high by eight wide, covered with numberless parallel lines. Across the top and bottom of the board, at equal distances, were twenty-four numbers, representing the twenty-four hours. They began at twelve midnight, ran up to twelve noon, and then to twelve midnight again. From top to bottom of the board, connecting these numbers, perpendicular21 lines were drawn22. The space between the numbers was then divided into twelve equal parts, and lighter23 lines drawn connecting them. The space between every two of these lines therefore represented five minutes, and there were 288 of them running across the board from top to bottom.
On each side of the board at the top, and on a line with the top row of numbers, the word “Cincinnati” was printed. At the bottom of the board, on either side, and in line with the numbers there, was the word “Parkersburg.” These are the termini of the division, and they are 195.3 miles apart. Then along each side of the board the names of all the stations of the line were printed, the distances between them and the termini being carefully figured out so that the distances on the board should be exactly proportionate to the real distances. Horizontal lines were then drawn across the board, connecting the names of the same station, and the time-chart was complete.
Usually it was stored in a back room, out of the way, carefully covered so that it would be kept clean. On the morning in question, however, it was uncovered, carefully wiped off, and then wheeled into the superintendent’s office, where the ceremony of stringing it was to be performed. Mr. Schofield was there, and the train master, and Allan, eager to see the process. On the superintendent’s desk lay two balls of string, one white and one red, and a note-book in which had been jotted24 down the time assigned to each train.
“Well, I guess we’re ready to begin,” said Mr. Schofield, picking up the white ball and stepping before the chart. “We’ll string the east-bound trains first,” he added.
Let it be said here that east-bound trains are always indicated by even numbers and west-bound trains by odd ones. Thus, on any road, “Number Four,” for instance, will always be an east-bound train, and “Number Three” will always be a west-bound one. In addition to which, it should be remembered that east-bound trains always have right of way over west-bound trains of the same class. That is to say, when an east-bound and west-bound first-class passenger train meet, it is the west-bound train which runs in on a siding and waits until the other sweeps by on the main track.
“Now,” continued Mr. Schofield, “we’ll begin with Number Four, which has rights over everything. Look at those notes, Allan, and tell me at what time it is to leave Cincinnati.”
“At 12.15 P. M.,” said Allan, picking up the note-book.
“Correct. Now this line running up and down across the centre of the board is for twelve o’clock noon. This third line after it is for 12.15, five minutes for each line. This line across the top of the board is for Cincinnati, so I drive a pin there and loop the end of this cord around it, so,” and he suited the action to the word. “Now, at what time does Number Four reach Wadsworth?”
“At 3.05,” answered Allan, looking at the notes.
“Well—see, here is the 3.05 line, and here, running across the board, about midway down, is the Wadsworth line. I drive another pin at the intersection25 of these two lines, draw the cord tight and loop it about this second pin. And now what?”
“The train stops at Wadsworth five minutes to change engines,” said Allan.
“So I drive a third pin right out along this Wadsworth line at the intersection of it and the 3.10 o’clock line. Now, what time does it reach Parkersburg?”
“At 5.50 P. M.”
“Well, here’s the 5.50 line, and here, at the bottom of the board, is the Parkersburg line. I drive a fourth pin there, draw the cord tight and tie it. Then I cut it off, and tie at the end this little tag marked ‘Number Four.’ Now what does that cord indicate?”
Allan, looking at the board, saw a line that ran roughly like this:
(For complete time-table, see diagram facing page 60)
“Why,” he answered, after a moment, his eyes shining, “the cord indicates the exact time that the train passes every station along the line.”
“Exactly,” assented26 Mr. Schofield. “Now, just by way of illustration, we’ll put on a west-bound train next,” and he picked up the red ball. “We’ll take Number Three. At what time does it leave Parkersburg?”
“At 11.40 A. M.”
“So I drive the pin here. When does it reach Wadsworth?”
“At 2.20 P. M.”
“So the pin goes here. It stays there five minutes, doesn’t it?”
“Yes—just like Number Four.”
“So another pin goes here. When does it reach Cincinnati?”
“At 5.35 P. M.”
“And here’s the fourth pin—and there’s your red string across the board, indicating Number Three. Now look at them.”
Here is what Allan saw:
Time-Table
“You notice the two strings27 cross at the 2.45 line,” continued Mr. Schofield, “between Musselman and Roxabel. What does that mean?”
“It means the trains will meet there.”
“But they can’t meet out there on a single track. They’ve got to meet at a station where there’s a siding. So we’ve got to hold Number Three at Musselman three minutes until Number Four can get past—in other words, we’ve got to change the red string a little, like this,” and he drove another pin on the 2.42 line at Musselman, and tied the red string to it. “That provides a meeting place for those two trains. Now let’s go ahead with the others.”
White strings representing all the east-bound passenger trains were put on the board in the same way. All of them ran more or less parallel with each other, the faster trains inclining more toward the perpendicular and the slower trains more toward the horizontal. To each string was attached a little tag bearing the number of the train, and that being done, the superintendent declared it was time to adjourn28 for lunch.
An hour later, the work of stringing the west-bound passenger trains was taken up, the red cord being used to represent them. As they necessarily ran in the opposite direction, these strings crossed the strings representing the east-bound trains, and each of these crossings indicated a meeting-point. When the strings were first put on the board, it was found that many of them, as had been the case with those representing trains Three and Four, crossed between stations, and as it is against the rules of all railroading to permit two trains going in opposite directions to meet on the same track, the running time of the trains had to be so altered that the meetings occurred at a station, or at least at a place where there was a siding, so that one train could pull in out of the way of the other. The through passenger trains, which are given preference, were so timed that they could run from end to end of the division without getting out of the way of anything; the accommodations usually had two or three short waits, but so carefully were these timed that their passengers would never notice it. In fact, wherever it was possible, the running time of the train was extended a few minutes, so that the delay would be only a minute or two.
After all the passenger trains had been placed on the board and the meeting-points provided for, the freight trains were added. Meeting-points with the freight trains had also to be arranged, but this was comparatively easy, as it was simply a question of the freight heading in at the last siding it could reach in advance of the passenger, and then waiting for the passenger to go by.
When every train had been placed on the board and every meeting-point provided for, the time at which every train arrived at and left every station was carefully noted29 down.
“And that’s done,” said Mr. Schofield, with a sigh of satisfaction. “It’s a big job, and I’m mighty glad we won’t have to do it soon again. What do you think of it?”
“It’s great,” Allan answered. “Who thought it out?”
“I don’t know. It’s been in use for a long time—practically all roads ‘string the chart,’ just as we have done. It’s the safest system that has ever been devised.”
On this chart only the more important trains are shown. Dotted lines
have been used to represent white cords, or east-bound trains, and solid
lines to represent red cords, or west-bound trains.
(Click on image to see a larger version.)
“I don’t see how any could be safer,” said Allan. “And I’m awfully30 glad you showed me how it works.”
“Oh, I’d do that, of course,” laughed the superintendent. “I want you to know everything there is to know about railroading. It will all come in handy some day. Now, I’ll turn these notes over to the printer, and we’ll have another bout12 when we get the proofs.”
In a few days, the first proof of the new time-card was returned to Mr. Schofield, and he and Allan went over it carefully, comparing it with the chart to make certain that there was no error in figures and that every meeting-point was provided for. With the chart to go by, it was impossible that any meeting-point could be overlooked. A second proof was treated in the same way, and finally O.K’d. Then the time-cards were printed—not at all in the form with which the public is acquainted with them, but as large oblong pamphlets of twenty-four pages,—distributed to the road’s employees, and at twelve o’clock midnight on December 21st, the new card went into effect. All the public knew of it was a few lines in the newspapers announcing that this train or the other would arrive a few minutes later or earlier than it had been doing, and most people wondered, if they thought about it at all, why it had been necessary to get out a new time-card at all for changes so unimportant.
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1
clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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mightiest
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| adj.趾高气扬( mighty的最高级 )；巨大的；强有力的；浩瀚的 | |
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advancement
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| n.前进，促进，提升 | |
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mileage
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| n.里程，英里数；好处，利润 | |
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grandiose
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| adj.宏伟的，宏大的，堂皇的，铺张的 | |
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exertion
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| n.尽力，努力 | |
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defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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mechanism
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| n.机械装置；机构，结构 | |
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superintendent
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| n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长 | |
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bout
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| n.侵袭，发作；一次(阵，回)；拳击等比赛 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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undesirable
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| adj.不受欢迎的，不良的，不合意的，讨厌的；n.不受欢迎的人，不良分子 | |
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detour
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| n.绕行的路，迂回路；v.迂回，绕道 | |
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throttle
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| n.节流阀，节气阀，喉咙；v.扼喉咙，使窒息，压 | |
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approbation
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| n.称赞；认可 | |
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sarcastically
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| adv.挖苦地，讽刺地 | |
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veranda
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| n.走廊；阳台 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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perpendicular
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| adj.垂直的，直立的；n.垂直线，垂直的位置 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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jotted
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| v.匆忙记下( jot的过去式和过去分词 )；草草记下，匆匆记下 | |
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intersection
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| n.交集，十字路口，交叉点；[计算机] 交集 | |
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assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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strings
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| n.弦 | |
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adjourn
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| v.（使）休会，（使）休庭 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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