Railroads and the American People

1. Trains

1 Operating Trains From the time that the first train in America turned a wheel, the railroad generated excitement. Powered by its captivating steam locomotive, the moving train was much more than an instrument of progress; it was a true wonder. In his 1876 “To a Locomotive in Winter” poet Walt Whitman captured the essence of the attraction for this mechanical marvel: “The black cylindric body golden brass. Type of the modern-emblem of motion and power–pulse of the continent.” Anearly patron of the Boston & Worcester Rail Road expressed similar thoughts, but in a nonpoetic fashion.“Whatanobjectofwonder!Howmarvelousitisineveryparticular ! It appears like a thing of life. I cannot describe the strange sensations produced on seeing the train of cars come up. And when I started for Boston, it seemed like a dream.” In a larger sense “the railroad, animated by its powerful locomotive, appears to be the characteristic personification of the American,” concluded Guillaume Poussin, a Frenchman who visited the New World in 1851. “The one seems to hear and understand the other–to have been made for the other–to be indispensable to the other.” Even in the recent past the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) engaged jazz musician Lou Rawls to record a commercial that had as its theme “There’s something about a train that’s magic.” People not only wanted to ride on trains, they also wanted to work on trains. “Trains got in my blood,” was a reason frequently repeated by young men who entered road service, “and that’s why I went ‘railroadin.’” A veteran locomotive engineer explained his love affair with the iron horse: The first sounds that registered on my ears were the whistles of the New York Central trains hooting for a crossing. They drifted over the hill to the farm, calling me to follow the iron pike. When I was old and sturdy enough to walk six miles to the railroad, I sat on an embankment above the tracks and watched the trains go by, waved to the lordly creatures leaning out of the cab windows, and made up my mind that I too was going to run one of those snorting engines. 1 TR AINS
R a i l r o a d s a n d t h e A m e r i c a n P e o p l e 2 A career in railroading offered much. There was daily stimulation in the workplace. Every run provided different experiences, including train volume, track speed, mechanical conditions, weather, and personalities. “The unpredictable happened every day in railroading,” said one engineman . Then there existed the sheer excitement, especially the potential for danger before the widespread use of air brakes, automatic couplers, and other safety appliances. There was also prestige and respect: the engineer perched on his thronelike seat with his head leaning out of the locomotive cab as a passenger train glided into a station, and the conductor with his uniform, first consisting of a top coat and silk hat and later a dark uniform with shiny buttons that bore the initials of the railroad company, and a matching cap with a bright brass or polished nickel badge that proclaimed conductor. “He is an important personage,” commented a Gilded Age traveler, an understatement indeed. Brakemen or trainmen alsoworesmartuniforms,andtheyhadtheirpositionsdulynotedontheir cap badges. Even crewmen assigned to freight trains were individuals on the move. Like their passenger train brethren, they carried keys, lanterns, company-approved pocket watches, and other tools of their trade. Every trainman understood that his work was vital for national life, and the public sensed that fact as well. For the one-hundred-plus years of the Railway Age men who ran the trains had similar duties, whether assigned to freight or passenger runs. It would not be until near the end of the twentieth century that the composition of crews changed dramatically, particularly for those railroaders operating freights. Carriers curtailed “featherbedding” practices ,unproductivejobsinthedayofdiesel-electriclocomotivesthatwere based on antiquated steam-era work rules. (Today freight crews consist of an engineer and conductor, lacking the traditional firemen and two or more brakemen.) Historically the numbers of train personnel were impressive. Approximately 40 percent of all railroad employees, totaling more than a million by 1900, worked in train service, and that figure grew until after World War I. Even a small child recognized the locomotive engineer. He was the man in the cab who controlled the mighty locomotive. Although the youngster would never refer to the engineer as a...