Читать книгу Locomotive Engine Running and Management онлайн

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Locomotive engine running is one of the most modern of trades, consequently its acquirement has not been controlled by the exact methods associated with ancient guild apprenticeships. Nevertheless, graduates to this business do not take charge of the iron horse without the full meed of experience and skill requisite for performing their duties successfully. The man who runs a locomotive engine on our crowded railroads has so much valuable property, directly and indirectly, under his care, so much of life and limb depending upon his skill and ability, that railroad companies are not likely to intrust the position to those with a suspicion of incompetency resting upon them.

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The prevailing methods of raising locomotive engineers have been evolved from experience with the kind of men best adapted to fill the position. In the early days of the railroad world, when such men as George Stephenson, Horatio Allen, John B. Jervis, Ross Winans, and other pioneer engineers, demonstrated the successful operation of the locomotive, they usually turned over the care of their engines to the men who had assisted in constructing the machines, or in putting them together. This was the best that could be done at the time; and the men selected generally proved competent for the trust reposed in them; but it gave rise to a belief that no man could run a locomotive successfully unless he were a machinist. The possession of mechanical skill necessary for making repairs was considered the best recommendation for an engineer. Under this system, all that a machinist was required to do,—so that he could graduate as a full-fledged engineer,—was to practice moving engines round in the yard for a few days, when he was reported ready for the road. Akin to this sentiment was that which recommended youths of natural mechanical ability for the position of locomotive engineer without subjecting them to any previous special training. Graduates from mechanical institutes were deemed capable of running an engine as soon as they were perfectly certain about how to start and stop the machine. The late Alexander L. Holley used to relate an anecdote of this kind of an engineer. During a severe winter storm, the train Holley was traveling on got firmly stalled in a snow-bank. In its struggles with the frozen elements, the engine got short of water; and Holley found the engineer trying to fill the boiler by shoveling snow down the smoke-stack!