Читать книгу Locomotive Engine Running and Management онлайн

18 страница из 64

ssss1

But it came to pass that more light in the matter of engine-running dawned upon the minds of railroad managers. They discovered that expertness in effecting repairs on locomotives was not so essential in an engineer as was the less pretentious ability of working the engine so that the train would be pulled over the road safely and on time: they perceived but scanty merit in inherited mechanical genius which did not inspire a youth with sagacity enough to see that certain destruction would befall the heating-surface when he attempted to run without water in the boiler. Experience demonstrated, that, to manage an engine on the road so that its best work should be developed at the least cost, certain traits of skill and training were necessary, which were altogether different from the culture that made a man smart at constructing or repairing machinery. It was found that one man might be a good machinist, and yet make no kind of a decent runner; a second man would be equally expert in both capacities; while a third man, who never could do a respectable job with tools, developed into an excellent engineer. One of the best millwrights I ever knew, a man who achieved considerable celebrity for skill in his craft, became a fireman with the ambition of becoming a locomotive runner. He fired acceptably for two years, then was promoted, but quickly found that he could not run an engine, and acknowledged that to be the case by returning to the left side. He was too nervous, and lacked confidence in himself. Overweening egotism is not an attractive feature in a man’s character; but, every thing else being equal, it is the self-confident man that makes the successful engineer.