A Book of Railway Journeys

by Ludovic Kennedy

  Thick snow broke her fall. As she got to her feet, she looked around in alarm. There was no platform, no station, no lights and not a sign of anybody in sight.

  She was in the middle of nowhere, her teeth already chattering in the bitter temperature of 27 degrees below freezing. As she turned to try to climb back on board the train started to move off.

  She stumbled alongside for a few feet screaming: “Stop, stop. For God’s sake stop.” But nobody answered and nothing happened. She stood there shivering as she watched the lights of the train disappear in the distance.

  And she was still in summer clothes. For she and her husband had arrived back from a six-week holiday in the heat of Sri Lanka. At Stockholm she had decided to return home by train rather than face the tiring journey by car. Her husband would still be on the road somewhere miles away to the south.

  Now there was only one thing for her to do... walk and follow the rail tracks to Murjek. She began to stumble along, jumping up and down, flapping her arms and holding her breath in a bid to beat the bitter cold.

  The country was in the grip of the fiercest winter for 100 years and, as she slipped and fell, losing her shoes at one point, she became convinced she would just freeze to death.

  But she was still alive after half-an-hour and she leapt with joy when she heard another train rumbling towards her. She waved and shouted. But nobody saw her and, with sinking heart, she watched the train thunder past.

  An hour later she was almost unconscious on her feet. But she still managed to drag one foot after the other even though her clothes were now stiff with ice.

  Then a breakdown trolley came clattering along the line on the way to thaw out a frozen set of points. This time she was spotted and the railway workers wrapped her in coats and took her to Murjek where she was immediately taken to hospital.

  Doctors there said: “She would not have lasted another thirty minutes.”

  Now reunited with her husband, who arrived home to find the house empty and then went to the police, Mrs Edholm is wondering why her fellow passenger told her that the train had stopped at Murjek?

  Was it an honest mistake? Or had she been the victim of a callous sense of humour?

  “I find it hard to believe that anybody could play a joke as grim as that,” she said. “But I had been sleeping and he was wide awake.

  “And we were 20 miles from Murjek when I got out of the train. I don’t suppose I will ever see him again so I will never know. But I’ll never forget his face for the rest of my life.”

  TERRY GREENWOOD in Stockholm,

  The Sunday Express (London),

  18 February, 1979

  U.S.A.

  The DeWitt Clinton

  From the same West Point Foundry which built The Best Friend, the Mohawk and Hudson had ordered a locomotive. This was the now-famous DeWitt Clinton, twelve feet in length, with four forty-eight-inch wooden, iron-capped driving wheels, and weighing 6,758 pounds. After some test runs, this twelve-foot, fire-eating iron horse was pronounced ready to go into service. Everyone in Albany was on hand that hot August morning in 1831—members of the legislature, leading citizens, drummers. Stretching out from Albany all the way to Schenectady, lining the right of way, were farmers with their families decked out in their Sunday best, sitting in wagons and carriages. The horses hitched to these vehicles calmly munched grass, grateful for a day off from heavier work. Their calmness was to be of short duration.

  The DeWitt Clinton was backed up and hooked onto its train. Right behind it was a small flat car with two barrels of water and a pile of wood. The water was hooked up to the engine’s boiler by a leather hose. Behind this forerunner of the coal car were hooked three passenger cars, looking exactly like what they were, stagecoach bodies on flanged wheels. Each coach had seating room for six, but so mad was the scramble to take a ride on this first steam train that additional passengers clambered aboard the roofs of the coaches. Behind the passenger cars were six more flat cars with wooden benches for seating. Every seat was taken within minutes after the cry went up for all to get aboard.

  John T. Clark, probably the first conductor in America, went up and down the train, with the call which has come down through railroad history, “Tickets, please.” Retracing his steps, Clark climbed aboard the “coal car,” took out a long tin horn, and gave a mighty blast. Engineer Dave Matthews, who had built the engine, gave a yank on the throttle, and the DeWitt Clinton leaped forward to its task. Each car behind the engine gave a similar leap, but not at the same time. Three-foot iron chains connected each car with the one behind it. The slack snapped taut by the lurch of the engine. Conductor Clark would have gone sprawling overside had he not quickly grasped a roof support and held on for dear life. In turn, each car behind sprang forth with a similar jerk. Passengers inside the coaches fared far better than those on top, several of whom were tossed to the ground. But those on the wooden benches on the six rear flat cars fared the worst. As each car snapped into action, the benches went over backward, depositing the passengers on the floor and in each other’s laps. Once the train stretched out, the going was smooth, and shouts of approval went up. But not for long.

  As the DeWitt Clinton gathered speed, the smoke and blazing sparks from the engine’s pine-pitch fuel flattened out, forming a long black cloud of smoke and hurling embers directly on the ten-car train. Again, the passengers in the coaches had the better of it. Although blinded by smoke, not as many burning embers settled inside the coaches as came to rest among those on the open flat cars. Back at the rear of the train, passengers were soon flailing away at their own and other’s bodies in an attempt to put out the fire of their burning clothes. Those who had umbrellas raised them to fend off the falling sparks, but soon the umbrellas caught fire and were hastily jettisoned. After only a few miles the whole train was composed of volunteer firemen, fighting a moving conflagration. Along the route sightseers were thrown into confusion: their horses reared and ran away, and the spectators screamed.

  Fortunately, the DeWitt Clinton was nearing its first watering stop. Engineer Davis applied his brakes—only the engine had them—and they worked. The DeWitt came to a plunging halt, and a reverse replica of the train’s start took place. Passengers were plunged forward this time, as each car jounced to a stop, blockaded by the car in front of it.

  The first thing the passengers did when they tumbled from the cars was rush to the water and finally extinguish their burning clothes. Next they tore down the rails of a farmer’s wooden fence, cut them into correct lengths, and wedged them between each car comprising the train. When the DeWitt Clinton started up for the remainder of its run, the fence rails held firm, and the train moved off with only gentle lurching. The rest of the trip brought no new adventures. True, smoke and blazing embers continued to rain down on the unprotected heads of the passengers, but by this time their clothes had become so badly damaged that they didn’t care. Not a single passenger abandoned the ride—pioneer bravery indeed.

  ROBERT N. WEBB,

  The Illustrated True Book

  of American Railroads

  LIMITED

  I am riding on a limited express, one of the crack trains of the nation.

  Hurtling across the prairie into blue haze and dark air go fifteen all-steel coaches holding a thousand people. (All the coaches shall be scrap and rust and all the men and women laughing in the diners and sleepers shall pass to ashes.)

  I ask a man in the smoker where he is going and he answers: “Omaha.”

  CARL SANDBURG

  Across the plains

  Late in the evening we were landed in a waiting-room at Pittsburg. I had now under my charge a young and sprightly Dutch widow with her children; these I was to watch over providentially for a certain distance farther on the way; but as I found she was furnished with a basket of eatables, I left her in the waiting-room to seek a dinner for myself.

  I mention this meal, not only because it was the first of which I had partaken for about thirty hours,
but because it was the means of my first introduction to a coloured gentleman. He did me the honour to wait upon me after a fashion, while I was eating; and with every word, look, and gesture marched me farther into the country of surprise. He was indeed strikingly unlike the negroes of Mrs. Beecher Stowe, or the Christy Minstrels of my youth. Imagine a gentleman, certainly somewhat dark, but of a pleasant warm hue, speaking English with a slight and rather odd foreign accent, every inch a man of the world, and armed with manners so patronisingly superior that I am at a loss to name their parallel in England. A butler perhaps rides as high over the unbutlered, but then he sets you right with a reserve and a sort of sighing patience which one is often moved to admire. And again, the abstract butler never stoops to familiarity. But the coloured gentleman will pass you a wink at a time; he is familiar like an upper form boy to a fag; he unbends to you like Prince Hal with Poins and Falstaff. He makes himself at home and welcome. Indeed, I may say, this waiter behaved himself to me throughout that supper much as, with us, a young, free, and not very self-respecting master might behave to a good-looking chambermaid. I had come prepared to pity the poor negro, to put him at his ease, to prove in a thousand condescensions that I was no sharer in the prejudice of race; but I assure you I put my patronage away for another occasion, and had the grace to be pleased with that result.

  Lightning Express trains leaving a junction,

  by Currier & Ives

  Seeing he was a very honest fellow, I consulted him upon a point of etiquette: if one should offer to tip the American waiter? Certainly not, he told me. Never. It would not do. They considered themselves too highly to accept. They would even resent the offer. As for him and me, we had enjoyed a very pleasant conversation; he, in particular, had found much pleasure in my society; I was a stranger; this was exactly one of those rare conjunctures... Without being very clear seeing, I can still perceive the sun at noonday; and the coloured gentleman deftly pocketed a quarter.

  At Ogden we changed cars from the Union Pacific to the Central Pacific line of railroad. The change was doubly welcome; for, first, we had better cars on the new line; and, second, those in which we had been cooped for more than ninety hours had begun to stink abominably. Several yards away, as we returned, let us say from dinner, our nostrils were assailed by rancid air. I have stood on a platform while the whole train was shunting; and as the dwelling-cars drew near, there would come a whiff of pure menagerie, only a little sourer, as from men instead of monkeys. I think we are human only in virtue of open windows. Without fresh air, you only require a bad heart, and a remarkable command of the Queen’s English, to become such another as Dean Swift; a kind of leering, human goat, leaping and wagging your scut on mountains of offence. I do my best to keep my head the other way, and look for the human rather than the bestial in this Yahoo-like business of the emigrant train. But one thing I must say, the car of the Chinese was notably the least offensive.

  The cars on the Central Pacific were nearly twice as high, and so proportionally airier; they were freshly varnished, which gave us all a sense of cleanliness as though we had bathed; the seats drew out and joined in the centre, so that there was no more need for bed boards; and there was an upper tier of berths which could be closed by day and opened at night.

  I had by this time some opportunity of seeing the people whom I was among. They were in rather marked contrast to the emigrants I had met on board ship while crossing the Atlantic. They were mostly lumpish fellows, silent and noisy, a common combination; somewhat sad, I should say, with an extraordinary poor taste in humour, and little interest in their fellow-creatures beyond that of a cheap and merely external curiosity. If they heard a man’s name and business, they seemed to think they had the heart of that mystery; but they were as eager to know that much as they were indifferent to the rest. Some of them were on nettles till they learned your name was Dickson and you a journeyman baker; but beyond that, whether you were Catholic or Mormon, dull or clever, fierce or friendly, was all one to them. Others who were not so stupid, gossiped a little, and, I am bound to say, unkindly. A favourite witticism was for some lout to raise the alarm of “All aboard!” while the rest of us were dining, thus contributing his mite to the general discomfort. Such a one was always much applauded for his high spirits. When I was ill coming through Wyoming, I was astonished—fresh from the eager humanity on board ship—to meet with little but laughter. One of the young men even amused himself by incommoding me, as was then very easy; and that not from ill-nature, but mere clod-like incapacity to think, for he expected me to join the laugh. I did so, but it was phantom merriment. Later on, a man from Kansas had three violent epileptic fits, and though, of course, there were not wanting some to help him, it was rather superstitious terror than sympathy that his case evoked among his fellow-passengers. “Oh, I hope he’s not going to die!” cried a woman, “it would be terrible to have a dead body!” And there was a very general movement to leave the man behind at the next station. This, by good fortune, the conductor negatived.

  There was a good deal of story-telling in some quarters; in others, little but silence. In this society, more than any other that ever I was in, it was the narrator alone who seemed to enjoy the narrative. It was rarely that any one listened for the listening. If he lent an ear to another man’s story, it was because he was in immediate want of a hearer for one of his own. Food and the progress of the train were the subjects most generally treated; many joined to discuss these who otherwise would hold their tongues. One small knot had no better occupation than to worm out of me my name; and the more they tried, the more obstinately fixed I grew to baffle them. They assailed me with artful questions and insidious offers of correspondence in the future; but I was perpetually on my guard, and parried their assaults with inward laughter. I am sure Dubuque would have given me ten dollars for the secret. He owed me far more, had he understood life, for thus preserving him a lively interest throughout the journey. I met one of my fellow-passengers months after, driving a street tramway car in San Francisco; and, as the joke was now out of season, told him my name without subterfuge. You never saw a man more chapfallen. But had my name been Demogorgon, after so prolonged a mystery he had still been disappointed.

  ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON,

  Across the Plains (1892)

  “The Modern Ship of the Plains” by Rufus Zogbaum

  Immigrants crossing the Great Plains by railroad,

  from Harper’s Magazine, 1886.

  THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS

  Ridin’ on the City of New Orleans,

  Illinois Central Monday morning rail,

  15 cars and 15 restless riders,

  three conductors, 25 sacks of mail.

  All on the southbound odyssey

  the train pulls out of Kankakee

  and rolls past houses, farms and fields;

  passing towns that have no name and

  freight yards full of old black men and

  the graveyards of rusted automobiles.

  Singin’: “Good morning America! How are you?

  Say, don’t you know me? I’m your native son.

  I’m the train they call the City of New Orleans.

  I’ll be gone 500 miles when day is done.”

  Dealin’ card games with the old men in the club car.

  Penny a point and no one’s keeping score.

  Pass the paper bag that holds the bottle

  and feel the wheels a-rumblin’ ’neath the floor.

  And the sons of Pullman porters and the sons of engineers

  ride their fathers’ magic carpet made of steel.

  And mothers with their babes asleep

  are rocking to the gentle beat,

  the rhythm of the rail is all they dream.

  “Good morning America! How are you?

  Say, don’t you know me? I’m your native son.

  I’m the train they call the City of New Orleans

  I’ll be gone 500 miles when day is done.”

  Night
time on the City of New Orleans,

  changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee.

  Halfway home and we’ll be there by morning,

  through the Mississippi darkness rollin’ to the sea.

  But all the towns and people seem to fade into a bad dream.

  Well, the steel rail hasn’t heard the news:

  The conductor sings his song again

  it’s “passengers will please refrain,

  this train has the disappearin’ railroad blues”

  “Goodnight America! How are you?

  Say, don’t you know me? I’m your native son.

  I’m the train they call the City of New Orleans

  I’ll be gone 500 miles when day is done.”

  STEVE GOODMAN

  Dickens in America

  Before leaving Boston, I devoted one day to an excursion to Lowell. I assign a separate chapter to this visit; not because I am about to describe it at any great length, but because I remember it as a thing by itself, and am desirous that my readers should do the same.

  I made acquaintance with an American railroad, on this occasion, for the first time. As these works are pretty much alike all through the States, their general characteristics are easily described.

  There are no first and second class carriages as with us; but there is a gentlemen’s car and a ladies’ car: the main distinction between which is that in the first, everybody smokes; and in the second, nobody does. As a black man never travels with a white one, there is also a negro car; which is a great blundering clumsy chest, such as Gulliver put to sea in, from the kingdom of Brobdingnag. There is a great deal of jolting, a great deal of noise, a great deal of wall, not much window, a locomotive engine, a shriek, and a bell.