H croswiwsi/^JNLa^^ia^Biiiiiw^iBj^ ' jttyTOiii'M^^ 



?T# 



The Steel Car 



It is doubtful if any commercial venture of kindred character 

 has ever proven such a boomerang to all at interest as has the 

 steel passenger car. The venture has cost the Pullman and other 

 important companies millions of dollars without compensating 

 returns. Eailroad officials regard the steel passenger equipment 

 as a menace to satisfactory passenger earnings, owing to the 

 increased cost or haulage and the vast amount of damage claims, 

 incident to steel car wrecks, that they are having to pay. It 

 seems practically impossible for railroads to get sufficient motive 

 power ahead of a steel passenger train to meet the schedules that 

 were reasonably certain when they were hauling the older type of 

 equipment. Of course, it is well known that there is increasing 

 danger in mixed haulage of steel equipment and wooden steel- 

 underframe cars, which has manifested itself repeatedly in sundry 

 wrecks. 



In an article in Harper's Magazine for August by that mas- 

 terful and interesting English essayist, Arnold Bennett, sundry 

 references are made to American steel car trains, from which we 

 excerped: 



The cars impressed rather than charmed me. I preferred, and 

 still prefer, the European variety of Pullman. (Yes, I admit wo 

 owe it entirely to America!) And then there is a harsh, inhospit- 

 able qualitv about those all-steel cars. They do not yield. You 

 think you are touching wood, and your knuckles are abraded. The 

 imitation of wood is a triumph of mimicry, but by no means a 

 triumph of artistic propriety. Why should steel be made to look 

 like wood? * * * Fireproof, you say. But is anything fire- 

 proof in the United States, except perhaps Tammany Hall? Has 

 not the blazing of fireproof constructions again and again singed 

 off the eyebrows of dauntless firemen? My impression is that 

 "fireproof," in the American tongue, is one of those agreeable but 

 quite meaningless phrases which adorn the languages of all 

 nations. » » » 



I sat down in my appointed place in the all-steel car, and, turning 

 over the pages of a weekly paper, saw photographs of actual col- 

 lisions, showing that in an altercation between trains the steel-and- 

 wood car could knock the all-steel car into a cocked hat! » * » 

 The decoration of the all-steel car does not atone for its probable 

 combustibility and its proved fragility. In particular, the smoking 

 ears of all the limiteds I intrusted myself to were defiantly and 

 wilfully ugly. Still, a fine, proud train, handsome in some ways! 

 And the fraiumen were like admirals, captains, and first officers 

 pacing bridges; clearlj' they owned the train, and had kindly lent 

 it to the Pennsylvania railroad. Their demeanor expressed a rare 

 sense of ownership and also of responsibility. While very polite, 

 the.v condescended. A strong contrast to the miserable European 

 "guard." — for all his silver buttons! I adventured into the 

 observation car, of which institution I had so often 

 heard Americans speak with pride, and speculated why, 

 here as in all other cars, the tops of the windows were so low that 

 it was impossible to see the upper part of the thing observed 

 (roofs, telegraph wires, tree foliage, hill summits, sky) without 

 bending the head and cricking the neck. I do not deny that I 

 was setting a high standard of perfection, but then I had heard 

 so much all my life about American limiteds! 



The limited started with exactitude, and from the observation 

 car I watched the unrolling of the wondrous Hudson tunnel — one 

 of the major sights of New Y'ork, and a thing of curious beauty. 

 * * * The journey passed pleasantly, with no other episode than 

 that of dinner, which cost a dollar and was wortli just about a 

 dollar, despite the mutton. * * » 



We returned from Washington by a night train; we might have 

 taken a day train, but it was pointed out to me that I ought to 

 get into "form" for certain projected long journeys into the West. 

 At midnight I was brusquely introduced to the American sleeping 

 car. I confess that I had not imagined anything so appalling as the 

 confined, stifling, malodorous promiscuity of the American sleeping 

 car, where men and women are herded together on shelves under 

 the drastic control of an official aided by negroes. I care not to 

 dwell on the subject. * » * i have seen European prisons, but 

 in none that I have seen would such a system be tolerated, even by 

 hardened warders and governors; and assuredly, if it were, public 

 opinion would rise in anger and destroy it. I have not been in 

 Siberian prisons, but I remember reading George Kennan 's de- 

 scription of their mild horrors, and I am surprised that he should 

 have put himself to the trouble of such a tedious journey when 

 he might have discovered far more exciting material on any good 



—38— 



road around New Y'ork. However, nobody seemed to mind, such is 

 the force of custom — and I did not mind very much, because my 

 particular friend, intelligently foreseeing my absurd European prej- 

 udices, had engaged for us a state room. 



This state room, or suite — for it comprised two apartments — 

 was a beautiful and aristocratic domain. The bed chamber had 

 a fan that would work at three speeds like an automobile, and was 

 an enchanting toy. In short, I could find no fault with the accom- 

 modation. It was perfect, and would have remained perfect had 

 the train remained in the station. Unfortunately, the engine 

 driver had the unhappy idea of removing the train from the station. 

 He seemed to be an angry engine driver, and his gesture was that 

 of a man setting his teeth and hissing: "Now, then, come out of 

 that, you sluggards!" and giving a ferocious tug. There was a 

 fearful jerk, and in an instant I understood why sleeping berths in 

 America are always arranged lengthwise with the train. If they 

 were not, the passengers would spend most of the night in getting 

 up oif the floor and climbing into bed again. A few hundred yards 

 out of the station, the engine driver decided to stop, and there 

 was the same fearful jerk and concussion. Throughout the night 

 he stopped and he started at frequent intervals, and always with 

 the fearful jerk. Sometimes he would slow down gently and woo 

 me into a false tranquility, but only to finish with the same jerk 

 rendered more shocking by contrast. 



The bed chamber was delightful, the lavatory amounted to a 

 boudoir, the reading lamp left nothing to desire, the ventilation 

 was a continuous vaudeville entertainment, the watch pocket was 

 adorable, the mattress was good. Even the roadbed was quite 

 respectable — not equal to the best I knew, probably, but it had the 

 great advantage of well-tied rails, so that as the train passed from 

 one rail length to the next you felt no jar, a bliss utterly unknown 

 in Europe. The secret of a satisfactory "sleeper," however, does 

 not lie in the state room, nor in the glittering lavatory, nor in 

 the lamp, nor in the fan, nor in the watch pocket, nor in the bed, 

 nor even in the roadbed. It lies in the mannerisms of that brave 

 fellow out there in front of you on the engine, in the wind and the 

 rain. But no one in all America seemed to appreciate this deep 

 truth. For myself, I was inclined to go out to the engine driver 

 and sa}' to him: "Brother, are you aware — you cannot be — that 

 the best European trains start with the imperceptible stealthiness 

 of a bad habit, so that it is impossible to distinguish motion from 

 immobility, and come to rest with the softness of doves settling on 

 the shoulders of a young girl?" ♦ * * if the fault is not the 

 engine driver's, then are the brakes to blame? Inconceivable! 

 * * * All American engine drivers are alike; and I never slept a 

 full hour in any American "sleeper," what with stops, starts, 

 hootings, tollings. whizxings round sharp corners, listening to the 

 passage of freight trains, and listening to haughty conductor- 

 admirals who quarreled at length with newly-arrived voyagers at 

 2 or 3 a. m. ! I do not criticize, I state. I also blame myself. 

 There are those who could sleep. But not everybody could sleep. 

 Well and heartily do I remember the moment when another friend 

 of mine, in the midst of an interminable scolding that was being 

 given by a nasal-voiced conductor to a passenger just before the 

 dawn, exposed his head and remarked: "Has it occurred to you 

 that this is a sleeping car?" In the swift silence the whirring of 

 my private fan could be heard, 



I arrived in New York from Washington, as I arrived at all my 

 destinations after a night journey, in a state of enfeebled submis- 

 siveness, and I retired to bed in a hotel. And for several hours the 

 hotel itself would stop and start with a jerk and whiz round 

 corners. 



For many years I had dreamed of traveling by the great, the 

 unique, the world-renowned New Y'ork-Chicago train; indeed, it 

 would not be a gross exaggeration to say that I came to America 

 in order to take that train; and at length time brought my dream 

 true. I boarded the thing in New York, this especial product of 

 the twentieth century, and yet another thrilling moment in my life 

 came and went! I boarded it with pride; everybody boarded it 

 with pride; and in every eye was the gleam: "This is the train 

 of trains, and I have my state room on it." Perhaps I was ever 

 so slightly disappointed with the dimensions and appointments of 

 the state room — I may have been expecting a whole car to myself 

 — but the general self-conscious smartness of the train reassured 

 me. I wandered into the observation car, and saw my particular 

 friend proudly employ the train telephone to inform his office that 

 he had caught the train. I saw also the free supply of newspapers, 

 the library of books, the typewriting machine, and the stenog- 

 rapher by its side— all as promised. And I knew that at the other 

 end of the train was a dining car, a smoking car, and a barber shop. 

 I picked up the advertising literature scattered about bv a thought- 

 ful company, and learned therefrom that this train" was not a 



