MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE. VOL. XII. APRIL, 1899. No. 6. AT NINETY MILES AN HOUR. SAVING A DAY BETWEEN THE ATLANTIC AND THE PACIFIC.-EX- BY CLEVELAND MOFFETT. Illustrated with drawings from life by W. D. Stevens, who, in order to make the drawings, accompanied Mr. Moffett, and took several journeys besides, on the engines and in the cars of the flying mail. T the Orient. And a very clever statistician were needed to say what that is worth. Thanks to courtesies of railroad officials and post-office authorities, we may now watch the carrying of this transcont. ntal mail in the hottest, maddest part of its sweep between the oceans; we may journey with it across Illinois and Iowa, where level ground and keenest competition offer such a spectacle of flying mail service as has not been seen before since letters and engines came upon the earth. HEY call it a race for a million, but that gives small notion of what has been going on these recent months between Chicago and the Missouri River, ever since the great mailhustling order was sent out by long-headed managers on the first day of 1899. Huge locomotives, tearing through the night faster than locomotives ever before were driven; rival engineers keyed up beyond what human nerves can bear, but bound to It is 8.30 P.M., any night you please, and "get there, or smash something;" superin- for miles through the yards of East Chicago tendents, train-despatchers, and their kind lights are swinging, semaphore arms are lying awake of nights figuring out how the moving, men in the clicking signal towers schedule may be shaved down ten minutes are juggling with electric buttons and pneuall this is exciting enough; but the struggle matic levers, target lights on a hundred now on between the Chicago and Northwest- switches are changing from red to green, ern and the C. B. & Q., or rather the struggle from green to red; everything is clear, everythat each one of these roads is making thing is all right; the Lake Shore Mail is comagainst all records in the world, stands for ing, with eighty tons of letters and papers in much more than any paltry million-dollar its pouches. Relays of engines and engimail contract that may be awarded from neers and firemen, the picked men of the Chicago to Omaha. It stands for a business road and the pet locomotives, have brought day saved in crossing the continent. It these messages, this news of the world thus means that tons of mail from the Atlantic far on their journey. Up the Hudson they coast now reach California and Oregon so have come and across the Empire State and that bankers and business men there receive along the shores of Lake Michigan, nearly a their drafts and other money papers before thousand miles in twenty-four hours, which three o'clock on a certain day, instead of at is not so bad. Formerly this same mail noon on the following day. It means a day reached Chicago at midnight, and did not go saved in steamer connections for China and on again until three in the morning. Now Copyright, 1899, by the S. S. MCCLURE CO. All rights reserved. we shall see it start for Omaha in a single hour, and before that, it must be unloaded and piled into vans and hauled across the city, then loaded again. Only a local transfer here; but watch it if you would have some idea of the hurry involved in this busi ness. Outside the station ten of the largest mailwagons wait, drawn up like fire-engines, two big horses for a wagon. The platform crew work like circus men packing the big tents away. There is a rumbling of trucks, a bumping and thudding of leather, and presently off go the horses west on Van Buren Street, north on Pacific Avenue, then, swinging into Jackson Boulevard (where no other heavy traffic is allowed), they make a dead run for the river, with the same right of way that ambulances have; and the drivers cease not to ply their whips as they near the bridge: they know that a city ordinance holds the draw for the passage of this mail. So six wagons reach the Burlington station at Canal Street, with horses in a lather. Meanwhile the others have dashed through Sherman Street and Fifth Avenue to the Wells Street station of the Chicago and Northwestern. This latter is the longer journey by some five minutes, but the Northwestern vans make compensating gain in backing right up to a platform near the waiting train, while the C. B. & Q. pouches must be slid down a chute, then handled on trucks. This whole operation of transfer is accomplished in half an hour, more or less (as the mail is heavy or light); and it is a thing to remember, like some giant foot-ball game, the way these steady-legged, quick-handed men send the MAKING READY ENGINE 908 OF THE CHICAGO AND NORTHWESTERN ROAD. Before going into the round-house the engine is dumped, watered, and coaled, and her fires are banked, after which she is put on the turn-table and sent into her stall. There she stands and blows while the wipers rub her down, for all the world like a thoroughbred after a race. Some time before she starts out on her run again the engineer comes and directs the last details of making her ready. Dan White, the engineer of 908, is standing in the foreground of the picture. EIGHTY MILES AN HOUR. 590 OF THE BURLINGTON ROAD ON THE RUN OUT FROM CHICAGO. Occasionally the warning shrieks of a whistle, or the signal lights ahead, put the engineer and firemen on the lookout. Our picture shows Bullard, the engineer, looking ahead while "hearing and smelling " for possible breaks in the engine, or for a hot box, or for oil burning. Behind him stands Dan, the fireman, looking ahead. |