Here awhile back there was a discussion about what would cause friction between
members of a road crew. Right off hand, I can recall two which my father told
me about. Admittedly, I haven't checked the messages daily, so if Iam repeating
something already mentioned please forgive.
When hand-fired steam locomotives were common and the engineer and fireman
weren't used to working with each other it was best to reach an agreement,
prior to the trip, about where the water level in the glass would be
maintained. If such an agreement hadn't been reached, I can leave it to the
readers' imaginations what would result if the fireman had just spent five
continuous minutes shoveling coal into the firebox and re-taken his seat, only
to see the engineer promptly reach over and inject more water into the boiler.
Whenever that happened the fireman could immediately think of some other ways
to use that shovel.
A second situation which could develop in the cab was between the engineer and
the brakeman. Say you had 120 cars on a late night winter run when
thetemperature was about zero. Being that cold, cast metal would become more
brittle and, if the engineer wasn't careful when starting the train, he could
easily break a knuckle. Break it once and the brakeman would simply consider it
part of the job and just fix it. If, upon re-starting, the engineerbroke it
again, the brakeman would probably give the engineer a dirty lookand the silent
treatment, but go and fix it again. Now, if upon re-starting it again the
engineer immediately broke a third successive coupler, THATWAS PERSONAL, and
words about incompetence, and probably one's heritage, would fly !
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