Page:Fagan (1908) Confessions of a railroad signalman.djvu/119

Rh place to place, greater intelligence was required. A conductor to-day can frequently run from one end of the road to the other in a purely mechanical fashion; but in the early days of railroading, with a single track, a confusion of flags and train orders, and a multitude of unforeseen difficulties awaiting him at every station, it took little less than genius to make a successful railroad man.

The really heart-breaking story of the hardship and heroism of the trainmen of those days has never been written, but a touch of the stern reality and pathos of it all can be imagined from the single consideration, that of seventeen freight conductors who in the year 1883 ran trains through the Hoosac Tunnel, only five in the year 1888, that is, five years later, were still to be found on the pay-rolls. In nearly every instance, death in violent form had removed the others. Of course, as we all know, the most popular type of heroism is to be looked for on the battlefield; but there are hundreds of railroad veterans on the streets to-day, undecorated and unremembered, whose services to the country are all worthy of popular sympathy and national gratitude.

As a result of these extraordinary conditions and the continual killing of employees, a new and more intelligent class of men was called upon, in course of time, to undertake the dangerous duties of railroad service. With increased intelligence and broader