Page:Hine (1912) Letters from an old railway official.djvu/90

, but that is what he is paid for. It is usually better in zero weather to have the old master mechanic and the old traveling engineer as assistant superintendents riding different trains on the road than to have them sitting in a comfortable office writing letters to each other about engines that failed last week or last month.

Once upon a time a traveling engineer talked through a telegraphone to a dispatcher. The latter requested the former to have the freight train pull into clear to let another train by. The conductor was not in sight. He was probably in the caboose making out some of those imaginary reports about which grievance committees tell us and which are most in evidence during investigations of head-end collisions. So, this member of the ancient and honorable order of attorneys for the brotherhood told the brakemen where to head in. Whereupon with much professional profanity the trainmen declined, saying that no traveling engineer could tell them what to do. The superintendent took the brakemen out of service. They got back only on request of the traveling engineer to whom they apologized. While authority was vindicated, an undesirable