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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 11, 1908)
TIIE SUNDAY OREGOXIAN, PORTLAND, OCTOBER 11. 1908, 2 YCI7 have seen from the car window, as your train slid smoothly down mountain grade, a yellow flame that lit up the bank for a few yards around; or, mayhap from the platform have een a red flame sputtering in front of the engine and have wondered why the train had stopped; or. from the rear platform of an observation car, you have watched the semaphore lights blinking and have found satisfaction In noting the swift change from red to gren. If you know anything about rallroadlnc you axe e-liaring. in your degree, a pleasure with the division superintendent. ""Just to sit here and watch the light Mink." said the superintendent of the Shasta division of the Southern Pacific one morning last week. "If I live an other hundred years, that will still be my Ideal of an unmitigated happiness." lie settled hi huge bulk in a stout, un cushioned arm chair, braced his feet asalnet either side of one of the rear windows of his car, and, tilted on two less of the chair, swayed with every jump and roll of the car. For It was not the luxurious private car of a railroad magnate In which the divis ion superintendent and his gut eat. It was a privato car, but one which bluehed at the designation earned since Its change from a work car to the trav eling: abode of the superintendent. The superintendent's name In Wlialcn. and he. aijo. is out of hie environment. W. II. Whalen came out to the Pacific Coast two months ago, to take the place of Thomaa Ahem, transferred to the Coast division, as superintendent of the Shasta division. For the eight years before hie coming he had been superintendent of a prairie division of the Chicago 4 North Western, crossing Iowa. lhere Cars Reeled Like Drunkards. "Yes. thw is different," said Whalen, perng Intently through the window at the blackness without. It was not yet 4 n'clork In the morning. The chill of dawa penetrated the ex-work car. The truest took on faith the statements as to the nature of the country over which the ar was drunkenly reeling, and pon dered on the nature of the man as Whalen continued: "On this division, from Red Bluftv In California, to A&hland. In Oregon, there are IS bridges across the Sacramento River and 1 tunnels. There are 53 miles of curve, and most of these grades are ' degrees. Back where I come from a 7-8 grade ia the maximum, and the curves are few. But I love the change, and I hope you don't find this car too uncom fortable. I came out here to run a rail road division; not to travel in a, privato car." The car lamps had been extinguished as the train pulled out from Dunemulr for the run north, and the figure of the I'lvlslon superintendent loomed vastly and dimly before the pondering guest. Division superintendents are evolved from all sorts of material. They emerge usually from one of the operating depart ments, and their experience may first have been gained as engineer or con ductor. Whalen started as a boiler maker and machinist, in which trades he paused his examinations In his early 20s. Then he played baseball for a space. For two seasona he was a National League pitcher. He pitched for Detroit. Then he taught school for three years.. He was not JO years old, however, before be was back in the railroad service. (Fur ther. Whalen Is now 46 years old, stands fret. 5 Inches, and "weights 300 pounds. He does not look fat, but pretty substan tial.) From bollermaker he became lo comotive fireman, then locomotive en gineer. HI next etep was to the position of traveling locomotive engineer, and af ter that he was roundhouse foreman, master mechanic, trainmaster, road fore man of engines, air brake instructor, and, eight years ago was made superin tendent of the Iowa division of the Chi cago North-Western. He still lovea baseball, is a friend of Chautauqua cir cles and a close student of politics. When He AYaa Stabbed by a Loco motive. "I don't know if my nearly losing my life last year affected a measure before the Iowa Legislature, or not; but it was a close call, for the measure and for me." said Whalen. (It Is not day, yet. Whalen's reminiscences told In the gloom of the work car were of politics and oth er ungodly railroad affairs that It Is well to know when traveling with a di vision superintendent, and they show a side of an Interesting character.) "In February of 1907 I was up before the Ir:slature to explain things about a rate measure .that looked aa If It would surely pass. Our company's attorney and another official were also present, but things so shaped themselves as to make It necessary for me to talk. I talked for 4 nouns and 16 minutes against that measure. Then I returned to my division headquarters at Boone. The next day. aa I was standing on the track In the yard, an engine came up behind me and slabbed me In the back. If I were not so lengthy. It would have caught me In the ribs and driven some of them into my Inngs or other vital organs. As It was. I was pitched from the track into a pool of water. They sent for the Coroner, and IS minutes after the engine stabbed me ro one had though of a doctor or of pick ing mc out of the pool. A Blit Boy Interfered. My son he's 22. In his last year at Ames College and pretty near as big as his father arrived then. He lifted my head out of the water, found my eye glasses and placed them before my lips. There was moisture on the eyeglasses. My son countermanded the order for the undertaker as too premature, followed me to the hospital, forbade the surgeons using an anaesthetic 'His heart Is scarcely beating now and you mustn't put It entirely out of commission.' says my boy the surgeons sewed up a few cuts and operated upon a fractured skull, and, three months later, I recognised my son for the first time. He bad been the only man that could handle me in those months. My mind was a baby's mind. I was convinced that a man had hit ma with a hatchet and I wanted to reach that man. Knew his name. too. And wasn't I afraid of my son? His face, through all those weary weeks seemed familiar but I couldn't place It. and when 1 would raise up in bed and storm for the man that hit me with the hatchet, and my son would say 'Lie down there or I'll put you down," I did He down and the sweat rolled off me. I Intended to lick him every day, but I was afraid I was not yet strong enough. "Well, the day before the locomotive changed things for me I had been up before the Iowa Legislature. The day after that appearance, the Legislature passed resolutions of sympathy for my family in its supposed loss and the rate bill was defeated by a vote of 68 to 3. Was It -ray talk or the accident? The bill seemed certain of passage only 24 hours before that locomotive pitched me into the water. Nearer Deatb, Yet Xot Injured. "I have been nearer death, though, without suffering an injury. It was back in '94. When the great railroad strike was on I was roundhouse foreman In Chicago for the Chicago ft North-West-ern. The troops had not come. The railroads and the municipal and state au thorities seemed powerless. I was sit ting In the roundhouse at Forty-eighth street when the telephone rang and the voice at the other end was from tho down town office, five miles away. It said, in effect: 'The police have ordered us to run our stock cars out Into the country. Get them out if you can.' (The stock was dying and rotting In the cars for many days, then.) 'Get help If you can.' There was more of the telephone talk. I got help one man. He was tho only railroad man besides myself in that roundhouse. The rest of them were 'out. We went to the stock cars, through a mob of a thousand men. and I climbed up into an engine and talked. Without telling you all I said that morning, let me assure you that I realized that my life hung on a hair trigger. I told the boys that we had elected to take opposite sides; they to go 'out' and I to remain with the company; but that that should not Interfere with our personal feelings toward each other; that the police had ordered the removal of the pestilence breeding stock cars; that I was fully aware that I could do nothing without then permission. A man I never was able to find out his name shouted 'Throw a brick at him.' I demanded his name and warned him that there were too many friends of mine in that crowd for a brick-thrower's life to be safe, and asked for help from the strikers to coupling the cars to my engine. Two strikers responded and a number of others cleared a passage for the train through the crowd. That's a story, along with a few others, that never appeared in the papers at the time, but the vtce president of the Chicago ft North-Western heard of it the next day and asked me how my nerves felt. "'There she goes to the green"' ex claimed the division superintendent, soft ly, as the slowly descending semaphore arm that had been protecting the front of the train showed that the block Just passed was clear for the passage of a train coming the other way, and the sem aphore's light changed from red to green. "It makes a man feel good. I tell you, to see the signals operating smoothly; to know that his train is protected right." The sun was not yet up, but there was light, and mountains and canyons and. when a sharp curve showed the front of the train through the side windows, the two giants, stertorously breathing engines, showed clear and distinct. "There's a yellow fusee in the bank," eaid tho superintendent. "You know what that means? 'Proceed cautiously." The first section of this train Is not far ahead, and the brakeman has thrown the fusee. It will bum five minutes after throwing. Now. If that were a red fusee speared In the bank, our engineer would have stopped the train and sent a flag man ahead to find out what waa the mat ter. Now what's the troulbe?" Guarding the Train. The auperintendent leaned far out from the window to look ahead, as the train slowly came to a stop. A mountain elde on the right, a precipice on the left, glooming and lowering on the presumptu ous steel monsters that puffed and panted in resentment at their stopping. The arm of the semaphore on the right of the en gines stood at the horizontal. That meant that the next block of 2W0 feet was not clear. The flagman went forward, was gone five minutes and then, upon the en gineer's five whistles of recall, came back at a dog trot. The first section of the train was yet within the next block, and, under the circumstances, the second sec tion could only proceed under protection of a flagman. A train proceeding under protection of a flagman runs at a speed of less than six miles an hour, a quarter of a mile behind that functionary. When a flagman ia sent to the rear of the train which Is the explanation of most of the delays between stations over -which the average passenger idly and sleepily pon dershe goes back a quarter of a mile and places one fusee, yellow or red, ac cording to whether it is desired to make the following train proceed cautiously un der control or to come to a stop. Some times he goes another quarter of a mile and places two more fusees; sometimes still another quarter of a mile and places still two more fusees. But that is only in case of an accident to his train, of which it is desired to convey the fullest warn ing to following trains. Chan-ring s Bad Alignment. The division superintendent's guest saw some disciplining of a train crew before the day was quite over, but first he went to Ashland and almost back to Dunemuir. It's a crooked road. An elon gated letter "S" is formed many times by the railroad In crossing the Siskiyou Mountain, and at several places the rail road track may be seen at three different altitudes. A few miles south of the Ore gon state line an engineering problem that broke one contractor and Is making a second contractor sweat blood is being solved. The Bailey trestle, 1S00 feet long, ta being moved. The Southern Pacific wishes it to carry the trains 20 feet near er the mountain side. The first con tractor endeavored to scoop the mountain side down Into the space that must be bridged. He went broke. The mountain side looks as if it had not been touched. The present contractor is running dirt and rocks on a spur track from the north end of the trestle. Nearly a million cubic yards of dirt and rocks will be thrown Into the cavernous maw of the Bailey trestle. Further south, between Mon tague and Weed in California, Black Butte, a eteep mountain approaching 10, 000 feet altitude, is being quarried for rail road ballast. No shoveling is done. The mountain Is simply torn down and run by a chute into the cars below. Ballasting from Black Butto costs the railroad only 22 cents a cubic yard, laid on the road. Other ballasting costs nearly TO cents. There was a fog on the California side of the Siskiyou Mountains. Descending to Ashland the fog was left behind, and at 11 o'clock, when the start was made for the south again, there was no hint of mist even in the mountain. At ( o'clock In the evening the second section of the train, to which was still attached the division superintendent's car, was approaching Shasta Springs above Dunsmulr. The train came to. a stop and the engineer blew the whistle ordering a flagman to proceed a quar ter of a mile to the rear of the train. The flagman, a boy of not much more than 20 years, stood irresolutely at the end of the train before he spoke to the division superintendent, who stood on the plat form eyeing him. "Am I to go back, sir?" he finally asked. "If you are ordered back, certainly," curtly responded Whalen. The flagman took a few hesitating steps. "Those are your orders, are they?" he ventured again, and the other man on the platform. In his Ignorance, thought that annihilation would be the doom of the boy. The division superintendents Goes 60,000 Miles After Birds AFTER eight years of preparation, in which he crossed the continent four times and traveled altogether more than 60,000 miles on land without going out side of North America, Frank Michler Chapman, ornithologist of the American Museum of Natural History, and a warm personal friend of President Roosevelt, has now the satisfaction of watching his work blossom Into completion. The task set for Mr. Chapman nearly a decade ago was to present In the museum every important bird of the American continent, nearly 1000 in number, surrounded by its natural en vironment. Some appreciation of what this means in the way of work may be gained from the very fact that though he had been engaged upon it so long, aided by skilled men In their peculiar lines, the results are Just beginning to be seen. Mr. Chapman has brought shrubbery, grass and soli from the Everglades of Florida as a setting for the various birds of the heron type which he ob tained there. From the Rocky moun tain peaks he brought the stones and sticks with which an eagle had built its nest. And so, wherever he has found the bird he has brought with it for the final picture the nearby shrub, stone or soil, and often all three and more, that the setting might be true to nature. More than that, wherever he has traveled he has had a competent artist at his back to paint in the native background. Mr. Chapman is making what he calls a "habitat group." Not only are the soil, the shrub which grew In it, and the leaves which fell from It, transported from the other side of the continent as the chief set ting of the picture, but the artist, on the spot when Mr. Chapman shoots a bird, makes a sketch and photograph of the exact surroundings of the bird when it is killed, so that those who behold it mounted see it as nearly like the ornithologist found it in the depths of the forest as it is possible to make it. Seven years ago a friend ofMr. Chap man showed him a photograph he had made of an eagle's nest high up on a ledge In the Rocky Mountains. It was picturesque, and Mr. Chapman deter mined to obtain it if possible. The op portunity never came until a. short time ago. The nearest railroad station was scores of miles from the place, and this distance was traveled by Mr. Chapman and bis artist In a prairie schooner. When he reached the vicinity of the place they learned that the guide whom they expected to engage was 100 miles away, rounding up cattle. Mr. Chap man's friend had given him a number of photographs of the section, and with the aid of these the nest was located seven years after the first photograph had been taken, after a two days' search. For all that the nest and the environment showed no human being had been there since the Chicago man left, and the nest was in an excellent state of preserva tion. The mother eagle had called to her face turned to stone. (It Is a fine, cleanly cut face surmounted by a shock of thick, snow-white hair.) "Do as you are ordered to do." said Whalen. with out turning his head to tho flagman. "The engineer'!! not call mc back," in sisted the flagman, but taking a few more stops, nevertheless, from the train. "There, I told you so." The train had started, and the flagman ran after It. He stumbled as he eahght at the rail and Whalen reached out a mighty arm and scooped him In. By this time the other man on the platform had vaguely surmised that, something was happening that was not unexpected by tho division superintend ent, who listened with unmoved counte nance to the further explanations of the boy flagman. "The engineer always orders a flag man back from the second section," h said, "while the passengers on the first section drink the mineral water at the springs; but he never calln him to. the train again. He don't expect the flag man to go. It's the custom." The boy's apologetic voice trailed off into silence under the effect of Whalen's own silence. Learning the Block System. In a few minutes the train had reached Shasta Springs, and then could be seen something; of train discipline; not a great deal, for thera were but few worda spoken by the division superintendent or by the engineer and train crew whom he called before him. Apparently the engi neer waa excusing his work and shield ing himself under the orders of the train master. It further developed that be sides the lack of protection given the rear of the train, the front of the train had not been properly protected by a flagman. . It had been the custom, said the engineer. The superintendent de rided the custom,, and averred that the engineer had no right to take an order from the highest official of the Southern Pacific Company that was in conflict with the trainman's book of rules. And the engineer was ordered to appear the next morning in the office of the division superintendent to explain. What happened further to the engi neer the division superintendent did not disclose the next morning when he escorted his guest to the Southern Paclflo examination car, that, for the first time In five years, is traveling over the sys tem, examining all train crews as to their knowledge of the book of rules by which all trains in the United States are run. But several things were made clear that' had before been a puzzle to the lay man. What the block system Is that pro tects trains Is shown by a working model" representing six miles of single track and side tracks, with the block signals 3000 feet apart. Miniature semaphores raise and lower their arms as miniature trains pass. With an adjustable time table, the examiners put hypothetical questions to the trainmen as to when trains may be started; and with charts, they are examined as to their knowledge of what entitles trains to precedence. All of rail roading is brought out In the examina tion, and even the novice may learn something from the discussions that intersperse the questions. The present tour of the examination car, taking, in . the entire Southern Pacific system, will last 14 months. aid a variety of things in building her nest, Including a buffalo's horn. This, too, in a section where Mr. Chapman says there has not been a buffalo in 20 years. Not only can that nest, with the sticks and all the rubbish which the eagle had employed, be seen in the museum, but the ledge on which it was found has been reproduced, and the artist has painted in U?e background. Mr. Chapman prides himself on a cer tain grouping of reed birds. The scene this time is a marsh in Virginia. There are the wild oats, the cut lemon, the tuckahoe and through It all runs a tiny stream of scummy, marsh water, a typi cal marsh drain or sluice. Two or three days ago several young women were passing, but, attracted to the birds in the marsh, .stopped in front on the group. "That's pretty good," said one, "but I don't see why the museum authorities allow that dirty water to stand there like that. You can smell It clear through the glass case, and I should think It would be unhealthy." Slie was speaking of a celluloid preparation used as a water substitute which has no odor at all. The wild turkey group from the moun tains of West Virginia is particularly at tractive. Not only are there fine speci mens of wild turkeys there,- near their nest, but the decaying pine log, the light wood knots, the pine tags, the yellow leaves of dogwood, and everything. Just as the collector found It, have been transported to the museum. About this the artist lias painted s a background the more distant scenery. Mr. Chapman was engaged lately in putting together a much twisted and stunted tree which he recently brought from the Florida Everglades. He had to cut it Into a number of pieces for transportation, numbering each Joint so that It could be put together as It grew, and assistants were Joining the several sections by means of stout Iron bolts. The several species of heron found In the Everglades will be mounted against this background when It Is complete. Mr. Chapman has one of the finest pho tographic collections of birds In America and has been unusually successful In Ills camera studies of them. But for the habitat series he had to shoot with the shotgun rather than with the camera, and he has again shown himself a good marksmen, where often great Ingenuity had to be employed to get within killing distance of his quarry. Now York Times. When Lve Din, Lady, when you spear spaghetti. Mingling sweetly skill and graee. You are not uneliquettey, Though I cannot see your face. When asparagus you fletcher. comlHK ipoon and fork and knife. You are beautiful, you betcher Sweet young life. When you take a cob of corn up And you sweetly masticate Till the kernels all are torn up. You are perfect you are great. But when steamed clams maka jour menyoa, Then I quit I can't be leal. Sweetheart, then I cannot pen you How I f-New Torfc BT,niDg jiall