Activate Javascript or update your browser for the full Digital Library experience.
Previous Page
–
Next Page
OCR
20 — TOW TO BECOME. AN ENGINEER.
and yet, if he is nota good hand at tbe coal shovel, he will
never he a first-class engineer.
“A good fireman knows when to put on coal, how and where
and just how much. A man may be the best. mechanic: the
world ever saw and know nothing of these things Ww: hich are
the very all essentials of a gcod engineer. -
A model engineer is clean himself, and his engine - is
cleaner.
Cleanliness is sald: to be next to godliness. Upon a rail-
road it may with truth be said that ‘cleanliness is next below
the highest talent and next above the length of service.
A clean envineer frequently scales the Tadder of progress
much faster than a dirty one, although the latter may have .
everything else in his favor.
A model engineer runs the most important trains, and he
is never the man who wore the greasy, dirty cap or the coat
and trousers all smeared with vil.
What.is the secret of constant successful engine driving?
Not length of service, not because a man has served so
many years on freight trains and so many more on passenger
trains, for the best engineers are ever those who have been
promoted over the heads of others for their smartness.
Promotion accordisg to merit should be the invariable
rule on railroads. Senioyity ehould have nothing to do with
it. The position is too important, there are too” many lives
at stake, too much money involved to make it right or
proper to push one man forward beyond. another simply be-
cause of the length of his service. ‘That sort of thing is all
right for ordinary business, but for. engine driving it won't
lo.
Merit tells.
To the best. engineer belong the best trains.
Chance never built an engine, and it should have nothing
to do with running it.
Yet the opposite way of doing things Is the general rule.
Engineer A retires, dies or is killed, and: Engineer B is
promoted because he happens to be next on the list. He
may be a dull, stupid fellow, and Engineer C as bright a3 4
dollar, but in the chance death of A, B gets the prize, and
everybody that. has any interes’ in the successful running.
of his train becomes the loser thereby. '
Engine driving, to be good, must be based upon rules and
principles.
He who strictly observes them wing; he who don't, loses.
With the latter all is uncertainty; the hana trembles upon
the regulator, the eye watches with painful anxiety the
needle “of the pressure gauge, and gazes into the fire to find