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Updated: July 28, 2025
The engine which the two brothers managed was a very small one, and the master and apprentice served for engineman and fireman. Here the youth worked for three years, employing his leisure hours in the evenings in remedying the defects of his early education, and endeavouring to acquire a knowledge of English grammar, drawing, and mathematics.
Hence his serious difficulties in the construction of the complex engine, and in finding men capable of doing the delicately accurate work which was absolutely indispensable for successful working. Before leaving, Smeaton made the engineer a gift of money, which he spent in drink. The drunken engineman let the engine run wild, and it was thrown completely out of order.
Down this grade, a few weeks after the Smoky Creek fire, came a double-headed stock train from the Short Line with forty cars of steers. The switch stood open; this much was afterward abundantly proved. The train came down the grade very fast to gain speed for the hill ahead of it. The head engineman, too late, saw the open target.
To-day, on all passenger trains and on many freights as well, the automatic brakes are operated by compressed air controlled by the engineman. By a single pull of a small brass lever within easy reach he can instantly apply every brake on his train with such force as to bring it to a standstill inside of a few seconds.
From many years of riding in a locomotive cab, where, with the constant rattle and roar, conversation is very difficult, the engineman, Truman Stump, had become a most reticent man, who rarely spoke unless it was necessary. He had thus gained the reputation of being ill-tempered and morose, which was exactly what he was not.
He finished his apprenticeship with Truman Stump, on locomotive number 10, and became so fully competent to act as engineman himself, that the master mechanic offered him the position. At the same time President Vanderveer invited him to become his private secretary, which place Rod accepted, as it seemed to him the best school in which to study the higher branches of railroad management.
The "machine of fire," as they called it, brought crowds of natives to the mission, whose curiosity tried the patience of the engineman imported to work it; while many a European who had never seen machinery driven by steam came to study and to copy it. The date was the 27th of March 1820, when "the engine went in reality this day."
The moment he spied Rod, comfortably seated in the cab of the locomotive, all his old feeling of jealousy was aroused. He had applied to the engineman for permission to ride there a few minutes before Rod appeared, and it had been refused.
When the sun in a burst of dawning glory shows itself above the crest of the eastern range an engineman, east-bound, may be so blinded by the rays streaming from the rising sun that he cannot see the switch at the foot of the grade. For these few moments he is helpless should anything be wrong with the quarry switch.
Ford got down from the fireman's box and crossed over to the engineer's side to pilot Hector. "How's your track from this on?" inquired the big engineman gruffly. "It is about as rough as it can be, and not ditch the steel trains. You'll have to hold her down or we'll have results."
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