There’s always that scene in the Western, where the train
pulls into the little depot. Steam
billows up with loud hisses as the engineer pulls back on the brake. The conductor from the Way Car, guides
passengers to the exits where they climb down the stairs and hurry off to be
greeted by loved ones. Perhaps the
Marshal or the sheriff is waiting for someone, expecting a newly-released
badman returning to town to even an old score, or he’s meeting that mail-order
bride he finally got up enough money and gumption to bring to town. Later, the train, on its way again, may
be robbed by highwaymen. There’s
always one reckless thief who rides alongside the train and grabs the handle of
a box car’s half-open door, allowing himself to be pulled from the saddle and swinging
inside the train, where he makes his way to the car where the payroll safe is
located. Or—a little safer—the
robbers merely break up the tracks and remove the railroad ties and the train
chugs to a standstill because it had nowhere to go. And who can forget the runaway train, whistle blaring as it
plows through town before running off the trestle and plummeting into the river
hundreds of feet below?
Anyone who’s seen a Western movie, an episode of Gunsmoke,
or the Season One of Hell on Wheels knows
exactly what I’m talking about.
In my current
WIP, tentatively titled The Lily and the Shamrock, my heroine is sent a ticket to Nebraska by her
brother. Chafing under his
guardian’s tyranny, New Orleans scion Philippe DuVal has run away from
home. He promises his sister,
Angelique, he’ll send for her as soon as he finds work, though Philippe, as a
rich man’s son, has no manual training whatsoever. He has the optimism of the
young, though, and has been at odds with his uncle for some time, so rebellion
sets in. While Philip slaves away
on a ranch just outside Lincoln, in the meantime, Uncle Claud fritters away
Philippe’s inheritance at Seamus Brady’s gambling hall. When Seamus calls in his markers,
Claud, knowing the gambler wants to get a foothold in New Orleans society, to
become “respectable,” offers marriage to Angelique if he’ll cancel his
debts. Angelique, of course, wants
nothing to do with the uncouth Brady whose activities border on the criminal
but she’s completely helpless without her brother to protect her, since Claude
is her guardian, also. Philippe’s
ticket to Nebraska arrives just in time.
Now, all Angelique has to do is find a way to get to the station before
Uncle Claud and Brady can stop her.
At the Durham Museum in Omaha, Union Pacific is
well-represented. Not only was the
Museum once the Union Station for seven railroads, among them the UP, but in
its basement, it houses a complete train, from Way Car (what we civilians call
a caboose) to the Engine. Tourists
can climb into the cars and go through them.
So let’s buy our ticket and climb aboard.
First, the ticket: A
book of tickets, rather… About
four by five inches, the bright blue center design says quite plainly “Train
Ticket.” Surrounding that in a
decorative border are, at the top, the months 
of the year and beside them the
days of the month and the year as well as the direction the train would be
traveling…East or West. Below, at
the bottom are the names of cities, St. Louis, Omaha… There’s a serial number,
a book and ticket number. The book
has instructions on how the ticket has to be punched before being removed from
the book and which half was to be given to the passenger. There are also more important
admonitions: No excess
fare to be collected. Ticket
non-redeemable. Fare is paid for
Continuous Passage to Destination on Designated Train for Designated City as
specified and for no Other.
Inside the passenger car:
The first thing one notices is how small the seating
is.
There were two rows of seats,
24 seats in each
row, in pairs facing each other, with a window, but the entire
seat is barely four feet long, though nicely upholstered.
These were the “plain” passenger
cars.
The Pullman car or
“sleeping” car, had
three separate sleeping arrangements.
The first was a fixed platform located
above the seats.
Passengers
utilizing these undressed in a central bathroom, walked back to their berth,
and climbed into it
via a portable
ladder. The bed was about six feet
long and five feet wide, with only about two feet clearing head-space.
In my novel, Philippe doesn’t have enough money to buy his
sister a sleeping berth, so poor Angelique has to sleep sitting up the entire
trip!
The second type of accommodation was a “single” sleeping
arrangement. An enclosed seat,
with a small toilet and wash stand.
The seat folded down into a bed, covering the toilet. One had to stand in the hall while the
attendant did this. Then the
passenger either made that quick trip to the washroom to change into his
sleepwear or shut the door and do it while sitting on the bed.
The third bed was the one people generally think of…an
enclosed “stateroom” with a full length bench seat which could probably hold
three people. About three feet
across from this was a full-length counter with sink and washstand, a door to
one side leading to the toilet.
Above the bench seat, the bed was tucked inside a locked
compartment. It contained a
folding ladder and a webbing across the head of the bed to prevent the sleeper
from being tossed out if the train made a sudden stop or a swift curve on the
track.
In later trains, there was also a “smoking car”, complete
with bar where people drank and—surprise!—smoked. The dining car looked exactly like a dining room in a home,
with a central table and many chairs, and a chandelier. Trains having a dining car also had a
separate kitchen car equipped with chefs.
The passageways leading from each car to the next were very
narrow, with only room to walk single-file, and only about twenty-eight inches
wide. The metal platforms at the
end of each car, connecting it to the next were barely two feet wide. Remember all those scenes where some
bigwig, accompanied by five or six people, stands on the caboose’s platform and
make speeches to a crowd.
Couldn’t happen. And that confrontation between the hero
and the villain in the same spot?
There certainly wouldn’t have been any fistfights in that tight space!
The engine part of the locomotive filled most of the space
allotted the engineer and fireman.
To each side of the engine, there was a small seat about 12 inches
square built into the wall where the fireman and the engineer sat, the engineer
on the right, where he could grab the hand brake, if necessary, the fireman on
the left where he could shovel in the coal. There was a small walkway on the outside of the right side
of the train, from the engine to the front of the train, a narrow catwalk on
which to maneuver if one of the valves on the side of the locomotive needed
adjusting while the train was in motion.
On the front of the train was the metal grill of the
cowcatcher, not so much designed to catch anything but to knock out of the way
any object on the tracks.
A steam engine could go as fast as 50 mph, and could travel
300 miles in one day.
Looking at Thomas “Doc” Durant’s luxurious car in the TV
series, one envies him his drawing room, dining room, and built-in bathroom, as
well as all the other features the common passenger of a steam train couldn’t
afford. Seeing something on TV or
on the movie screen magnifies the size and gives an illusion of greater depth
and width, but seeing the real thing shows exactly how much space those early
train travelers didn’t have.
(Pictures: Top: Union Station exterior; Engine #X1243; 2 views of interior and waiting room of Terminal; Omaha Terminal poster; "common" passenger seats; Pullman car; dining car; smoking car; statues by John Labja: Sailor and Soldier, Sweethearts, the New Arrival, Reading the Train Schedules.)
