It is only while an engine is in steam and going at good speed that the rocks, coral-reefs and sand-banks on railways can be seen and learned, and the value of and the rank acquired by an engineer are in exact proportion to the pains he takes to find them out, and to remark their dangerous position on his chart.
A model engineer can tell you all about any particular engine he happens to see merely by glancing at it.
He will be able to say this was built by so and so. I know it by this crank, that piston. "Look here," he says, "that rod was built when I was a boy, it's all out of date now, consequently the engine must have been built in such a year."
In short the model engineer should be familiar with the history of locomotive engines from Old No. 1 down to date.
The model engineer is always a good fireman.
A man may be a first-rate mechanic, he may have worked at the best class of machinery, he may have built engines and have read all the published books on the locomotive, and yet, if he is not a good hand at the coal shovel, he will never be 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 which are the very all essentials of a good engineer.
A model engineer is clean himself, and his engine is cleaner.
Cleanliness is said to be next to godliness. Upon a railroad it may with truth be said that cleanliness is next below the highest talent and next above the length of service.
A clean engineer frequently scales the ladder 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 oil.
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 according to merit should be the invariable rule on railroads. Seniority should 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 because of the length of his service. That sort of thing is all right for ordinary business, but for engine driving it won't do.