"When I started in this game," he says, "the men I worked with were mostly single and had neither dependents nor home ties. Their conversation consisted mainly in stories of the road, whose location wanders from Portland, Maine, to Seattle or to Winnipeg--'the Peg'--to Pocatello, to New Orleans, or to San Francisco. Conductors in charge of a train were very rarely men who had been 'made' upon that road; seniority did not mean much; men went from job to job as their fancy dictated. They tell a story up this country about a conductor and an engineer that will illustrate my point.
"You will begin by understanding that the rules of this road, as well as of all the others, provide for a standard watch--a watch that has been passed upon by a qualified and registered watch-inspector. There is also a rule that the conductor compare time with the engineer before starting out upon any trip. In each division-office there is a 'watch register,' and every watch must be compared with the 'standard clock' and any difference between them noted upon the register. The rule states specifically that no watch can be called correct that is even thirty seconds away from the 'standard clock.' Now then.
"This freight conductor over in the eastern end of the State came to the engineer with his orders and handed them up into the cab. After the engineman had finished reading them, the conductor asked: 'What time have you got?' The engineer grinned and replied: 'What time have _you_ got?' This time the conductor grinned. He reached down into his overcoat pocket and pulled out one of the small tin watches that are advertised across the land as having made the dollar famous. 'Seven forty-five,' said he, with great gravity. His friend, the engineer, also assumed solemnity, then pulled a nickel-plated alarm-clock out from under his seat. 'You're right, Tim,' said he, 'right to the minute.'
"Those days are passed. It takes longer to-day to get a regular run on most roads than it takes for a lawyer or a doctor to complete his college course. Seven years is about the quickest time to a run that amounts to anything. The railroader of to-day takes his work seriously, settles down and tries to be a good citizen instead of the old-time 'boomer' [the slang phrase for the former itinerants] that once filled up the business, and not in any way to its credit. But it's pretty hard being a good citizen under the sixteen-hour law and the Adamson Law which was supposed to provide a real eight-hour day and really never did anything of the sort. If we get in at four o'clock in the afternoon we don't know whether we are going out again at eight o'clock the next morning or eight o'clock the same evening. The one thing is just as likely to happen as the other. And how can friend-wife count upon her evenings with us at the movies?