Chapman Allen
Ralph, the Train Dispatcher: or, The Mystery of the Pay Car

CHAPTER XI – MAKING A SCHEDULE

“You understand me, Fairbanks?”

“Perfectly, Mr. Drake.”

“You have helped us out of trouble before this and I believe you can be of inestimable service in the present instance. We are sorry to lose a first-class engineer, but we need you somewhere else, and need you badly.”

They were seated in the private office of the superintendent of the Great Northern, that august official and the young engineer of the Overland Express, and a long, earnest and serious colloquy had just ended.

“From what I have told you and from what you have personally discovered, it is more than apparent that a plot is on foot among our train dispatchers to cripple the running time of the road for the benefit of the opposition.”

“There is little doubt of that, I think,” said Ralph.

“There is a leak somewhere, and it must be stopped.”

“It is my opinion that investigations should begin at the fountain head,” submitted Ralph.

“That is just where we shall begin. It may be a hard, even a dangerous task. We look to you, Fairbanks, for results.”

It was the third day after Ralph’s adventure in the tunnel. Not much had happened of active importance during that time. Ralph had met the superintendent on three different occasions. The present one was a definite culmination of a series.

The young railroader felt very much pleased at the confidence placed in him by the railroad head. It stirred his pride because it had all come about naturally. The superintendent had told him that after a little preliminary work he was to be made chief dispatcher of the Western division of the road. It was a grand promotion, both in importance and salary, enough to satisfy the most ambitious person working for a rapid rise.

Ralph had been sent to the home of the paymaster by the superintendent, and there was a colloquy there. Bob Adair, the road detective, was called in from the other end of the line, and Ralph told him the story of Glen Palmer and his grandfather, leaving the officer to work out himself whatever mystery might surround the two.

In plain words, somebody was tampering with the train dispatching service of the road. Some one on the inside was giving out important information. Cross orders had gone over the wires in a mysterious way and could not be traced. There had been two bad freight wrecks, and twice the Overland Express had been caught in a tangle brought about by vague contradictory orders and had come in many hours late.

As to those who were suspected of being responsible for this state of affairs Ralph was apprized in his talks with the superintendent. The plans to trap them and fasten the proofs of conspiracy upon them were all outlined to the young railroader. Ralph had blocked out just what he was expected to do, but that day as he was led to the office of the train dispatcher by the superintendent he knew that he had no easy task before him.

Glidden was in charge as they came into the place. The two trick men under him and the copy operators were busy at their tables. Mounted on a roll in front of Glidden was the current official time card of the division. From the information contained thereon he had evidently just finished his calculation for time orders, meeting points and work trains.

“Good morning, Glidden,” said the superintendent. “I spoke to you yesterday about our friend, Fairbanks here.”

The gruff dispatcher nodded brusquely. He liked Ralph and the latter knew it. Ralph also knew that Glidden was one of the “true blues” of the office.

“His arm is not strong enough to pull a lever, but he’s in shape to tackle a key, and knows how to do it.”

“Glad,” vouchsafed Glidden tersely.

“All right. Set him at work.”

“Come on,” said Glidden, and he opened the little office gate and Ralph stood within the charmed precincts of the train dispatching circle.

“You’ve had some experience, I understand,” resumed Glidden, after some bustling about. “I suppose you know what an O. S. report is?”

“The one sent in by operators of the various stations as trains arrive and depart.”

“Exactly, and the ‘Consists’?”

“The conductors’ messages giving the exact composition and destination of every car in the train.”

“You’ll do,” nodded Glidden. “Now, then, I have an inkling you and I are booked for something special at the relay station to-night, so you needn’t work yourself out. Just for practice, though, and to prove how smart you are, show the kind of stuff you are made of by tackling that.”

Glidden threw down a train sheet before Ralph, and following it a copied telegram. Then he strode away, with the words:

“Make out a schedule for this special, giving her a clean sweep from end to end with the exception of No. 8.”

“Very well, Mr. Glidden,” said Ralph quietly. “How soon do you want it?”

“Take your time,” was the short reply, while a chuckle sounded deep down in the throat of the dispatcher.

Ralph set his lips grimly. He realized that for a green hand he had been given an arduous task. He knew much about the service, however, and had not watched, studied and absorbed during the past two days for nothing. He was fully determined that this special should have “a run for her money.” If she ran on his schedule, no train load was going away with the idea that the Great Northern was not the swiftest road of the bunch if he could help it, and Ralph had a big idea that he could.

Glidden sent over a copy operator, a young fellow who agreed to do the copying while Ralph made the schedule. There was a whimsical twinkle in his eye, but Ralph dauntlessly started in at his work.

The special in question was to be whooped through that afternoon, the run was one hundred and two miles, with plenty of sidings and passing tracks, and besides, old Dan Lacey, with engine No. 86, was on, so he could be sure of a run that was a hummer.

The superintendent came into the office for a moment to see what Ralph was at, and said carelessly:

“Tear things loose, Fairbanks. There’s a Congressional Railroad Committee aboard of that special. Make ’em all car sick.”

Ralph took the train sheet and familiarized himself with its every detail. Down its centre was printed the names of all the stations on the division and the distances between them. On either side of the main column were ruled smaller columns, each one of which represented a train. The number of each train was at the head of the appropriate column, and under it the names of the conductor and engineer and the number of loads and empties on the train.

All trains on the division were arranged in three classes, and as Ralph knew had certain rights. Trains of the first class were passengers. The through freight and combination freight and passenger made up the second class. All other trains, such as local freights, work trains and construction trains, composed the third class.

Ralph began his calculating on the basis of the invariable rule in force on all railroads, that trains running one way have the exclusive right over trains of their own and inferior classes running in the opposite direction. Ralph began his work by framing up the initial order:

“Order number 29

To G. N. E. – all trains

G. N. R. R. (Western Division)

Dispatcher’s office

D. S.

Special east engine No. 86 will run from Rockton to Dover, having right of track over all trains except No. 8 on the following schedule:

Leave Rockton 3:12 P. M.

There Ralph paused.

“Stuck,” insinuated his copy operator with a grin.

“No, only thinking,” declared Ralph.

Here was where the figuring came in, along with the knowledge of the road, grades and the like, in which Ralph was by no means lacking, for he knew familiarly nearly every foot of the way out of Rockton. He studied and used up lots of gray matter and even chewed up a pencil or two. Ralph read his schedule carefully and handed it to the second trick operator. The latter knitted his brows for a moment and then slowly said:

“For a beginner that’s the best schedule I ever saw.”

“Thank you,” bowed Ralph modestly.

“It’s a hummer, without a doubt. To prevent the lives of the Congressional Committee being placed in peril, though, I think you had better make another.”

“Think so?” questioned Ralph blankly.

“You see,” went on the operator solemnly, “you have only allowed seven minutes between Lisle and Hull, while the time card shows the distance to be six miles. Dan Lacey and his engine 86 are capable of great bursts of speed, but they can’t fly. Then there’s the through. She’s an hour late from the south today. What are you going to do about her. Pass them on one track, I suppose?”

“He’s guying you, Fairbanks,” spoke a gruff but pleased voice at Ralph’s shoulder. “Lacey can make the spurt without a quiver, and as you probably noticed the late through is cancelled for transfer at Blakeville. You’ll do.”

Ralph picked up a good deal of general information that day. He perfected himself in the double-order system. This covered the giving of an order to all trains concerned at the same time. A case came up where the dispatcher desired to make a meeting point for two trains. The order was sent simultaneously to both of them. Ralph had a case in point where a train was leaving his end of the division and wherein it was necessary to make a meeting point with a train coming in. Before giving his order to his conductor and engineer he telegraphed to a station at which the incoming train would soon arrive. From there the operator repeated the message back word for word, giving a signal that his red board was turned. By this means both trains received the same order and there would be no doubt about the point at which they were to meet.

Time orders, slow orders, extra orders, annulment orders, clearance orders-Ralph found that any one gifted with a reasonable amount of common sense and having practical knowledge of the rudiments of mathematics could do the work successfully. Beneath all the simplicity of the system, however, the young railroader realized that there ran a deep undercurrent of complications that only long time and a cool head could master.

All of a sudden sometimes some train out on the road that had been running all right would bob up with a hot box or a broken draw head, and then all the calculations for a new train would be knocked awry.

About four o’clock in the afternoon the superintendent came into the office and made a gesture towards Ralph which the latter understood perfectly. He nudged Glidden as he passed him, who blinked up at him intelligently. Then Ralph went home.

It was just after dusk that the young dispatcher left the cottage. It had set in a cold tempestuous night with blinding snow eddies, and Ralph wore a protecting storm coat, and carried a good lunch in one of its capacious pockets.

He walked about a mile across town until he came to the limits crossing, and stood in the shelter of a flagman’s shanty for a few minutes. Then a sharp whistle greeted his ears. He strained his vision and made out a dim form loitering near a big heap of ties.

“Mr. Glidden?” spoke Ralph, advancing to meet this man.

“That’s what,” responded Glidden, in his usually snappy way. “All ready?”

“Yes.”

“It’s all arranged. The regular men have been called off for the night. You take the relay station, and I’ll be on duty at the tower station beyond, catching the messages that fly over the wires, and see if we can’t nail the people who are making the Great Northern all this trouble.”

CHAPTER XII – AT THE RELAY STATION

The relay station was located just beyond the limits of Stanley Junction, and was practically the feeder through which ran all the railroad and commercial wires focussing at headquarters. It stood in a wide triangle formed by the tracks of the three divisions of the road, which here branched out north, south and west.

The station was the top of a sort of wareroom for all kinds of railroad junk. Stairs led up to it both inside and outside. Over the tower roof, reached by a trap door, was the great enclosed network of wires covering all the lines of the Great Northern.

Ralph had talked affairs over so closely with the superintendent and later with Glidden, that as he left the latter he knew just what he was expected to do and how he was to do it. His mission was one of great importance and of secrecy as well, for the relay station and the first switch tower on the southern branch less than a quarter of a mile beyond it, were suspected points in the train dispatching service just now.

Ralph left Glidden after a brief whispered conversation. He gained the immediate vicinity of the relay station through slow, cautious progress. He had visited the place the day previous and had studied his ground well. When he at length entered the open doorway, he felt sure that he had reached his goal without attracting the attention of the two occupants of the operating room whom he had made out as he approached.

Ralph did not go up the stairs outside or inside. About twelve feet aloft and gained by a ladder of cleats nailed across two supports was a platform. It abutted the operating room, and it seemed to be a catch-all for half reels of wire, insulators and other material used in the telegraphic line. Ralph reached this, and taking great care not to disturb anything that might make a racket, he crept directly up to a window looking into the operating room.

This window was used for ventilation in summer. Just now it was crusted with dust and cob-webbed so that while he could look beyond its grimy panes, there was little danger of his being seen from within. Better than that, he noted that a broken upper pane had one corner gone, and he could distinctly hear every sound made in the operating room.

There were two men in the place. One of them was the night operator. Against this fellow Ralph had been warned. He had a face that would naturally excite suspicion, and he was familiarly known as Grizzly. He was seated at the operating table ready for duty.

The man beside him had no business there, so far as Ralph could figure out. He looked like a rough workman, but his easy bearing showed that he was on an equality with the operator. His companion addressed him as Mason. This fellow, lounging lazily near the little stove that heated the place and smoking a short stump of a pipe, opened the conversation with the words:

“Cozy for the night, Grizzly.”

“Looks it. The split trick man gave his D. S. good night, and is gone.”

“Who is he?”

“New man.”

“Isn’t that suspicious-so many new men lately?”

“Oh, I’m posted and watching out for squalls. Think he’s a new one from another road. Works like a ham factory hand. When he turned out his first message I asked which foot he did it with. The way he looked at the time cards where the calls are printed and kept the key open, I knew he was an innocent greenhorn. Didn’t know what 30 meant when it came, got rattled when headquarters was on the quad, and stumbled over the pink almost scared to death.”

A week previous all this would have been Greek to Ralph. At present he quickly understood that 30 was the end of a long message, the quad was where they sent four messages at a time, and a pink was a rush telegram.

“Then you think you’re not being watched?” inquired Mason.

“Sure of it,” responded Grizzly with confidence.

“What’s the cross orders from our friends?”

“Nothing on the general mix up plan,” reported the operator. “They struck the right man when they hit me to help them. I’ve got a big hunch for the far west, and wouldn’t have cared if the Great Northern had let me out, since, with the chance to carry a big wad of money away with me, why of course I’m in trim for whatever blows along.”

“What’s special to-night?”

“A side trick, and that’s why I sent for you. We made a bad mix up two nights ago with cross orders and tappings. I think it aroused the suspicions of the superintendent, so we’re going slow on that tack for a few days. The gang working for the rival road, though, have let me in on some of their side games. One of them is due to-night.”

“What is it?”

“You’ll know when the time comes. Got your tools with you?”

Mason lazily touched a bag at his feet with his toe, and it jangled as he replied.

“All of them.”

“Good, enjoy yourself till about eleven o’clock. If anyone comes duck behind the box yonder, though I don’t think there’s any chance of a visit a night like this. The bosses are paying too much attention to the stock end of traffic deals to take a flight at a little disruption of the service. There’s a nine-Train orders, I’ve got to go at my routine.”

Ralph settled down as comfortably as he could in his secure hiding place. What he had just heard confirmed forever suspicions that crooked work was being done by crooked operators, and that this fellow Grizzly was one of them.

He listened to the monotonous grind out of the operator: “O.S. O.S. X.N. No. 21 a. 7:39, d. 7:41,” and knew that the Limited Mail had reached Tipton, and had gone on. The night schedule for the Mountain Division west ran the wires, then miscellaneous messages. All this was like reading a book to Ralph, while his mind formed a mental map, a picture of conditions all along the line.

It grew dreadfully monotonous by nine o’clock, however. Grizzly grumbled while getting a heap of work out of the way, Mason went to sleep and snored in his chair by the stove. A sudden diversion, however, aroused him. There was the sound of the lower outside door slamming shut. Ralph could look down at the stairway. Someone had appeared ascending it. Grizzly heard the footsteps, warning him of an intruder, and rushed at Mason shaking him vigorously with the sharp mandate:

“Bolt!”

A minute later, peering within the operating room, Ralph saw the intruder enter. Mason had got to cover and Grizzly back to his instrument. The intruder suggested some half tipsy ranchman, who staggered into the room shaking the snow from his garments.

“Hi, there, young man,” he hailed familiarly to Grizzly. “I want to send a message to Wayne.”

“Sorry, but it’s too late.”

“Too late for what?” growled the intruder, looking skeptical and ugly.

“All the instruments cut out that way and we won’t have Wayne till six o’clock in the morning.”

“Won’t, eh? Well, you’ve got to, that’s all,” observed the man, coming nearer to the operating table.

“Come around in the morning and some of the day force will send the message for you.”

“No. I’ve got twenty-six cars of cattle out here that are going there tomorrow, and I want to notify my agents.”

Grizzly shook his head and turned to his table. The stranger bolted up against him with a savage face.

“Say,” he said, “you send this message or there is going to be trouble.”

“Not much, I won’t send your confounded old message; get out of this office.”

There was a swift movement on the part of the ranchman, then an ominous click, and Grizzly was looking down the barrel of a revolver.

“Give me your blamed old message and I’ll send it for you,” growled the scared operator, though there was not a wire anywhere near Wayne at the time, but Grizzly had a scheme to stave the fellow off. He took the paper from the man, went over to the switchboard, fumbled at a local instrument, and, as Ralph discerned, went through the form of sending a message.

The stranger watched him furtively, pistol in hand, swaying to and fro like a reed in the wind and grinning like a monkey.

“There, I hope you’re satisfied now,” muttered Grizzly.

“Of course I am,” chuckled the ranchman; “only I rushed a dodge on you, for the pistol isn’t loaded. You bit like a fish.”

It was the turn of Grizzly to chuckle, however. As the fellow disappeared Mason came into sight again, and the twain chuckled over the deluded ranchman whose message would not go over the wires for many hours to come.

Towards ten o’clock things quieted down. Few messages went over the wires. It was only occasionally that the clicking told off some important train report from big centers. Grizzly looked and acted uneasy. He arose and strode about the room, looking out at the stormy night, stopping dead short in reflective halts, and glancing frequently at the clock, as though he was expecting somebody or something.

“You act as if you was watching for something to happen,” suggested Mason, after a long spell of silence.

“I am,” replied the operator. “See here, Mason; you know those wires overhead, I’m thinking?”

“Like a book.”

“On the tap of eleven I send the man on the north branch home for a good stop.”

“Officially, eh?” grinned Mason.

“He’ll think so, and that answers.”

“And then?”

“Get aloft and cut out.”

Mason started and looked serious.

“See here, Grizzly,” he objected.

“Did you think I sent for you at twenty dollars a night for fun?”

“No, but-”

“It’s this serious: It’s a wreck, and a bad one, but if it goes through it’s a thousand dollars apiece for us.”