It was one of those dismal, murky, depressing nights, the like of which, we used to say back in reporting days, was good for a murder. Often, the prophecy came true. Which, from a newspaper standpoint, was an asset, for the occasion usually betokened an enticing banner line for page one of the morning edition.

Eleven o'clock had come and the deeply interested trainmaster and I were gazing intently up through the yards for the piercing headlight of No. 79, the Chicago-St. Louis Fast Mail. It was ten minutes overdue, then.

“You're in for a ride to-night, boy,” Ennis, my companion, assured me.

“Why?” I queried, in reply. “They won't attempt to make up lost time to-night, surely?”

“Depends on who's pulling her,” said Ennis, professionally. “If it's either Wilcoxson or Sid Bean, you'll not be very late in St. Louis, no matter what time you get out of Springfield. There's a fifteen-minute clearance order for 79, you know, from one end of the run to the other; and she carries a cargo of contract mail, and a lot of the distance from here south is down hill.”

A panorama of wide curves, some of them not so wide, and descending grades down through the Macoupin bottoms, 50 miles south-with which I was familiar-swept hastily past in my mind. A train had piled up near Macoupin station, at the bottom of the hill, ten days before. I remembered having read of it, and wondered why 79 should choose this night to be late.

“You're going to get your money's worth, boy,” continued Trainmaster Ennis. “Wish I could go along.”

The last remark brought reassurance. Again, we gazed northward, past the Madison Street crossing. At fifteen minutes past eleven-I noted the time-a burst of light, far eclipsing the street lamps that dotted the freight yards, suddenly threw the strings of box-cars and flats into vivid outline, even at half-a-mile that dark night.

“The lost is found,” commented Ennis. “Let's walk down to where the engine stops, so we'll have plenty of time to meet the crew. Wish I was going along.”

Locomotives have always fascinated me, but as this giant hog of a machine in action came rolling, steaming, squealing into port, I gazed at it with abiding inquisitiveness.

“Engine 659, the biggest we've got,” called Ennis, above the din of arrival, as the train came to a stop. “And the fastest,” he added, though he probably knew I would reach that conclusion in the ensuing two hours. We walked alongside the tender as the fireman climbed up and aft and prepared to take on water. The engineer, we noted by his torch, was letting himself down out of the cab, on the side opposite us.

At Ennis' direction-I was yet in his hands-we walked around in front of the pilot. That locomotive looked a mile high and a quarter-of-a-mile across. Continuing, we came upon the engineman as, with torch in hand, he was bending over in an effort to make certain that no boxes on his tender were hot, nor any cups devoid of grease or oil.

“It's Sid Bean,” called the trainmaster. His sally of a few minutes before, “If it's either Wilcoxson or Sid Bean, you'll not be very late in St. Louis,” flashed in my mind, though I said nothing.

We approached the big, good-natured engineer. After an introduction we shook hands. Then Bean, taking the special order that Ennis proffered him authorising my transportation in the engine cab instead of in a coach far in the rear, continued his oiling and inspecting. Presently the fireman came down from the tender and joined Ennis and me.

“My name is Ed Parker,” announced the coal-slinger for whom, presently, I amassed the greatest respect and sympathy.

“Now, you're all set,” concluded Ennis. “Follow the fireman and he'll take care of you.”

I climbed the iron ladder, gazed for a moment at the bulging boiler with its maze of bars, rods, levers and valves, noted that the place was warm enough, even in winter, and, at Parker's direction, positioned myself on a small seat directly in front of a larger cushion which the fireman occupied-or would have, had he been someone other than a busy fireman on Engine No. 659.

The heat from the boiler was noticeable, even though a slight breeze was beginning to course through the cab. I was sitting with one knee between the boiler and the cab window; the

“Hell, yes,” answered Parker. Then, “I've got to watch for the Iles target. Bean and me both is supposed to grab all signals.”

While Parker leaned far out of the cab window behind me, I concentrated on the track ahead. Presently, the long overhead belt line of another railroad that spans the Chicago and Alton yards in that sector came into view. I studied the winking lights of green and red. Suddenly Bean, who, too, had been watching very closely, pulled his body toward the throttle and called out loudly: “Clear board!”

“Clear board!” echoed the fireman, and I could feel engine 659 start throbbing. For a little while I noted the exhaust, and thus calculated the revolutions of the six-foot drivers underneath. After a time that bit of rhythm was swallowed up in other noises which soon graduated into a perfect roar. Even the whistle, which the engineer used freely from then on, was dwarfed by the din in that engine cab. Clearly, the time had come to settle down and mark well the speed.

Ten miles, with a fast moving train, are soon put behind. I was conscious, presently, of a violent lurching and plunging of the locomotive.

“Going through Chatham,” yelled the fireman. I heard him, but only because he was close behind me. I plied a strangle-hold on the injector handle. If that locomotive didn't leave the rails, it seemed, it wouldn't be because it wasn't trying nobly to do so.

“These frogs and switches through towns is hell,” the fireman was yelling, but I was watching something else. Just as we cleared the little town, a white sheet spread suddenly in front of the headlight. Fog! I turned and asked Ed Parker how fast we were going.

“Around seventy,” he called, as I inclined my ear. It was too bad, I reasoned-thirty-five minutes late, then fog. I waited for 659 to slacken its speed. In a moment, Bean yelled across to our side:

“Clear block!”

Parker, returning from the firebox, repeated the call.

“Don't you ever slow up for a fog?” I asked him. The fireman looked surprised. There was no use trying to look ahead, so I concentrated on an effort-summoning all the lung power I had-to talk things over with Parker.

“What'd we want to slow up for?” he yelled, comfortingly. “Besides, we're late.” That, of course, was true; but what did that have to do with the price of battleships, on a night like this?

“Gettin' nervous?” queried my host.

“No!” cried I, lyingly and graciously.

A pair of tenderfoot eyes gazed steadfastly forward.

“We're pulling three sleepers through for the southwest,” called Parker, after another hitch at the firebox. My mind still was on the fog. “They go to Texas,” continued the fireman. “Lots of our mail is through stuff, too.” I wondered whether the conductor knew about that fog. “It ain't often we drag down now with less than eight cars.” The fog made it appear to me that we were hurtling through space at a terrific rate, yet getting nowhere. “I throw ten to twelve tons of coal in that firebox between Bloomington and St. Louis, 160 miles!” Fogs and railroading, I figured, never ought to be consolidated. “And this boiler uses 10,000 gallons of water on the same trip.” A hog on wheels, I admitted to myself, and resumed my worrying. Suddenly we commenced to bound, pitch and bowl. Parker leaned far out of the window again. In a moment came the call from engineer to fireman:

“Clear board!” I would have sworn, from the reaction, had it been possible, that 659 heard the “Clear board!” call and responded to it much as a dog answers impulsively to familiar signals.

“Going through Auburn,” yelled Parker. I couldn't even distinguish company buildings within the right-of-way. My admiration for the two boys who made that dash with 659, or some other 600-engine every night, regardless of weather, was increasing every minute. Before we plunged through Virden the fog lifted. So did my morale. I settled down to enjoy the rest of the trip-until we got almost to Nilwood. I, too, had seen that the block ahead was showing red instead of green, but Sid Bean, of course, caught it first. There was a terrific screaming of brakes, and in a quarter of a mile or so, we came to a full stop. I wondered what next. We waited a moment, then started moving forward though slowly.

“May be a wreck, may be another train in the block, trying to get out of our way, or it may be just nothing,” explained Parker. “What we do in a case like this is to proceed cautiously until we get to the next block. If that shows green, away we go.”

Which was what happened. All went well-for me-untill we slowed at Rinaker Station, to pick up an order, then started down through the curved and highly graded stretch known to Alton railroad men as “Macoupin Hill,” and the bottoms. For twelve miles it is one severe turn after another. We shot out upon the long reverse twist that reaches its climax at Beaver Dam Lake Station. I watched this bit of track race back under the locomotive. We pitched and lurched. The flexibility of the engine astounded me. A curve would show up in front of us. To all appearances, the locomotive was done following rails. Track and all would disappear. It would look like curtains. And, the track sat on a high hill. Crunching, grinding, groaning and roaring, the locomotive would rush staggeringly toward the abyss, then grudgingly start jerking itself about-until track was visible ahead again. And so on, with each curve.

I noted the little lake station shanty where, as a boy, I used to loaf between fishing excursions to Beaver Dam Lake, and watch trains pass. It fairly jumped at us from out the darkness, as the engine's penetrating headlight glare snatched it from the deep, murky darkness of the night. We had scarcely attained the first series of descents before fog enveloped us again. Sid Bean merely redoubled his vigilance.

The next three towns were-to me-substantial blanks. I realised, from the contact with switches and the plunging of the huge locomotive that we were in areas characterisd by yards, sidings and the like, but the fog obliterated details. We rushed on. Soon after we passed through Godfrey-I knew the place because Ed Parker very courteously identified it-we slowed down perceptibly. The fireman, after tending his fire, went to the passage-way between engine and tender, let himself down and shortly crawled back up again, calling “O.K.” to the engineer as he returned, carrying what looked to me like a piece of rubber hose eighteen inches to two feet in length.

“What's that thing?” I inquired, when Parker returned to the seat behind me.

“They call it a ‘spann,”’ replied the fireman. “We usually dub it ‘the stick.”’

“What do you do with it?” I pursued.

“Drop it off at Wann,” Parker informed me. “That is part of the signal system on this stretch, and while that spann is out of its socket and here in our cab, a derail is thrown at Wann that keeps any train from coming up the hill and running into us. We drop it off at Wann, then the next train picks it up and carries it back. We don't have to worry about block signals while we've got the ‘stick’ with us.” At Wann, where we met train No. 78, companion to ours, though northbound, we slowed down while the fireman leaned out and tossed the spann into a canvas sack near the track. I pondered that transaction until we got going strong again, just before entering Granite City whence the Merchant's Bridge across the Mississippi led us to the Missouri side.

St. Louis is a city of many terminals and the home of perhaps the greatest ‘puzzle-switch’ interlocking system-entering Union Station-in the world. The river front we had negotiated at a comparatively slow rate of progress. We traversed the elevated stretch, turned abruptly to the right a little way beyond the bridge-Eads Bridge-and rested for a moment out in front of the station. I looked back as we stopped and observed that our train was being cut almost in two.

“They take those southern sleepers off of us before we back in,” explained Parker. “They go out in a little while on another train.” I gazed at the apparently confusing batteries of semaphores, set high and showing a multiplicity of lights; and wondered how in the name of Mike Sid Bean could tell when one of those lights blinked at him. But, he and Parker were not long in figuring it cut, and after backing for a quarter of a mile, we sat under the shed at Union Station.

Reluctantly, I took leave of those unconcerned, yet plucky and faithful, chaps who kept 79 rushing toward its destination.

“Hope you enjoyed the ride,” remarked Sid Bean cordially as I got up from in front of the fireman's seat, stretched and made ready to climb down out of the cab. I hadn't had time to chat with Sid. Besides, it is against orders to bother the engineer.

“I'm due for a thick steak,” observed Ed Parker, as I was shaking hands with Bean. I didn't wonder. He had earned a whole hindquarter. A fellow who, twice every 24 hours, when on duty, shovels coal every 20 seconds for 160 miles, and moves at least 10 tons from tender to firebox in so doing, merited a broiled steer, so far as I was concerned. Both men invited me to ride on out to the round-house and join them at their favourite restaurant, but family and friends, who had come down in a Pullman on the rear of 79, I knew would be awaiting me at the station gate, so those engine heroes and I parted company.

“Ride with us again, sometime,” chorused the twain, to whom 80 miles an hour through a fog is mere routine.

“First chance I get,” I called back-I, who wonder still why a locomotive, making that speed, stays anywhere near two rails.

Back in comfortable cushion seats, with the long, gently swaying coach riding as smoothly as a giant ocean liner on a level sea, one cannot grasp the picture up front. There it is nothing but action, action, action! And, eternal vigilance. And all because a speed-demanding public has forced the evolution of locomotive-building from the early wheelbarrow type and size to the present elephant-like proportions. Yet, speed-demons that many of these fast trains are, they are safe. A tenderfoot, up in a cab for the first time, gets the impression that a pile-up is almost inevitable. Back in the coaches, one rarely thinks of accident, while riding. He basks in a feeling of security and comfort. Even a receding track, observed from the rear end of a parlour car, is unimpressive. But, up front, the right-of-way, the towns, the switches, the bridges, the curves-they all come at you. The old difference, I presume, between attack and retreat.

We made the hundred miles that dismal, murky, depressing night, from station-stop to station-stop, in two hours and fifteen minutes, gross time consumed. And, in addition to the other hazards I mentioned, we passed through 18 towns and 9 miles of slow-going terminal, entering St. Louis.

It will take a worse crab than I, hereafter, to smirk when the parlour-car conductor on a fast train comes through to collect my extra fare.