| Show IT BEGAN ATMEMORABLE TIME change With only minimal modesty the ads continued The Greatest and Grandest Railroad on Earth Meanwhile the Southern Pacificadvertising offered 35 round-trip ticket from Ogden to San Francisco It particularly appealed to those interested in the soon-to-take-place Midwinter Art Fair All the nationrailroads the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific included benefitted in 1893 from Congressional action that was stimulated by the American Railway Union an organization founded that year by Eugene Debs The new law required that cars be equipped with automatic couplers The dangerous link-and-pin coupler system employed up to that time had maimed or killed countless trainmen Automatic couplers virtually eliminated the need forman to put his hands or sometimes his entire body in jeopardy in order to hook cars together The same Federal action made air brakes mandatory on trains That too extended the life of railroad trainmen Prior to 1893 they had been required to climb to the roof of moving often wildly swaying cars to set the brakes when the engineer signalled with the locomotivewhistle Once on top they turnedwheel which tightened the brakeshoes on that individual car then moved along the wooden catwalk to the next one In snow or rain footing was treacherous and falling from that uneasy perch was often fatal George Westinghouse had invented in 1868compressed air system controlled by the engineer which could apply the brakes on an entire train with the pull ofhandle Most railroad owners ignored it because of the cost but the Congressional mandate brought air brakes into widespread usequarter ofcentury after theybeen conceived On the Utah news scene an item datelined Tintic read John Frain the old man who was seriously injured by the dis charge ofstick of powder while celebrating the advent ofa New Year is not as seriously injured as first reported He will lose his eyesight And in Bingham where such happenings werenunusual one Jack England stabbed Andrew Peterson 13 times in Digital image 2005 Marriott Library University of Utah Al rights reserved |
