An "Eddie Sand" short story by Harry Bedwell

"Christmas Comes to the Prairie Central"

"Banker Management Had Nearly Wrecked the System; a Blizzard
Threatened to Finish the Job."

By Harry Bedwell, Boomer Brass Pounder and Dispatcher, from the
January, 1943 issue of "Railroad Magazine".

The gray bowl of the sky had shut down over the Oberlin yard. Snow
fell in big flakes, sliding in quietly to make a clean carpet over rails and
gaunt ties and the dark ballast between. It washed the sprawling roof of the
big station, with division headquarters above stairs. It made the lines of
rolling stock along the sidings look like the huge links of long white chains
in the growing afternoon gloom.
The night air was tight as a drum. You could feel the sullen pressure
of the storm climb. The wind gathered out there somewhere under the dull
arch.
Eddie Sand, slim and light-stepping, came up the station platform
heading for the dispatcher's office. A boomer telegraph operator from every
place but here, he'd be sure to drift on once more when his feet again
became restless. Right now the swarming flakes and the crisp air trickling in
about the high collar of his overcoat stirred a random element inside him.
They shifted his thoughts beyond the lowering sky and the curtain of snow
to far reaches of sun and desert.
Eddie felt good. He was ticking like a watch. Beside him loped Hi
Wheeler, fiddle-footed trainman and comrade on many unseemly pranks.
Hi's sheepskin coat was belted tight about his gaunt middle. A shrewd glint
of oafish eyes showed from the nest of turned-up collar and low visor of his
heavy cap.
The thick shutter of snow muffled and blanketed the restless area of
the fanned-out sidings. A yard goat stamped by, sluggishly dragging a string
of open-top equipment. Her exhaust shook the dead air, bouncing back from
the low sky.
Eddie and his friend paused before separating at the foot of the outside
stairs under the shelter of the wide eaves. Hi's face cracked in an impish
grin.
"I'll bet you got me something nice for Christmas, Eddie," he
insinuated blandly. "You wouldn't neglect an old pal."
Eddie gestured with his hands inside his overcoat pockets. Yeah, it
was Christmas Eve, he admitted. So what? To a railroader it merely meant
more grief handling people and packages which were on the move at holiday
time. And on the Prairie Central it'd be a wearisome time, considering she
was likely in the clutches of the Big Six Line which would probably kick her
into the ashcan. Anyhow, railroaders didn't celebrate. They just fixed it so
that everybody else could enjoy themselves.
"Also," Eddie admitted, "I forgot to buy you that stick of candy I
promised. I'll try to skirmish one for you in the morning."
Hi tucked his thin nose inside the collar of his coat as the wind
whipped snowflakes into his face.
"Mebby," he conjectured, "you're jealous 'cause I got me a date to
take Sally to the dance and Christmas tree at the Elk's Hall tonight, which I
can make, while you work."
The trainman was feeling very well about that setup. He and Eddie
had been feuding over a buxom blonde who worked in the millinery
department of the Bon Ton. Eddie's working hours didn't permit him to
step Sally out except on his days off, while Hi was mostly on the road or at
the other end of the division, so their rivalry had been sporadic.
Now Hi had maneuvered himself into a spot where he believed he had
all the advantage on this festal night. He'd worked it so he had been called
to flag a light engine down to Hugo and help Thirty-three back up the hump,
and he'd act as swing man coming back. Thirty-three was a hotshot, due at
Oberlin in the middle of the evening, usually on time; and this gave Hi the
break he wanted.
"Sally told me she was going to wear all her pretties, just for me," he
gloated. "That gal is sure a hot sketch! And can she dance!" Hi whistled
with satisfaction.

Eddie Sand glinted a brief, derisive smile. His slim height matched
Hi's ramshackle longitude. His hands were adept and sure, built to whip out
clear Morse on the telegraph key. Eddie and Hi were as incorrigible a pair
as drifted the iron highway. Firm friends on numberless escapades, they'd
sympathetically cut each other's throat over a girl, and think it fun.
The wind was rising and its edge had been whetted. A switch engine
shoved Eighteen's train of day coaches under the long sheds. George
Nelson, her brakeman, came out of the station and stood beside them as he
buttoned his overcoat.
"Mr. Nickerson's special is headed back this way," he said gloomily,
"but there ain't no word that he's taken over the Prairie Central." He looked
at them as if he hoped they'd deny this. "Guess the old boy didn't want us
enough to buy," he muttered. "Well, if the Big Six gets us___" He ran an
index finger around his throat from ear to ear and then walked dejectedly
over to his train.
Most of the men of the Prairie Central would be feeling that way
tonight. They'd not be celebrating Christmas very much with prospects so
grim.
The caller trumpeted monotonously inside the waiting-room where a
bulging stove glowed red in the afternoon dusk. They'd put two extra
coaches on Eighteen. Passengers streamed from the swinging doors and
across the platform through the curtain of sliding flakes___city folk going to
the country for the holidays, shoppers returning home, commuters. Most of
them carried bundles; all had the bright expectancy that comes at Yuletide.
They greeted George Nelson as he stood by the step helping the women with
their packages. Some paused an instant to bestow a gift. George was gray
and smiling. He'd been on that local run for ten years, and everybody liked
him.
Dan Cadagan, the conductor, came from the trainman's room as
Eighteen's engine backed down from the roundhouse and tied on. Big Dan
was as blustering as a spring storm. A ring of white hair showed around the
edge of his cap. Gold braid and buttons gleamed on his uniform. He was
proud of that uniform and the gold stripes of service, won in honest
performance of duty. Tonight his broad, pink face wore a worried
expression, the same look that haunted the PC these days, but it opened in a
lengthwise grin as he saw Eddie and Hi.
"You two look like you'd lost your way in the storm," he said.
"Haven't you got any place to hang up your stockings?"
"Mister," Hi declared, "I got all my socks on; and believe you me, I'll
likely need more before the evening gets late."
"If you boys have the time," Big Dan suggested, "and no better place
to go, stop by and see my old lady. She'd be tickled to death and she'd be
sure to have a bite and a drop of something to warm the insides of you. 'Tis
the luck of the draw that takes me away from home on the eve of
Christmas."
It was a sincere invitation. Despite the gloomy look of the future, Mr.
and Mrs. Cadagan would like to share their bright home with all their friends
on this Christmas Eve. Eddie's mind snapped a quick picture of the big old
house and Maggie Cadagan, both ample and cheery. Like many railroaders,
Big Dan would not be at his own fireside. He'd spend the evening on the
road and most of Christmas day at the other end of the division.
Shadows of worry came back to Big Dan's jovial face as he crossed
the platform and paused under the gangway of Eighteen's engine to read the
orders over with his engineer. Spirits here on the Prairie Central were as
lowering as the sky tonight.
"That's how it is on the railroad," said Eddie. "Turns you out of your
own home even on the holidays."
"As I recall it," Hi remarked, "we all asked for work when we come
here."
Eddie gave him a bitter look. "You're feeling cockey. Better take it
easy, else something's liable to happen to you before daylight."
Belated passengers hurried across the platform. Expressmen tossed
the last of the huge truck loads of U. S. mail and baggage and express into
the baggage cars, now stacked to the roof.
"'Board!"
Big Dan's bellow ran under the train sheds in deadened echoes. The
engine bell sounded as if it had been wrapped in cotton wool. The exhaust
blew off in subdued coughs. Eighteen moved out like a shadow through the
flickering white flakes. Wind sang along the eves and snow scurried before
it in panicky flurries. The storm was moving in. Eighteen's whistle came
back in faint streamers as she sounded a crossing warning.

Eddie Sand was "on the sheet" up there above the stairs___second
trick, four o'clock till midnight. The surge of high iron traffic pulled and
tugged at something deep inside him. A storm is always a challenge to
operating men. Those sliding white particles throw the delicate timecard of
minutes off balance. You fight the elements to keep trains rolling. With the
added holiday traffic, you have to put all your skill and cunning into
maneuvering them safely through the incipient blizzard that blinds and
obstructs the cruising schedules.
"It's too bad," Hi said gleefully, "that you got to work for a living.
I'll pretty soon be back on Thirty-three, and then me and Sally'll do the
conga. Pretty soft!"
"You can never tell what'll happen in a blizzard," Eddie warned.
"Trains get delayed and the dispatcher has to handle motive power to best
advantage."
Hi studied him, suddenly suspicious. "You wouldn't double-cross a
pal at Christmas time, would you? Not try to figure ways and means to keep
me out there on the line till it's too late for the party?"
"If I do," the boomer assured, "I'll either go myself, or see that some
other real man takes Sally."
"You do it." High threatened, "and I'll write that General Manager
down in Chattanooga and tell him who stole them dressed chickens out of
the pantry of his private varnish."
"Which would involve you in that transaction," Eddie pointed out.
"Well," said the trainman, "if you encounter Santa Claus anywhere,
tell him I've been a good boy."
With that he drifted into the whirling flakes, his cap canted at a
rakish
angle. A swell guy he was and a smart railroader. It wasn't his fault if
blondes occasionally ran him ragged. That was an inherent infirmity in an
otherwise sound structure.
Eddie grinned and turned up the stairs. He'd come down early to
relieve the first trick man who had sent him an urgent plea to sit in an hour
ahead of time so he could do his neglected holiday shopping. The chatter of
telegraph instruments broke over him in a brisk rush of metallic sound as he
opened the door to the dispatcher's room. Smells of the glowing coal stove,
tobacco smoke and wet batteries breezed against his face.
Lights funneled a dim yellow glow over ancient typewriters where
operators sat with a sounder in its resonator close to an ear, while their
fingers tripped in swift spurts and the yellow messages dripped from
machines. Some sat at their keys sending from stacks of telegrams, their
eyes picking up the words they flashed over the wires, words that seldom
registered in the mind. Two trick dispatchers sat facing each other through
the glass partition of a side table.
Carter, the chief, had his feet on his table; and Walker, the night
chief, also down early, leaned over a file of correspondence, turning the
sheets with quick fingers. Carter was as large as a master maniac and as
deliberate as time. He nodded lazily at Eddie.
"Here's one rail that don't believe in Santa Claus," he said
cryptically.

Donby, the division superintendent, stormed in. He glared at Carter's
graceless posture at ease and overflowing his chair, his big feet on the table
obscuring half the room. That relaxed attitude infuriated the superintendent,
and always had, but he'd never quite raised the courage to voice his
resentment. Carter wasn't a man to be abused.
Donby snapped: "You'd better be sure the special don't get tangled
up with that extra east and with Eight, and that coal train bunched up over
there on the east end. Remember, I don't want that special held up one
damn minute."
"It won't be the traffic that lays her out," Carter drawled. "It'll be
them Smoky Hill cuts___if this snowstorm gets all wound up."
Donby gave the bottoms of Carter's flatboat shoes another repulsive
look. The brass hat apparently couldn't think well unless he was on his feet
and ready to go. He resented Carter's slacking off from high tension.
Donby snorted and prowled impatiently through the shadows of the long
room. He was stubby and hair-triggered, and was thinking furiously. He
came back through the spotted light and stared at the chief in blind
abstraction.
"It occurred to me," he brooded, "that perhaps Mr. Nickerson hasn't
decided yet whether or not he will take over the PC. It might influence him
to make the purchase if we handled his special promptly and efficiently,
even in this weather."
Carter grunted. When an official got above the grade of trainmaster
he sure could think of the blamedest things. Donby turned abruptly and
slammed out the door.
"He's sure gonna bust a blood vessel before he gets old Salt-and-
Molasses over his division," Carter decided with a yawn.
The chief dispatcher had seen everything happen on the iron pike that
possibly could. Nothing remained to raise his blood pressure. He looked at
the boomer skeptically. Eddie had worked for him over on the Burlington
three years before and they understood each other.
"Old S. A. M. Nickerson kind of sneaked up on us," Carter remarked.
"Donby didn't have time to anticipate it with his usual anxiety and
preparation. Now he'd be offended about that if he wasn't so excited." His
grin tightened. "He's been in and out of this office nineteen times since he
heard___Oh, Lord!"
The door blew open again and Donby stamped in. He strode to the
table, put his hands on the flat top and bowed up his back like a cat.
"Where do you figure the special will catch up with Thirty-three?" he
began.
Just then the west-end trick dispatcher waved an arm from behind his
low glass partition. Walker, the night chief, reached across the table and
thumbed a switch. The chief's sounder fluttered into life. It chattered
dispassionately of disaster. Walker leaned over a pad of clip and wrote
down the message for Donby, who didn't know Morse. Carter listened
comfortably without lowering his feet.
Eddie caught the crisp phrases that flickered from the brass tongue. A
freight train had four cars on the ground and several rail-lengths of track torn
up at Milepost 142 west of Elgin. The conductor gave his reckonings of the
derailment from the Elgin telegraph station. An empty gon had climbed off.
It had chewed up a lot of ties before it turned over and took three cars of
merchandise down an embankment on top of it.
A sweet mess, the skipper reported; the big hook would have to
handle it.

Superintendent Donby reached for a telephone as the night chief's pen
looped the story. He got the roundhouse and within ten seconds the shop
whistle was blasting above the howl of the storm. Carter squared himself at
his table and called the yard office on the other phone. Donby was switched
to the division engineer's office. Carter told the wire chief to break out a
portable telegraph set and send an operator along to cut in at the wreck.
Donby was trying to do a number of things at the same time, his mind
jumping ahead trying to clear up the situation with his imagination. He
looked at Eddie over the top of the telephone transmitter while he waited for
a call to be put through. His eyes sparkled with his running plans.
"Look here, Eddie," he said, biting off his words, "this is going to be
a
pretty tough session tonight. We've got this snowstorm and the holiday
traffic and Mr. Nickerson's special to get over the division without delay or
accident."
He listened on the phone and took another look at the boomer's slim
length.
"You're pretty young," he estimated rapidly, "and you haven't been
here long. I wonder if we hadn't better hold the first trick man over till
things clear up?"
Donby lacked the experience that would have seasoned him to all the
crises that operating men continually encounter. He hadn't been trained in
that department. He'd come out of the chief engineer's office when the best
officials began deserting the Prairie Central as it went through its inevitable
phase of deterioration under banker management.
Eddie almost told him to take the second trick and go to hell with it.
But Carter gave him a sly wink, which reminded the boomer that Donby
likely wasn't really a bad sort if he'd learn to keep his shirt on. Besides,
Crawford, the first trick man, would be in a jam at home if he got stuck for
overtime with his Christmas shopping and his wife's errands still to care for.
"That's up to you," Eddie nodded placidly. "But you've go just so
many trains and so much track to operate 'em on. All the trick man has to
do is keep 'em out of the way of one another. The crews do the work."
Donby snapped at Carter: "Don't you think we'd better hold
Crawford on for a while till we see how things develop? If anything should
happen to that special___" He wagged his loose shoulders fretfully.
"Eddie can handle it," Carter said glumly, as if the admission hurt
him.
Donby checked his resource in immediate manpower. One
trainmaster was over on the west end, our of range, and the other was in the
hospital threatened with pneumonia. The super swore fluently. He tried to
thing fast. In that confusion Crawford transferred the east end to Eddie and
then sneaked downstairs.
"I'll have to go out there to the wreck myself," Donby told the chief,
"and I guess you'd better go along as acting trainmaster. I want to get back
here by the time the special gets in from the east, and you'll have to stay out
there and start the trains rolling when the wreck is cleaned up and some
track laid."
Carter said "Okay" cheerlessly, and got up and waved the night chief
into his chair.
"My wife," he gloomed, "is giving a Christmas tree for the
neighborhood and I was to be Santa Claus. You," he instructed Walker,
"call her up and tell her what's happened to me. I ain't got the heart."
The chief dug out his overcoat and overshoes from a closet. He
squeezed into the coat and struggled with the galoshes. Slamming up the
receiver, Donby took a hurried look about the room. He spied Eddie at the
east-end dispatcher's table.
"Where's Crawford?" he demanded.
"Shopping," said Eddie.

Donby looked as if he were going to jump down Eddie's throat. He
focused his bright eyes on Walker at the chief's table. He didn't like it,
leaving these two here to watch over the east end and the special.
Everything was going wrong tonight; disaster had swooped on him out of
the storm when he'd wanted his division to operate smoothly at least till Mr.
Nickerson was over it. But he couldn't be in several different places at the
same time, and that wreck must be cleaned up so as not to delay the special.
"I'll be in touch with you on the wire all the time," he promised
ominously, "so don't go out on a limb without consulting me. You be very,
very careful."
He thrust his hands into his pockets, shook his loose shoulders, and
made for the door.
"Put the rotary on the 4-Spot to clean out the Smoky Hill cuts," he
ordered. "Then send the rotary right back to the west end where we'll be
needing her by that time. Her up and back though the cuts ought to clear the
way for the special."
Donby was trying to outguess the storm. He plunged out the doorway
and headed for his own office.
"I shoulda said a coupla blood vessels and a artery," Carter growled.
"He's really got some brains___if he'd stand still long enough to use 'em."
"Yeah," Eddie admitted. "He ought to put his feet up on the table
once in a while and relax."
A faint bitter smile puckered Carter's round face, like he'd tasted a
bad pickle.
"It does enrage him to observe me with my peddles up and at ease,"
he reflected. "But, mister, it's surprisin' how much better you can think
when you're more or less horizontal."
The chief leaned heavily on the table and confided privately in
Walker's ear.
"I guess you know it," he muttered, "that Eddie usually does all right
when he's left alone. Trouble with him, you tell him to do something and he
does it without expostulating___even when he knows it's wrong."
"Yeah," Walker agreed, "I've noticed that."
Carter lumbered to the door, headed for the station restaurant to
fortify
himself with food and coffee against the weather he'd encounter out there at
the wreck.

They were mostly old home guards on the Prairie Central. They had
known the road in the happy days when it was a going concern, fine to work
for. Then a slick outfit had taken it. There were too many bonds, too much
water, and nobody knew where he stood. They'd lost a lot of business.
Lately, the Big Six Lines that paralleled the PC had been trying to take over
and make a branch out of it. There wouldn't be many jobs left if they did.
Likely just some local freight runs and a couple of local passengers. All
through business would be diverted to the Big Six. It wasn't a bright
holiday outlook for the men.
And then came rumors that S. A. M. Nickerson, who'd made a
railroad of the Anaconda Short Line out there in the mountains, was bidding
for the PC against the Big Six. He wanted it for a connecting link with his
ASL. If he got it, there ought to be good times again. There'd be real
business once more.
Mr. Nickerson had inspected the property from his special on his way
to Chicago for negotiations, and now he was returning west. But there had
been no official statement as to the outcome of the meeting. The
newspapers were speculating, but they couldn't state with authority the
results of that Chicago conference. The belief was that the deal had fallen
through. Nevertheless, five would get you ten from Eddie that old Salt-and-
Molasses would take over the PC if he wanted it.
Because Eddie had worked for him out there on the ASL when Mr.
Nickerson was making it over, and he new the old man was hard to head off.
They called him a pirate in certain quarters. But he'd made good railroads
out of junk piles. He didn't care much for big brains. He said he could buy
them by the gross. He liked the men who could stand firm when the
pressure was on.