in figuring what was owed us. Except that if you quit or got fired, your money up to the second would be ready in a matter of minutes.

The company, rightly assuming that I was broke, didn't bother about watch inspection until I'd had a payday. Then for $28 I bought a watch with a nickel case which passed inspection. I still have it.

I had been warned about watch inspection. But nobody had warned me about Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones was the traveling fireman. Mr. Jones hated all firemen and possibly everybody. He was just chock full of discipline. He didn't want firemen to burn so

much coal. And as a matter of fact, firemen didn't want to burn so much coal either. There should have been no trouble.

One day I was called to fire the roundhouse goat (an 0-4-0), No. 14. When I got aboard there was hardly enough coal on the tender to get us to the coal dock; there might have been four scoops. I had the tender filled with perhaps 4 tons. I didn't know that Mr. Jones was watching

the records - that every estimated pound of coal that was put aboard the engine while I was there was charged against me.

Those in the know who were firing 14 took only enough coal to last them that day, since the engine wasn't going more than a few hundred yards from the coal dock anyway. Which accounted for the empty tender. The previous fireman had been smart; he had guessed well.

All that day we sat around, loading scrap iron with a crane and magnet. My engineman was elderly and held this job by preference since it didn't call for much action. He spent

AFTER a few uneventful nights in the yard, I deadheaded north at night on the Highball, a mixed consist with one coach and a caboose. Ely was at the north end of the main, Mile 127. Crews all over the mining and lumbering area worked what were called "Merry Widow" jobs. The jobs consisted of "loading stockpile" (spotting empties to be loaded from stockpile ore with a steam shovel). This was a spectacular operation, especially at night. The steam shovel too had glamour, crawling along on its own bit of movable track. Trains of ore or lumber were made up, cars were delivered to the mines, and loads picked up. Some of it was mainline work. Engines were usually Twelve-Wheelers.

The mines at Ely were underground and even at that early date some of the work-out mines had caved in, resulting in great holes. We left 10 loads on a spur with air on them, but with no handbrakes set - a mistake. Next morning the cars were in a heap off the end of the spur.

One of our jobs was sorting the circus train and unloading elephants. Weighing the Ely ore was also on the list.

A call came one afternoon while I was asleep in Two Harbors. I was to deadhead north on the passenger train. There was no time for me to eat and no food on the train. Boats were in and the next day was a holiday at the mines. They proposed to load stockpile.

At Eveleth the engineman and I, still without food, relieved the crew on one of the Twelve-Wheelers (the 60's, 70's, and 80's were TwelveWheelers with long between-thedrivers fireboxes—it was just about as far as you could throw!).

A few minutes after we started the two front pairs of drivers stepped off onto the ties on a crossover. Trying to rerail, we soon had all the engine wheels off the track. Two other engines with full crews came to help. There followed a futile night: rerailers slipped, then we would get some of the wheels on the rails, only to have them slip off again. The 68 got weaker and weaker; water was almost gone. Finally after daylight, I found a way to wedge a piece of rail into a frog in such a way that it couldn't slip, and the two engines pulled the 68 back on the rails.

I claim credit for this, and I don't

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

TRAINS' pages through the years have been graced with the articles, photographs, and artwork of Francis Lee Jaques. But he is best known the world over for his portrayal of wildlife. After World War I he did commercial art in Duluth, then joined the staff of the American Museum of Natural History as a wildlife artist. His work with museums took him from the Arctic Ocean to the South Seas, the Galapagos, Newfoundland, and Europe. He has illustrated numerous books- his most recent, My Wilderness by U. S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas.

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One of Jaques' familiar scratchboards appeared on the cover of the April 1961 Missabe Iron Ranger, an issue devoted to the story of DM&IR steam. To the Missabe, which is proud of its onetime employee, he mented: "I can still hear the lowpressure exhaust of the Mallets on the hill over West Duluth. The passing of steam a great blow to me." Of Jaques' settings for his birds and animals it has been said that he "even paints the wind." Equally as skilled is he at breathing steam once again, in word and picture, in the vanished iron horse. 1

was

think anyone at this late date will question me!

The 68 had been exhibited at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893 as the world's largest locomotive at that time.

We limped back into Eveleth and on the way met another engine on a curve in a cut. Since everyone was on watch we didn't bump. This was yard track and nobody was in error. It just wasn't our night. In Eveleth, after finding something to eat, I was directed to the dirtiest boarding house in all my experience. I never found the proprietor, so it cost me nothing.

There had to be a report on our accident. Railroadmen are loyal to each other. They seldom report anyone doing anything wrong, or neglecting to do anything right, or doing anything which the company could possibly construe as wrong. So all the reports, except mine, went in "Don't know." The accident was caused, very simply, by a long rigid driver wheelbase, a curve, an uneven rail joint, and a worn, extremely sharp flange on the leading driver. Fortunately, this derailment, as most derailments about the yards, occurred at very low speed.

Three shiny black Pacifics came at this time and were sent up the hill with coal to break in. When they were put into passenger service I got one of the little Ten-Wheelers which had been bumped off the passenger jobs. It was in fine shape, a good steamer, and it had an electric headlight the first in my experience. This was probably the pleasantest engine I ever fired. That we stalled on the hill to Virginia and had to be helped by the branch line passenger was neither here nor there. Nobody knew the Ten-Wheeler's tonnage and somebody had guessed wrong.

Loading stockpile one morning my engineman needed sleep, or maybe he just didn't want to work. Nothing made a railroadman as happy as being paid for not working, even though this was long before the days of featherbedding as such. He said, "You take her. I'll be in the caboose." I didn't see him again till noon.

I've often wondered what enginemen thought of me. Did they accept me as a boomer who knew my way around? I knew I didn't.

The work was not very hard. Picking up a few ore empties; spotting them, three spots per car at the shovel; and, when they were loaded, putting them down on top of the previous loads. Nothing was involved but heaving over the Johnson bar, the throttle, and the "straight air” — all very simple. Except that I didn't know what I should do about the valve oil

- and still don't. Lubrication as of 1913 was a tricky business and required much attention. Valve oil was fed to the cylinders, literally a visible (through a glass) drop at a time. The company was close with its valve oil, and the oil left in the can was measured at the end of the day. One man was supposed to have made a record, using only a pint during a turn on ore I can't help wondering what this oil economy cost in repairs. When I hear of the hundreds of gallons of lubricating oil a diesel carries!

To be "on spot," just waiting around, was much to be desired. Sometimes there were hours when there was nothing to do. One night most of us were asleep. I myself never slept much; others were more fortunate. When we had to move there were a half dozen mining locomotives behind us. Every crew was asleep, and we had to wake all of them to get out.

Illness overtook me one night while I was working around Fayal (Eveleth), and rather than call another man the engineer ran the engine alone. It could be done on such jobs. He did admit that he had worked her too hard with the firedoor open and that had resulted in leaky flues. I

stayed in the Fayal station all night. The benches had the usual dividers so I couldn't stretch out on them. I lay on the floor.

Another time we had an engine so decrepit that both boiler check valves stuck at the same time while we were running very slowly. I assure you we were both out on the running boards pounding on the check valves to get them closed.

Accidents could happen any time One dark night two ore extras with loads, the other with empties met in a sag 4 miles north of Allen Junction. One was on the wrong track. It was no doubt the Iron Range's worst wreck. Two weeks later the two engines were rebuilt into one.

I WAS CALLED back to Two Harbors and the tall, lanky, likable engine dispatcher asked me to "sign in." Next morning, much to my satisfaction, I

was marked up on the road. They were short of road firemen.

My satisfaction didn't last long. I caught the 95, a Consolidation with D valves, no brick arch - and the reputation of being the worst steamer on the road.

Most of these 90's, the first wide firebox Consolidations on the D&IR, proved to be good engines; one of them is still in existence. They were later equipped with mechanical stokers, air reverse, cylinder valves, superheaters, and much modern equipment. The boiler head as of now doesn't even look familiar. (Some of the Consolidations, by the way, were hard riders, though one just out of the shops rode beautifully. Many of them took the curves in a series of little tangents. They must have been hard on track.)

The Iron Range was double tracked to the Mesabi Range. At Allen Junction the main single track continued to the Vermilion Range at Tower Junction, then 20 miles farther to Ely and 4 miles on to Winton, where there were several sawmills.

Except on the 13 miles downgrade into Two Harbors from the north there were no signals. Running throughout was left-handed and the signals on this section were also on the left-hand side. The timber was cut far back from the curves, and running was by the sight system. Speed with ore was limited to 25 mph theoretically.

Sometimes on a Saturday when the boats were in, ore extras left Two Harbors every 15 minutes except for an hour previous to the time of the passenger trains. There were two first-class trains each way each day, together with the Highball. With the exception of the Highball, which might

be hours late and wasn't a passenger train anyway, the first-class trains ran on time. The extras simply cleared their time. No extra was to pass the varnish while the varnish was standing at a station, and log trains stopped on the main while the passenger trains passed on the opposite track in the opposite direction.

Tonnage was 40 empties for the Consolidations northbound, about 37 loads southbound. Cars were rated at 50 tons but were regularly overloaded. My first road trip was to Tower Junction and return the longest trip on the road.

and put out the white flags. We ran under the base of the docks and up a heavy grade (only engines used it) with cylinder cocks open to get every bit of water out of the cylinders, tied onto 40 empties, and were off. Highball!

Those first 2 miles were the hardest. The switch where we left the yard was already pointing uphill. After a minute or two the injector had to go on and stay on whether I had steam or not. I didn't have much.

wonder if all these many years crews were really paid for these 2 hardest miles? The grade figures out at 1.2 per cent to Highland. Not much? Try it sometime!

I had a bad start. In washing the deck with the hose, some of the hot water hit my engineman on his hairless head, which annoyed him a bit. But he was a good sport and put in a fire once in a while, as did the brakeman. Honeycomb formed on the flue sheet; we threw coal at it to knock it off. When the door began to snap shut I knew I had clinker.

At Highland, top of the hill, the clinker was removed and we took water. From Highland to Tower, with 40 empties, it was easy. Just beyond Highland was a track crew with the off-track equipment of the day - a mule. He stood close to the track with utter indifference. He knew he was in his proper place; why worry about an engine, however huge?

Returning with loads from Tower Junction we came to a stiff little hill up to Mud Lake. Mud Lake has filled itself with cattails and willow now - I can't locate it. We had a helper on the hill and the engineman said proudly that his son was fireman on the helper and that now we were "going up pretty good." I sensed from that that I wasn't doing too well.

Finally, on the last grade up to Highland where trains were weighed and from where everything was downhill, I would see a milepost, say, Milepost 45. "Let's see now, Two Harbors is Mile 27, add 13 for the hill. Therefore Highland is Mile 40, which is still 5 miles away." By the time we came to the next milepost some 10 minutes and several fires later, I would have forgotten in my fatigue and I would have to do my figuring all over again. Only two other times have I been so tired; one was on my first and only road trip on the Missabe three years later.

From Highland to Two Harbors you didn't need to add another scoop of coal. I just put on the injector occasionally to keep her quiet.

Drifting down the hill, watching the drivers roll was very pleasant indeed. Nothing to do but watch those signals and, with Lake Superior opened out, the steamers on the lake and Two Harbors and its docks spread out below. At times such as this you needn't have a doubt but that you had earned your salt. I

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