User:RalphOnTheRailroad/Sandbox/My Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway/My Summaries and Comparisons of the Nellie Bly Special, Cheney Special, Huntington Special, Peacock Special, Lowe Special, Clark Special, and Scott Specials

The following 1907 article from Railroad Men Magazine describes how the railroad organizes The Death Special--a special (unscheduled) train used to carry relatives to the bedside of a dying family member. While not all of the following are death specials, the article includes summaries of the Nellie Bly, Cheney, Huntington, Peacock, Lowe, Clark, and Scott Specials. The article concludes with a comparison of the Nellie Bly, Peacock, and Lowe Specials to the Scott Special. The comparison shows where each of the specials would be when the Scott Special reached Chicago if all started from Los Angeles, California, at the same time.

The article is quoted verbatim

The Death Special

How the Railroad Operates a Special

The death special has become a classic in railroading in this twentieth century. It is the swift flying messenger of Love, carrying hopes and fears at sixty miles an hour toward the bedside of the dying. It is "the death special" for the reason that so often, after hand and brain and the cunning workmanship of the two have been exhausted, death is found to have won in the race that may have been across a continent.

This death special has its two phases. First of consideration is its passenger list—the racked, worn, nervous, anxious one who hopes almost against hope that he shall not be too late. On the other side is the story of the workers—the management of the system and the crews of the special, working at pressure, making routine out of chaos, rising through the exactions of duty to the pitch of inspiration— tireless, almost sleepless, banking always upon the perfection of service and system that at the last, however futile the race with death, shall leave the management with the well earned "It has done what it could." This workers' side of the death special has not been told. Yet how the special becomes a special, with a thousand miles of track cleared in front of it and death holding the stop watch, belongs to the Homeric history of the age.

The passenger department feels the first pulse of the call. It is a business proposition in that first thirty minutes: Who wants the train? Can he pay for it? Is the order O. K.?

Two hours for assembling a death special with steam up is sharp work. Ordinarily more time is needed for the passenger to get in readiness than is required by the railroad company. The passenger naturally is nervous and distracted; the railway officials from the head of the operating department down to the call boy with the message for the engineer, is keyed to concert pitch but quickened in every nerve by the thrill of the call.

The head of the operating department receives the first call for the death special with the call goes the reasons for the run. Whatever human sympathy may be aroused, however, the proposition is the same—the running of a train on special schedule in the shortest time between two points. This is the message that goes instantly from the head of the operating department to the general manager and to the superintendent of transportation.

At once the general superintendent faces the question of time. He makes a hurried calculation of distances between given terminal points and in the rough he blocks out the time necessary for the run, with the special having a clear track. The division superintendents in turn are notified by him and the time in the rough is noted, while the chief dispatchers are at work arranging a new schedule that is to take into consideration every station and every side-track on the whole system over which the flyer is to speed. The first duty, however, has been to call upon the master mechanic or the roundhouse foreman at the terminal from which the special is to be made up, asking for the train to be in readiness at a certain minute.

At the roundhouse perhaps the best locomotive with the best crew in the service of the system has been in from its regular run only four or five hours. Neither engine nor crew is available. The crew is counted out for the reason that it has not had its proper rest—the engine, for the reason that it is not sent out in the hands of strangers. For these reasons the road which has made the world's records in long runs has no choice of men for locomotives other than those of the highest passenger type.

It is at all the roundhouse that the first real stir of the special is made. The call boy with his book of summonses is in readiness. The nearest possible engineer with his fireman, and, if possible, his conductor and brakeman, are first on the list; after these other crews in order. If for any reason the first cannot go the call boy hurries to the next; the men who can go sign the call book and get in readiness for the run.

There is a thrill in the call to the death special. From "the old man" down to the crossing flagman the story of it gets abroad. Any man whose duty has to do with it in any way wakes to the emergency in proportion to the call upon him.

If time enough has been given in the call for the train, a Pullman private car preceded by a baggage car and coupled to an engine of the fastest passenger type, is the equipment; if there has been hurry the car may be only a chance Pullman picked up at a moment's notice in the yards. The baggage car will weigh thirty-two tons, the Pullman sixty tons, and the engine, probably with six and a half foot drivers, will weigh a hundred tons. Coaled, with water tank filled to the last gauge and the safety valve popped open, venting a sputtering cloud of steam into the train sheds, the death special will be complete. Conductor, engineer, fireman, brakeman and perhaps flagman will have the order in duplicate from the dispatcher's office, reading:

Engine No. —— will run special from ——— to —— with right of track over all trains, on following schedule (giving the time at stations and calling for the clearance of all other trains from the main track from fifteen to twenty minutes ahead of the special's time).

In one respect at least the crew of the special has compensation. The track ahead is clear. Barring accidents, water, coal, the oiling of the engine and the conductor's registrations at certain stations and his exchanging orders with the engineer will be the only troubling incidents of the run. "Take no unusual risks" is the general order to the crew. Not to run into a station ahead of time and leave it still ahead of time will be the two things most to be guarded by the engineer and his conductor. He will hardly do this for the reason that the superintendent in making up the schedule has timed the locomotive to seconds almost. The engineer may fear running behind; he cannot hope to run much ahead of the schedule unless in chance spurts of a mile or two.

In making up this schedule for the run the chief dispatcher has referred to the schedule of the fastest regular train in the passenger service. He knows every mile of the track and just what the locomotive under fair conditions can do for the reason that the engines and the engineer on each division of the run will be the average engine and the average engineer in the passenger service.

The engineer will know every grade, every station, every culvert, bridge and switch on its division, for an average of 225 miles (362 km) he and his conductor will have the duty of sending the special through space, not only to the capacity of the machine, but to the capacity of two men acting in unison for the saving of every chance second in time.

Light and dark, rain and shine and wind and calm are one to the crew of the death special. Momentum is all that counts. Towns, cities, bridges, sage brush and cultivated fields are one in the landscape. At the order station the water and coal are replenished if need be, and then while the engineer goes over his engine filling the oil cups the conductor rushes for the telegraph office, signs the order book, reads the orders to the engineer and delivers the flimsy tissue to the genius of the cab while he moves back to give "the high sign" with hand or lantern.

But it is in the office of the chief train dispatcher that much of the burden of the death special is carried. His eye is on the death special from the moment it leaves the starting terminal until it is housed safely in the sheds at the end of his division. Every train that is met or overtaken by this flyer must have orders concerning its rights over everything. If the special runs behind time additional orders may have to be made for every one of these opposing trains of every class. Crews of every one of these other trains of every class are disconcerted by the movements of the death special and yet have a keen interest in its record. And at the throttle of the special the engineer sits mile after mile, watching his time, but confident of a clear track.

It is on the engineer that the run depends. He feels it as an engineer and as a man. Pride in his work and his own self-respect are at stake with him. And over all of this is the inspiration of having a task before him to which all of his ambition rises.

Reporting for the run, he is smoother shaved than usual, perhaps. He may have been taking an hour at the roundhouse for looking over his engine for his regular runs, while he may be two hours ahead for taking out the death special. Oil cups, packing, a nut here and there, a steam cock that might promise to leak—every vital point of the great machine is gone over with unusual care. The colossal machine is moved out of the roundhouse and is backed up to the waiting cars with the acme of precision. The man and the machine both are to be tried out.

A brief account of some of the fastest runs made by the Santa Fe is given below and on another page will be found a comparative analysis of the time made by these specials while on various divisions of the road:

Miss Nellie Bly Special

Nelly Bly Special: On Miss Nelly Bly's journey around the world (representing the New York World) in a successful endeavor to surpass the time of Jules Verne's hero, she reached San Francisco, eastbound, on January 21, 1890, and was carried over the Santa Fe, San Francisco to Chicago, 2,577 miles, in sixty-nine hours. This was an average speed of thirty-seven and one-third miles per hour, a creditable performance for that day. Some of the fastest continuous runs (dead time out) were: Sixty-two miles in fifty-two minutes; sixty-nine miles in fifty-three minutes; 120 miles in 118 minutes and 241 miles in 252 minutes.

Cheney Special

The Cheney Special, consisting of a business car and coach, carrying Mr. B. P. Cheney, Jr. (one of the board of directors of the A. T. & S. F. Ry. System) and party; left Colton, Cal., on July 23, 1895, and reached Chicago, 2,267 miles, in three days, seven hours and two minutes. The rapid speed on certain sections was offset by a long detour from the main line caused by washouts. This run is immortalized in Rudyard Kipling's story, "Captains Courageous."

Huntington Special

The Huntington Special, occupied by Mr. C. P. Huntington, president of the Southern Pacific Company, and party, comprised two special cars and a coach. It ran from Pueblo to Chicago on May 30-31, 1899. The train did not travel at night, hence no terminal records were broken. But the wheels turned fast when the train was moving: 1,075 miles in 1,292 minutes was one record. The distance from Argentine to Chicago, 463 miles, was reeled off in nine hours and thirty-one minutes, the running time, deducting stops, being eight hours and thirty-two minutes, or within thirty-eight minutes as fast as the actual running time of the Scott Special, though the: latter beat the Huntington flyer one hour and nineteen minutes between terminals.

Peacock Special

The Peacock Special set the mark at fifty-seven hours and fifty-six minutes from Los Angeles to Chicago. It left Los Angeles at ten a. m. on March 27, 1900, and reached Chicago at 9:56 p. m, on the 29th. It consisted of a special Pullman and a combination buffet-smoking-baggage car. It carried Mr. A. R. Peacock, vice-president of the Carnegie Steel & Iron Company, and party en route to Pittsburg. The best short-distance time reported was from Elmdale [?] Nevada, two and five-tenths miles, in two minutes, or at the rate of seventy-five miles an hour. The fastest long-distance spurt was from La Junta to Emporia, 429 miles, in 447 minutes, the actual running time being fifty-eight miles an hour. Other notable speeds varied from seventy-two down to sixty-six miles an hour.

H. P. Lowe Special

The Lowe Special created a distinct sensation in the long-distance railway speed world. Mr. H. P. Lowe of the Engineering Company of America left New York on the Lake Shore Twentieth Century Limited at 2:45 p. m. on Tuesday, August 4, 1903, transferring at Chicago to a special train on the Santa Fe, comprising a hotel car and coach, which reached Los Angeles at 1:06 p. m. on August 7. The trip, from ocean to ocean was made in seventy-three hours and twenty-one minutes. The time from Chicago to Los Angeles was whittled down to fifty-two hours and forty-nine minutes, or ten hours and eleven minutes faster than originally scheduled. The Lowe Special left Dearborn Station in Chicago at 10:17 a. m. on August 5 and reached La Grande Station at 1:06 p. m. on August 7, covering the 2,265 miles at an average rate of forty-two and eight-tenths miles per hour, beating the time of the California Limited by fifteen hours and sixteen minutes. The Santa Fe general passenger agent officially said of the run "It will be many a day before it is approached or exceeded." That day came sooner than he expected. Details of intermediate time are not available, but the big engines had to poke their noses into the atmosphere at more than a mile-a-minute gait, on the level stretches, establishing new records for nearly every milepost.

Clark Special

The Clark Special: On January 26, 1904, Charles W. Clark, son of ex-Senator W. A. Clark of Montana, was summoned from the mines near Prescott Ariz., on account of the serious illness of his wife. He took the regular train until Winslow was reached, where a special was made up for his accommodation. This train left Winslow at 11:28 p. m. on January 26 and arrived at Chicago at 1:50 p. m. on January 28, making the distance from Winslow to Chicago, 1,645 miles, in thirty-seven hours and twenty-two minutes, or at an average speed of forty-four miles per hour, including all stops.

Scott Special

The Scott Special lowered all previous records, making the trip from Los Angeles to Chicago in forty-four hours and fifty-four minutes, covering a portion of the Illinois Division at the rate of 106 miles an hour. In this case it was not a “death special" but a race against time. Scott stating that he was merely "buying speed," though a shrewd journalist advanced another reason: "Scott's not mad. It's just downright western exuberance. He feels that the world is too small for the sort of whoop he wants to give." Space will not permit us to give at this time the details of this record breaking run.

Comparison of the Nellie Bly, Peacock, and Lowe Specials to the Scott Special

Assume that the Nelly Bly, Peacock, Lowe and Scott specials had left Los Angeles the same day and at approximately the same time, all bound for Chicago, and had each maintained the relative speed actually made as above. When Scott's train was triumphantly pulling into Dearborn Station at the end of its run of 2,265 miles the one carrying Mr. Lowe would be near Hart, Mo., 342 miles west of Chicago; the Peacock Special would be in the vicinity of Grover, Kan., 511 miles from Chicago, and Nelly Bly would be trailing still farther back, near Emporia, Kan., 585 miles from Chicago. That is to say, one of the competing flyers would be quite a distance west of the Mississippi River and the other two west of the Missouri River when the Scott Special had finished its task. This comparison forcibly illustrates the fast speed of the present holder of the Los Angeles-Chicago record.

— "The Death Special". Railroad Men. XXI (2). New York, NY: Railroad Branch, Young Men's Christian Association: 286-9. November 1907.