of grime and steam, but a quiet and
luxurious club spreading over the top floor of a very tall building on
Forty-second Street, and here every day at luncheon-time railroad
officials gather: superintendents, managers, and various heads of
departments, men who may have grown prosperous and portly, but are
always proud to talk about the boys at the throttle, and recall
experiences of their own in certain exciting runs.

In the wide hall near the entrance of this Transportation Club is a
driving-wheel, green painted, from the De Witt Clinton, the first
locomotive that drew a passenger train in the State of New York. It is
scarcely larger than a wagon-wheel, though made of iron, and an
inscription sets forth how it made the historic run from Albany to
Schenectady on August 9, 1831. The walls show many pictures, famous
locomotives, scenes of accidents, and there are thrilling memories here
in abundance if one have with him some veteran of the road to recall
them.

"It's not always the most serious accidents that frighten a man most,"
remarked a high official on the New York Central, one day, while the
rest of us listened. "One of the worst scares I ever had was on a
freight train when there really wasn't anything to be scared about. We
had just pulled out of Ottumwa, Iowa, one dark night, with a caboose
full of passengers, when rump--ump--bang--rip! You never heard such a
racket. First one end of the car was lifted up off the rails and slammed
down again, and then the other end was treated the same way; up and down
we went, bump, bump, bump! and smash went the window, and out went the
lights. Now, what do you suppose it was?"

"Hog under the wheels?" suggested one of the group.

"More likely a mule," said another. "There's nothing so tough as the
hind leg of a mule. Isn't a car-wheel made that'll cut through one."

"It wasn't a mule or a hog, and it wasn't anything alive, but it got us
into a panic, all right. We waved a lantern like fury to the engineer
ahead, but he didn't see it for a good while, and we just bumped along,
expecting every second to be split into kindling-wood. We stopped at
last, and found it was a beer-keg; yes, sir, an empty beer-keg that had
got caught under the caboose between the rear axle and the bolster of
the truck, and had rolled along over the ties with the car balanced on
it like a man riding a rail. Wasn't broken, either; no, sir, not a bit;
and we had to chisel through every blamed hoop b