Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-11-10 | Page 9 | Railroad Man Tells Work Engineers Most Efficient

.Railroad Man Tells Work & s Engineers Most Efficient llrTHE PHOTOGRAPH shows a group of American railroad men construct- j 1 tag the wing of a "Y" somewhere in France. They wero compelled to lay tracks hefore the trains could operato. S. C. Johnson is fifth from the left sive block system. We have our own United States engine just like the ten hundreds on the Oregon Short Line and some sixtv-six hundred capacity cars. But the "French car's are only thirty tons capacity. But the French have done wonderfully woJl under war conditions con-ditions of the last four years. "But the Americans can give the French a touch of high life in railroading. railroad-ing. There is no sixteen-hour law or anything like that over here. But we do not care. The main thing is to get this over and the quicker the better and the sooner we get back to the good old U. S. A. The way our boys are going after the Hun I do not believe it will last much longer not later than spring at any rate. "You in America can not" realize the big things the United States is doing over here in the way of building railroads rail-roads and hundreds of other mighty achievements in many lines. Before my own eyes there are 240 miles of yard tracks here. And if you were here you would quickly realize how vitally important im-portant to the troops the railroads are.. The trains are run in fleets, each fleet consisting of twenty-eight, ten minutes min-utes apart. The experience, from a railroad man's standpoint is wonderful and most valuable." S. C. Johnson Describes U. S. Transportation Service Serv-ice Overseas. AN interesting letter, telling some-' some-' thing of the work of the American Amer-ican railroad men in Franco and giving an idea of the vast magnitude mag-nitude of construction and building necessary before the soldiers can move toward the front, has been written by S. C. Johnson, member of D company, com-pany, Twenty-first engineers, with the expeditionary forces. Mr. Johnson was with the Oregon Short Line railroad seven years before enlisting, as was his brother, J. W. Johnson, to whom the letter is written and who was rejected for overseas service and is now in charge of the telephone exchange at Fort Douglas. Another brother, H. A. Johnson, also a former local railroad man, is in the transportation service in Prance. The letter from Mr. Johnson follows: "A town in Prance. "October 4. "You are certainly lucky to get back so close to old Salt Lake. Suppose Fort Douglas is the same place as when 1 was stationed there last May. Would certainly like to be in the old city again and it makes me homesick when I see a Salt Lake postmark. "But there is lots of excitement over here The trip was most enjoyable and tbyo-ntry extremely interesting. SJBP'lt is some job railroading over here. T I ha ye been on as brakeman a month I now and they certainly conduct a great 1L volume of " business. Forty or fifty J irews run out of this place every day, K . BKides all the French crews. This point is supply center for the T'nited States army. 'Wish I might describe it at more length,' but we are in an advanced ad-vanced war zone and that.is forbidden. One of the sights unusual" to the average aver-age railroad man is the aeroplane. We Bee lots of them flyiug about every day. "French methods of railroading aud the equipment are altogether different from ours. There are no automatic airbrakes or automatic couplers. They use hand brakes, 'hook and eye' or something like link and pin. There are no train orders all positive and promis-