92 B4l3d
Donovan
Harry Bed-well
92 B4l3d
Donovan
Harry Bedwell
6544436
$3.75
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0001 D37N537 A
DATE DUE
HARRY BEDWELL--
Last of the Great Railroad Storytellers
Her Books By tie Saie Author
The Railroad In Literature
Headlights and Markers (edited with Robert S, Herny)
Railroads of America
Mileposts On the Prairie
Gateway to the Northwest
The First Through a Century (with Gushing F. Wright)
The Manchester & Oneida Railway
HARRY
BEDWELL
LAST OF THE
GREAT RAILROAD STORYTELLERS
By FRANK P. DONOVAN, JR.
Introduction by Robert S. Henry
ROSS & H AINES.INC.
Minneapolis, Minnesota
1959
Copyright 1959 by Ross & Haines, Inc.
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition limited to 1500 copies
For Jan
CONTENTS
Boyhood OB the Burlington 13
II
Boomer Westbound 23
in
Interurban Interlude 31
IV
Railroad Writer 41
V
Soft Metal Man 49
VI
Railroading in Story 60
VII
Bedwell and the "Railroad School" 87
Bibliography of Harry BedwelTs Published Works. . 99
General Bibliography 105
Acknowledgments Ill
Index 1*3
INTRODUCTION
Drama is inherent in the ceaseless conflict of man
with space, time and weight which makes up the daily
work of railroading. In this drama, there is nothing more
dramatic than the daily accomplishment of moving thou-
sands of passenger and freight trains safely and surely
on their appointed runs.
Nevertheless, the unexpected is always to be anticipated
in the business of transportation by rail to say nothing
of the twists in personality and the quirks of human nature.
Harry Bedwell chronicled in one book and some 70
short stories and articles the actions and reactions of
railroad men faced with the unexpected. He was himself
a railroad man with wide and varied experience in that
most versatile of all railroad occupations, that of station
agent and telegrapher. His experiences, and the experi-
ences of others with whom he came in contact, became
the raw material of his stories, which was worked in his
skillful hands to bring out in sharply etched strokes the
essence of the conflicts of which he wrote.
Frank Donovan is a collector and connoisseur of rail-
road stories. In this book he turns to biography, writing of
the life from which Harry Bedwell distilled his essentially
factual romances. He writes with sympathetic under-
standing of Mr. BedwelTs place in the railroad school of
literature a school of literature which Mr. Donovan him-
self has best outlined in his definitive work "The Railroad
in Literature," published by the Railway and Locomotive
Historical Society. This book is itself a contribution to
that literature.
Robert S. Henry
Alexandria, Virginia
August 22, 1958
BOYHOOD ON THE BURLINGTON
My odyssey into the "Harry Bedwell Country" began the
moment I alighted from the Rock Island's Twin Star
Rocket at Chariton, Iowa. Going over to the Burlington's
station, I found the 5 a.m. mixed train for Kellerton
would be very late on account of heavy soybean move-
ments.
Late or not, in getting material for a biography of
America's last great writer of railroad short stories, Harry
Bedwell, it was desirable I go by train. Moreover, Bedwell,
who embodied his experiences and those of his fellows
into some of the best railroad fiction ever penned, started
railroading on the very line I elected to ride. So I
patiently waited for the freight which would take me to
his Iowa birthplace.
When the belated train did leave, at 11:45 a.m., I
was aboard. Although it was the fall of 1957 and the
newspaper headlines were full of Russia's first Sputnik,
launched a few days earlier, this branch line still retained
much of the leisurely pace of BedwelTs day. In wending
its unhurried course through the rolling countryside, this
local freight was close to nature. Thanks to Conductor
L. E. Allan, I was permitted to enjoy the bright autumnal
foliage from the cupola high up in the caboose. The line
and depots, and even the little red caboose, have changed
but little during the half century that has passed since
the slim, tow-headed youth from Kellerton "pounded
brass" as a telegraph operator.
14
Humeston, the first major stop, retains the original
wooden station of BedwelFs day. Likewise, the bisecting
branch running east to the Mississippi below Keokuk is
still intact. But its western segment across southern Iowa
to Shenandoah is only a memory. Gone, too, are the
puffing branch line locals which made Humeston such a
busy place at train-time. After our LCL freight was
loaded, waybills checked, and cars set out in the tradi-
tional manner, we "highballed" south.
Two stations down the line is Leon, once a throbbing
junction, where Bedwell worked as relief operator. In
the wooded, hilly region he had one of his most thrilling
experiences, which will be mentioned later.
Our train whistled for Davis City, formerly a division
point, now identified by the crumbling remains of a
roundhouse. The freight sharply reduced speed as the
engines climbed to the plateau. At Giles, where there is
a sign and a phone-box, the line diverges. One section
goes west to Mt. Ayr, the other continues south to
St. Joseph, Missouri. Here the caboose and much of the
train was set out to lighten the load for the long, steep
grade to Mount Ayr.
After all hands had boarded the two 1000-h.p. diesels,
coupled cab-to-cab Siamese fashion; the bobtailed train
started westward. At Lamoni the engines came to a halt
adjacent to the campus of Graceland College. Because
of the needs of this school of the Reorganized Church of
the Latter Day Saints, the sidings were crowded with box
cars. It was nearly dusk when the switching was done, and
the train rolled again through the fields and pasture lands
of southwest Iowa.
"We haven't any work to do at Kellerton," observed
Allan, a so well stop just long enough to let you off."
Presently the engineer shut off the throttle, and the
little train slowed down for the unattended box-car depot.
TMs was Kellerton (population 483 ) ? birthplace and
boyhood home of Bedwell.
15
Harry Chester Bedwell was bom on a farm about five
miles southwest of Kellerton in Ridley Township on
January 8, 1888. Known as the "Bedwell Place," the farm
is now the property of Vern Beck. Harry was the youngest
of Chester and Flora (Crow) BedwelTs two children.
Bedwell, along with his older brother, Howard, spent his
early childhood on the farm. He helped with the many
chores in the farmhouse and showed a great fondness
for animals. His love for pets never left him, and to the
end of his days there was always a dog or two in the
household. One of his favorites was a brown rat-terrier
called "Muggins."
The family later moved into town, which was then a
thriving cattle-shipping point. While he was still in school
his parents were separated, and it fell to Flora Bedwell's
lot to bring up the children. It also meant Harry had to
do odd jobs to help his mother meet expenses. Some of
the older townfolk recall the lanky, smiling boy delivering
milk from the family cows or taking mail from depot to
post office. Of special pride was his Indian-Shetland pony,
"Daisy," on which he sometimes rode to school. With
that little bay animal Harry was the envy of every kid in
the neighborhood. On Sundays he regularly attended the
Young Men's Bible Class at the Methodist Church.
From contemporary accounts he was a friendly, happy-
go-lucky youngster. Whether he was participating in
"kick the stick" (a game similar to "hide and seek"),
hunting, or playing the alto horn in the Kellerton band,
Harry was much in evidence. It is also said he was the
youngest of his group to smoke buggy whip, weeds and
cornsilk. In short, he was a normal, wholesome young
man. The only incident which ever got him into any
serious trouble was the firing of his 32-caliber pistol too
freely one Halloween. He easily out-ran the aged town
marshall but nevertheless was fined $7.85 next day for
carrying concealed firearms.
"Little Blue," as Harry was nicknamed, was an avid
16
reader. Like many of Ms chums, he read Terry Alcott,
Frank Merriwell and other five-cent Westerns. He was
also a devotee of the old Youth's Companion, considered
by some the finest young people's magazine of all time.
In school he learned quickly and generally stood at the
head of his class. When the examination came around
on Friday it was a safe bet Harry was the first one
through and out of school for the weekend.
Fired with adventure from relatively wide reading for
a farm boy, and being of a restless nature with an
inquiring mind, Harry wanted to go places and see
things. No, farming was not for him. In a day before
the general use of the automobile, when radio and TV
were unheard of, living in a rural community could be
singularly provincial. But there was one aspect of town
life which spelled romance, far-off places, and the great
beyond. That was the arrival and departure of passenger
trains. Kellerton was situated on a loop diverging from
the Chariton-St. Joseph Branch at Giles (then called
Togo) and returning to it at Albany, Missouri. Possibly
due to the predominance of cattle on the circuitous route,
it was called the "Dirty Side." The shorter Mne by way
of Bethany, Missouri, was referred to as the "Straight
Side."
Be that as it may, the little locals meant a lot to
Kellerton, particularly the early morning train, which
originated at Mt. Ayr and went up to the state capital via
Leon and Osceola. Its arrival from Des Moines around
supper time was a big event in the town. The other trains,
one in each direction, called at Kellerton on their 164-
mile run between Chariton and St. Joe.
What brought the railroad even closer to home was the
happy coincidence that Daa Cadagau, the local agent,
boarded at the Bedwell's. The family by this time had
moved to a frame house on the north end of Decatur
Street, two blocks from the depot. Besides the romance
of belching trains, with passengers from strange and
17
distant points, there was the telegraph. When it came
to timely news, the railroad telegraph operator was the
best posted man in town. Having firsthand knowledge
from the cryptic Morse, he was in a position to swagger
a bit, being looked up to by the boys and being the
admiration of many a girl.
It was then that Harry decided railroading was the
only form of work worth a grown man's time. He already
had the "contract" for delivering mail to the post office
at $8.00 a month. A few more hours at the depot, before
and after school, and with Dan's help he could learn to
be a real railroader. Carrying coal for the potbellied stove,
sweeping the floor, and lending a hand in station
accounting would be small pay for lessons in telegraphy.
Under Dan's tutelage, with a dummy telegraph set at
home, Harry soon got the knack of "sending" and "re-
ceiving." (
One day when the traveling auditor came for a periodi-
cal check of the agent's books, he asked Dan's sandy-
haired protege if he would like to have a station of his
own. Harry answered in the affirmative although having
misgivings as to his fitness. The youth was forthwith
hired and sent to his first assignment on September 7,
1905. It was at Andover, Missouri, a tiny depot three
miles below the Iowa state line on the "Straight Side."
For a time he worked in dread of the dispatcher, who
delighted in frightening "ham" operators. It is related
that whenever his call sounded on the wire he would
have to go outside and walk around the station to quiet
his nerves after taking down the message.
From Andover he was sent to Leon, Iowa, a station of
considerable importance. Called "Noel" (Leon spelled
backward) in his autobiographical American Magazine
article, it was the junction of the now-abandoned branch
to Des Moines. Two miles south of the town, at a point
called Koyle, was a register and telephone. This site
marked the junction of another branch, now also retired,
18
running due south to the coal-mining village of Gaines-
ville, Missouri. As converging trains, along with those of
the Chariton-St. Joe line proper, were under the jurisdic-
tion of the operator at Leon, it was a busy station.
Sunday, however, there were only two passenger trains,
and the chance of seeing a freight was remote. So on the
Sabbath when the day assistant suggested to Harry that
they go down to the next town, he was willing. His
colleague knew a couple of young ladies there, and both
men welcomed the break in routine. Using their switch
key to unlock a chained handcar,, they were soon pumping
their way to Davis City. Upon arrival the youthful rail-
roaders were startled to see a headlight with two small
white lamps, signifying an extra. After lifting the handcar
off the track, they cautiously went up to the depot.
Their second surprise came upon hearing the dispatcher
send an order for the crewmen of the "extra" to pick up
five loads of time-freight at Leon. Then Harry remem-
bered the five waybills he should have left outside the
station. If the conductor did not get these bills, the dis-
patcher would hear about it and there would be a new
relief man on the St. Joe Division. There was only one
thing to do: get back to Leon before the extra without
being seen. But how? Again the day man had an inspira-
tion. Why not hook the handcar onto the freight? In a
few minutes (and still without being seen in the dark)
they had the handcar back on the rails and were pumping
with vigor until the vehicle was switched to the back of
the train. They chained and locked the handcar to the
caboose in a matter of seconds.
Then the train started with a jerk, dashing their lamp
to the ground. Next the handlebars began bobbing up
and down faster with each turn of the wheel. To keep
from being hit the two lay flat on their stomachs with
heads over one end and feet over the other. When the
train took in slack going down the first hill the car
buckled and jumped. On the next grade the handcar's
19
handles broke off when they rammed the back of the
caboose.
Chilled by weather and fright, the two put their hands
against the drawbar to keep from running under the
caboose. There was no turning back. They were padlocked
to their destiny.
Finally the train reached Leon with the handcar still
on the track. When the freight stopped they cut off the
car and dumped it down an embankment. Then they ran
to the depot and put the waybills and register into the
box before the conductor arrived. After the train left
they lit the lamp and took stock. Both had lost their
hats, and Harry had a bump on his head. But they came
out of the ordeal without losing their jobs or their lives.
Being a relief operator suited Harry's roving disposition,
for he was required to "fill in" at many points on the
St. Joseph Division. Often this meant closing a station at
the end of the day and riding all night on a freight train
to his next assignment. (Something of this arduous under-
taking, although not without its amenities, was experienced
by the writer in leaving Kellerton for St. Joseph. Because
of heavy tonnage, engine trouble and a hot box, we did
not arrive at the latter point until 2 a.m. But having fresh
coffee with the crew in the snug caboose at midnight was
a compensation. And if the sight where the Andover
depot once stood was scarcely discernable in a driving
rain, the frame station at Union Star, also where Bedwell
worked, showed up clear and radiant under a full moon.)
Before leaving the Burlington late in 1906, Bedwell
had issued train orders at such other Iowa locals as
Shambaugh, on the Nodaway Valley Branch, and Bartlett,
on the main line along the Missouri River. He also worked
as relief operator in western Missouri at Langdon, East
Leavenworth and other points on the busy Omaha-Kansas
City line. Here the young man got a taste of high-speed,
main-line railroading featuring luxurious limiteds and
time-freights, particularly stock extras. The "iron" was
20
hot with close meets, and an operator had to be on his
toes. It was a new and thrilling experience, and not
without some tight situations and exciting moments.
Bed well (in his American Magazine reminiscences)
tells how he helped a "ham" operator out of a severe
predicament. It concerned the omission of a single word
in a train order. The locale was a small depot on the
water-level route along the Missouri River. It was the
next station to the south from where Bedwell was working.
The operator in question was receiving orders from
the dispatcher. He, like Bedwell in his beginning days,
had to re-do the orders after he had repeated them to the
dispatcher. This, of course, was against the rales. A new
man, however, would often take down what he could and
let the rest go. After the orders were repeated over the
wire he would go back and edit them, adding what he
failed to put down when they came so rapidly over the
wire. And therein lay his trouble.
On top of this the young u op" took a few minutes after
receiving the order to chat with a section foreman who
had dropped into the depot to visit. There on the table
lay the orders, one of which was addressed to No, 15.
It read:
"Number Twelve will run thirty minutes late, P. J. to
S. J." (Bedwell purposely omitted mentioning the actual
locations in his article, but the initials would suggest
Pacific Junction, Iowa, and St. Joseph, Missouri.)
It may be explained No. 12 and No. 15 were passenger
trains, the former being southbound and the latter north-
bound. No. 12, moreover, was superior to No. 15 by
right of direction. The dispatcher was saving No. 15 from
being held up by ordering her ahead, and not requiring
her to meet at the regular meeting point on the single-
track line. In recopying the order, however, the green
operator overlooked one word. The order should have
read: "Second Number Twelve will run . . ." As luck
would have it there were two sections of No. 12 that
21
night, and the first was on time. It was apparent the new
operator was going to give No. 15 thirty minutes on both
sections of No. 12.
Presently there came a blast of a whistle indicating the
appearance of No. 15. The inexperienced operator jumped
to his feet and ran to the table. The shrill whistle always
made him nervous, and what with being behind in Ms
work due to chatting with the section boss, he was more
fidgety than ever. No. 15 was moving fast and now in
sight; he must not delay the train.
He hastily tore off two copies from the manifold, and
wrote out two copies of a clearance card. He hurriedly
wrapped an order and a clearance card together and
thrust them into a delivery hoop, and did the same with
the other two copies. It was going to be close! But he
did get out on the platform in time to deliver the orders to
the engineer and the conductor without stopping the
passenger train. With a glow of satisfaction he watched
the two red marker lights of the receding train and
breathed a little easier.
Back in the office again he sat down at the table,
recorded the time "15" went by, and began to straighten
the carbons in the manifold from which he had hastily
torn the order. He ripped off his own copy and was about
to file it when he heard a station up the line report first
No. 12 by. He glanced at his order and to his horror
noted the omission of the word "second." To make
matters worse, that station had reported first No. 12 on
time. All this spelled out a head-on collision. No. 15
would pass up the regular meeting point as the faulty
order stated No. 12 would run 30 minutes late. By so
doing, "15" would hit first No. 12 due to the incorrect
order since there was nothing to indicate the latter train
was in two sections.
The erring operator became panicky. He seized the
telegraph key to call Bedwell at the next station north
but was so wrought-up he could not make the call. The
22
big clock in the depot ticked remorselessly while the two
trains were coining closer together on the same track. He
tried to call the section foreman to no avail as the track-
man was now on the way home. Finally he thought of the
telephone. Snatching the receiver he shouted for central
to get him the next station. There was an agonizing wait;
and when he did get Bedwell it was some time before
the distraught operator became coherent. Sizing up the
situation, Bedwell quickly threw "the board" against
No. 15 and assured the operator he would "make it all
right." From here we'll let Harry Bedwell tell how he
saved the trains from colliding and the operator from
losing his job.
"I could see Number Fifteen coming as I sat down at
the table and began to compose another order which
would annul the one that he had delivered, and at the
same time correct the mistake so that no one would
suspect. It did not take me long to do this; but I had to
stop Number Fifteen and have the conductor sign the
order so as to make the change seem natural. But I did
not repeat his signature to the dispatcher, as I was
supposed to do, and neither did I tell the dispatcher that
I had stopped Number Fifteen when I reported them by."
"It was not until the train had gone that I began
thinking the whole matter over, and it frightened me a
little. This could just as easily have been I who made the
mistake as the boy who did, and I made some very good
resolutions that night which I kept, so that before I left
that station I could telegraph well enough to take an
order without re-copying it two or three times."
Harry Bedwell had made good in the prairie country.
Now he would try the mountains.
BOOMER WESTBOUND
Bedwell got a "good going over on the Burlington," as
he put it. He learned to handle new problems quickly.
A relief operator frequently gets more and a greater
variety of situations thrown at him in a few months than
a regular agent does in years. Thanks to S. B. Searsey,
the "Q's" traveling auditor, Bedwell was taught to write
in a large, legible hand so reports would make clearer
wet copies for the copying press. Bedwell caught on fast,
liked railroading and railroaders. The once-naive country
boy now had the confidence of one who had mastered
his craft.
On top of this it was inevitable that he encounter those
restless nomads of the rails called "boomers." In particular
he rubbed shoulders with Charles Duffey, from Sullivan,
Indiana and from almost every other place. Charles was
an ace "lightning slinger." "An artist of the telegraph
instruments," recalled Bedwell, "he could copy for long
periods of time that flowing telegrapher's script, some-
times fifteen words behind the racing sounder, and carry
on a fairly connected conversation at the same time." He
was a delightful person and had a habit of enjoying each
fleeting moment as it came along. While Charley recounted
his sagas of the rails Bedwell listened attentively. The
boy he was only eighteen resolved to follow the
boomer trail.
The Rockies beckoned to the gangling telegrapher.
They called him, as some three decades earlier they had
24
called Cy Warman, America's first railroad short-story
writer of note. Like Warman, too, it was the storied
Denver & Rio Grande Western where Bedwell found
employment. The country was rough, and those who
worked on the Rio Grande were a ragged breed. They
came from all over the nation. Many were boomers, some
worked under a "flag" (assumed name), but they were
all good railroaders or they would not have lasted.
Bedwell first went to Springville, Utah, on the west
side of the Wasatch Range, as a telegraph operator.
Later he moved to nearby Provo and Lefai, also in the
Mormon country. Then it was Green River in the scenic
Beckwith Plateau. He also worked at Helper, where, as
the name indicates, an extra engine or "helper" was added
to a train in crossing the lofty ridge of Soldier Summit.
Here was mountain railroading in all its glory; short,
struggling trains blasting their way up the 4 per cent
grade (in that day) on the side of the Summit, or brake
shoes becoming red-hot and smoking in checking their
progress on the way down. At other points fruit blocks
and silk specials made a race track out of the high desert
course.
A creation of the Rio Grande, Helper itself was very
much a railroad town. It was, as the boomers expressed
it, "one mile long and one street wide." The second
floor of the depot housed the offices of the trainmasters,
chief dispatcher and general yardmaster. "At the upper
end of the station platform," recalls the colorful nomad
Harry McClintock, "was the beanery, while at the lower
end, or near it, stood the Railroad Y.M.C.A. Main Street
consisted of one big restaurant run by Japanese, two or
three general merchandise emporiums, and five or six
saloons, all of which were practically under the train-
master's windows."
Besides being the point where the Rio Grande started
to climb the long, steep, winding grade to Soldier Summit,
it was a busy marshalling spot. Hidden back in the nearby
25
canyons were some of the largest coal mines in the West.
Nearly all of these were reached by branch lines which
funnelled their carloads into Helper for countrywide
distribution. There was a small but busy yard, a "rip"
track for light repairs, a roundhouse and a coal chute.
Much to BedwelTs delight it was a haven for boomers.
But they did not tarry long, nor did Bedwell
The fledgling "op" was rapidly becoming a "man of
the world," or at least he thus fancied himself. While at
Green River, Bedwell sometimes tended bar at the Mint
Saloon. He was not allowed to drink because of his age,
but he listened to no end of yarns and met the characters
who related them. Here he became acquainted with Matt
Warner, a leader, along with Butch Cassidy, of the
notorious Hole-in-the-Wall gang. Matt had just been
released from prison and talked guardedly of his lurid
past. What he omitted Bedwell made up in his imagination.
Mountain railroading had much more of the frontier
spirit than that of the Iowa and Missouri prairies. The
nerve and loyalty of the Rocky Mountain railroaders
caught Bedwell's fancy; and the feats of hardship and
daring of Rio Grande crewmen and operators appealed
to his imagination. The stories of hill country "high iron"
which he heard, and the adventures he experienced were
to remain in his memory for the rest of his life. Better
still, they were to be put on paper for the delectation of
posterity. Under the guise of fiction, culled from actual
happenings modified in plot and setting, they ring true to
the time, background and circumstances. Two years after
hiring out on the Rio Grande Harry Bedwell began
recounting his experiences in a serial for The American
Magazine. About the same time he started penning rail-
road short stories in which he was later to become an
acknowledged master.
One such story concerned an unusual set of circum-
stances resulting in a wreck in which three enginemen
were killed. The accident occurred on the Rio Grande
26
not far from where Bedwell worked. No. 3, a westbound
passenger train, stopped at this community where it was
to get a helper engine to aid it over the mountains. It was
Christmas Eve and "3" was late, so it did not pull in until
after dark. The "helper" arrived from division head-
quarters and in due time was coupled in front of the
regular engine of the train. Prior to this the carbon head-
light on the extra engine had gone out, but the engineer
had repaired it so it was in working order. Once out of
town, however, the carbon failed. It being near the end
of the run, the train late, and Christmas Eve, the engineer
of the helper decided to risk it without a functioning
headlight.
That same evening a freight train was doing some
switching at a station set in the hills. They had to use the
main line in their work, so the dispatcher had given them
two hours and 25 minutes on No. 3. Due to the station
and yards being hidden from view of approaching trains
a semaphore had been erected some distance from the
depot. The freight conductor set the semaphore at "stop"
and as an extra precaution put a torpedo on the track to
warn other trains.
When their two hours and 25 minutes were up the
engineer of the freight backed his train into a siding to
await the passenger. Meanwhile the conductor walked
back to the telegraph office to see if he could get more
time on No. 3; and his brakeman went farther back to
clear the semaphore if the freight was to remain on the
sidetrack.
In the depot the conductor found he couldn't get more
time on "3" as the passenger was due any minute.
Leaving the station he caught sight of the lighted coaches
of the passenger train through the hills although no ray
from a headlight. Then he heard "3" strike and explode
the torpedo, and he knew his brakeman had not had time
to remove it. To expedite matters he waved his lantern
high in the air as a signal to the passenger train that the
27
way was clear. The two engineers on "3" saw the signal,
and came on without checking speed.
Down the line in the other direction, meanwhile, the
engineer of the freight observed his conductor's signal
and took it to mean he had more time on "3". Since
the passenger train's headlight was not functioning he
could not see that train; nor could his fireman, who had
just opened the switch and climbed aboard the engine.
Then the freight train with a string of cars started out on
the main line, but hardly had the front truck rumbled
over the switch points when the engineer saw No. 3
bearing down on him. About the same time the other
brakeman near the end of the freight cars also saw the
unlit passenger locomotive. He immediately pulled on the
air brakes. This locked the wheels of the freight, pre-
venting the engineer from backing up. The outcome was
the passenger train plowed into the freight locomotive,
knocking it off the right of way. The casualties were the
two firemen and the head engineer of the passenger train.
Bedwell used this incident years later in his story "Old
Mogul Mountain" in Railroad Magazine. It was rendered
almost unchanged except that in the fictional accident
there were no casualties. This is only one of the many
true episodes which later went into his "factual" fiction.
From the Rio Grande, Bedwell went to Riverside,
California, on the Santa Fe. But the Santa Fe did not
look with favor upon union telegraphers at that time.
When it became known that the new operator carried an
Order of Railroad Telegraphers' card he knew he would
be obliged to leave. So when Chief Dispatcher Ed Butler
sent him to Victorville, nights, and he looked it over, he
decided to beat them to it. Victorville, on the Mojave
Desert, was strictly a frame and false-front village. It
got hotter than Hades on the Mojave Desert. And the job
wasn't suitable for a young brass pounder who was
beginning to think he was pretty good. There were two
local freight trains, and two local passengers, to work,
28
bills to expense, and abstracts to be made. Also, you had
to keep the water tank filled, and the pumphouse was
about a half-mile from the station. But let Bedwell tell
the rest of the story:
"I called Butler on the Morse. Told him I didn't think
I could handle the job, and I asked him for a wire pass
back to San Bernardino. He wouldn't send me the pass.
Not only that, he wired all his conductors in the vicinity
not to carry me anywhere, for free. Three of them that
I braced for a ride showed me the message. However,
that was joint track with the UP, and the first UP
conductor I encountered, stowed me in his caboose for
the trip back. Butler had my time check ready for me
when I showed up the next morning."
After that came BedwelPs long association with the
Southern Pacific and its subsidiary, the Pacific Electric
Railway.
Geographically the young boomer had run the gamut
from rolling prairies to snow-peaked mountains. Now he
was to experience the "sun and silence" on the desert.
His first station on the SP was at Edom, California, an
arid locale near Palm Springs. Later he worked at Ber-
tram, alongside the Salton Sea, 199 feet below sea level.
Then came Glamis, also on the SP's main line, thirty
miles northwest of Yuma, Arizona.
Bedwell began working out on the desert not long after
the SP had won its Homeric struggle to keep the Colorado
River in check. In the spring of 1906 the river broke loose
south of Yuma and threatened to flood the entire Imperial
Valley. The Salton Sea, being below sea level, was for
many months in grave danger of inundating the Valley.
Much of the SP main line in that area, too, was at sub-
sea level. In the end E. H. Harriman, the far-sighted head
of the Southern Pacific, authorized the expenditure of
$4 million to save the Imperial Valley and the railroad.
Under the inspired leadership of Epes Randolph, the
SP's frail, profane but truly gifted engineer, the job was
29
done. Randolph, even then slowly dying from tuberculosis,
waged a valiant battle that the Valley might live. The
Los Angeles Division was virtually out of the running
except for the movement of 3,000 rock-loaded flat cars
and other material to hold the river in place. It was not
until February 11, 1907, that the breach was sealed for
good. Here was an epic in rock which matched anything
the Rockies had to offer.
In 1908 BedwelTs first published story appeared in the
Los Angeles Times Illustrated Weekly Magazine. Called
"The Lure of the Desert," it brought out the peculiar
fascination the dry, barren country had on its author. The
tale is about a young prospector who leaves California
for the East but later decides that his burro and cat and
the desert mean more to him than civilization and the
eastern girl he had planned to marry. Another of his
publications in the Times, titled "The Touch of Genius,"
chronicled the beginning of the war with Japan many
years before it happened.
BedwelTs success in getting material published in the
Los Angeles Times prompted him to seek wider outlets
for his manuscripts. Quite naturally he turned to Railroad
Man's Magazine, a publication launched by Frank A.
Munsey, an ex-telegrapher. When his tale "Campbell's
Wedding Race" appeared in that periodical late in 1909
it marked his first entry into a national publication.
The short story concerns a young locomotive engineer
on the day of his wedding. Campbell is to be married
that evening at 8 o'clock in Junction City. But noon finds
him at Farnham a hundred miles away with a freight
wreck intervening and no scheduled trains running.
Campbell, however, bullies the dispatcher into letting
him take extra freight No. 1127, and he is out to make
a record run. Then come accidents: a pulled-out drawbar,
a fireman losing his shovel, leaky flues and, finally,
derailment of his train. He, nevertheless, overcomes these
four mishaps, by-passes a freight wreck, uncouples the
30
engine from his own derailed train and gets through to
Junction City. There he learns his fiancee, upon hearing
of the wreck, assumes the wedding is to be postponed
and goes to a movie with another young man.
"You wired that you couldn't get out of Famham," his
prospective father-in-law remarked with asperity, in ex-
plaining why the wedding was cancelled.
"Why didn't you wire us when you started?" his
fiancee's father continued angrily.
"I forgot," said Campbell out of breath.
Then taking out his watch he murmured, "This is
accident number five!" But he stormed up Main Street
to the theater determined to go through with the wedding
as scheduled.
Close on the heels of BedwelTs first railroad story
came his two-part autobiographical sketch in The
American Magazine. Titled "The Mistakes of a Young
Railroad Telegraph Operator," it suggested certain
reforms while at the same time giving readers an authentic
picture of railroad life. The feature was well illustrated by
F. B. Masters.
Ill
INTERURBAN INTERLUDE
When twenty-one Bedweli began Ms long and pleasant
association with the Pacific Electric Railway. He started
working for the far-flung interurban in 1909, at the
booming seacoast town of San Pedro. Its Los Angeles
Harbor was a bustling port in the fastest growing area of
Southern California.
Pacific Electric itself, in a land of superlatives, was
soon to become the world's largest interurban railway.
After the "Great Merger" in 1911, PE acquired all inter-
urban electric lines in greater Los Angeles and vicinity.
It was to embrace 1,000 miles of road; and with the
extension to San Bernardino in 1914, it reached its
zenith. No mere "trolley line," PE had four-track routes
boasting heavy freight operation and frequent high-speed
passenger service.
Long trains of "Big Red Cars" hauled thousands from
Los Angeles to San Pedro, where the riders boarded
steamers for Santa Catalina Island and elsewhere. Other
PE "interurbans" made connections with a narrow-gauge
cable railway and trolley line to Mount Lowe. Here, at
an altitude of 4420 feet, sightseers reveled in mountain
scenery from Ye Alpine Tavern or inspected the wondrous
Lowe Observatory telescope at Echo Mountain. Visitors
from Maine to Texas booked passage on the "Orange
Empire Trolley Trip" to tour the "Sunny Scenic South-
land" from personally conducted electric cars. The moun-
tains and the sea, Hollywood, bright year-around flower
32
gardens and prodigious orchards were all served by Pacific
Electric. Here, it seemed to the young railroader from
Iowa, was a veritable Eldorado, Bedwell chose to remain
with PE for nearly two decades. He liked the railway, the
country, the people.
After two years as assistant agent in San Pedro, Bedwell
went in the same capacity to the Quaker community of
Whittier. He brought his mother to California and she
lived in Whittier or its vicinity until her death in 1921.
During this period he married Ellen Hart Talbot, the
daughter of a prosperous southern family. A good cook
and a fine housekeeper, "Ellie," as she was usually called,
fitted into his life naturally and gracefully.
Whittier, fifteen miles from Los Angeles by trolley, in
those days was a conservative, self-contained college town
of 4,550 people. Bedwell characterized it as:
". . . an attractive little city spread on a slope of the
Puente Hills, surrounded by citrus groves, with oil-well
derricks sprouting from the upper reaches .... It had a
busy station with an assistant, a ticket clerk, a warehouse-
man and an express driver to help."
Pacific Electric operated 60 daily trains, on a 45-
minute average headway, running up to the one-story
wooden passenger depot at Philadelphia and Comstock
streets. The ticket office and waiting room occupied half
of a large storeroom, whereas the remainder was given
over to a fountain and magazine stand operated by Horace
E. Rosenthal. Known as "Rosy," the popular merchant
is still in business (1959) in the same building.
The Whittier branch veered from the La Habra-Yorba
Linda line at Los Nietos. Before widespread use of auto-
mobile and bus, the ponderous red cars were a familiar
part of the Whittier scene. Usually the sturdy, square-end,
monitor roof vehicles of the 800-class with a balancing
speed of 50 miles per hour, made the Whittier run. (One
of these historic cars is preserved today in "Travel Town,"
Los Angeles's city transportation exhibit in Griffith Park.)
33
To be sure, the interurban never had quite the romance
of steam railroading. Yet the high-speed electric railway
had a fascination all its own. Many of the employees were
old heads experienced men who had held down import-
ant positions on other roads but had given those up to
live in California. They knew their work, so there was
no need to throw their weight around to cover up for
lack of ability. Bedwell fitted into this situation admirably,
for he was a hard-worker and a competent, reliable rail-
roader. In 1913, when still a young man, he was promoted
to agent at Whittier. The agency was lucrative, chiefly
because of a heavy express business, on which the agent
received a liberal commission apart from his PE salary.
So long as there were no complaints and the work was
properly done the front office in Los Angeles was content
to let well enough alone. Indeed, when Pete Groftholdt,
an elderly Dane attached to the President's Office as a
trouble shooter, came out to "look things over" Bedwell
and he sometimes took the afternoon off and played golf.
Another friend of Bedwell's was Oliver Crook, a local
man and an avid golfer.
Bedwell, who was not averse to taking a drink now and
then, never let National Prohibition stand in his way.
Ralph McMichael, the assistant agent, recalls with a
chuckle how his boss used to keep a jug of white mule
hidden in the back room of the station. All went well
until McMichael discovered the liquor and took a few
swigs himself. To avoid detection he filled the jug up to
its previous level with water. Then Bedwell complained
to his bootlegger, who was also a PE mechanic, about
the poor quality of his product. Sensing something was
amiss the vendor began "sounding out" McMichael. The
bootlegger said he sometimes filled Harry's jug "out of
kindness to an old friend," etc., but was told the white
mule had mysteriously lost its "kick." McMichael showed
surprise and said he hadn't "noted a thing." After more
verbal sparring the illicit purveyor made the assistant
34
agent a proposition: if McMichael would keep an eye on
the jug and see that no unauthorized person got into it,
he would slip him a half-pint at intervals. The offer was
immediately accepted. Thereafter there were no further
complaints on the quality or strength of the white mule.
Despite BedwelTs "work at the jug" McMichael adds
that he never showed the slightest indication of tippling
and was always courteous and efficient in his work and
in his contacts with the public. On the contrary, Mc-
Michael, who is now a Southern Pacific official, looked
up to him as being a model railroader. He learned station-
accounting, good work habits and how to shoulder
responsibility from Bedwell all of which paved the way
for future advancement. Let it also be emphasized that
Bedwell was not a lush, and he was never known to be
under the influence of intoxicating liquors while on the
job, either with PE or elsewhere.
In 1910 Bedwell had his second story in Railroad
Man's Magazine, and the following year he placed a two-
part serial in that periodical. Nineteen-eleven also saw
his short story about a boomer switchman, called "The
'Snake,'" in the "slick-paper," Harper's Weekly. There
was little doubt that he was becoming as competent in
writing as he was in raikoading. Moreover, his metier
seemed to be raikoading on two counts: that in fiction
and in actuality. He showed a decided aptitude in trans-
lating his own experiences into gripping stories and
novelettes. This early work gave indications of promise
but lacked the smoothness and polish which characterized
his later productions. His insight into the character and
philosophy of raikoad men was apparent although not
pronounced. And yet even his lighter pieces show indubi-
table authenticity. Bedwell was ever an honest writer, as
he was a person, devoid of show and pretense.
A significant turning point in his writing career occurred
when he created a tall, wiry, red-headed telegrapher called
Eddie Sand. The fkst story featuring that genial pilgrim
35
of the rails was "The Lightning that was Struck," in
Short Stories, May 11, 1927. In a letter to the writer
Bedwell related how the editor, Harry Maule, "said he
liked it fine all right, but it wasn't railroading!"
According to Eddie Sand's originator, the roving
boomer with the carrot-top is a composite picture of many
peripatetic railroad men and especially Charley Duffey
from Sullivan, Indiana. Those who know Bedwell, never-
theless, insist that there is much of Harry Bedwell in
Mr. Sand.
In the first paragraph of the story one gets a telling
picture of the hero:
Being a telegrapher of great skill, Eddie Sand
had developed independence of thought and a habit
of moving freely about over the face of the land.
Men of the craft class such as "boomers" because
you seldom see them twice in the same place, unless
you take a second look shortly after the first. Even
then you may only see them going out and slamming
the door.
Later Bedwell brings in Barabe, the superintendent,
who likewise appears in subsequent tales.
Barabe was a strong, heavy-set man, ponderously
quick in his movements. He had a mind like a steel
trap, and he knew his business. He was a veteran of
the railroad game, and was quick to pick a man with
railroad sense and training. He liked Eddie Sand's
cool carelessness, and the bright gray of his eyes
that showed an unmoved nerve.
Actually, the novelette is a picaresque adventure-story
with western and mystery leavening. Eddie Sand's adver-
sary is a renegade dispatcher and outlaw known as
"Lightning-flash." The setting is in California and Mexico.
36
Speaking of writer-railroaders, it is a coincidence that
during the time Bedwell was penning his "shorts," the
president of Pacific Electric, Paul Shoup, began assembling
his own stories and tales for book publication. Under
the title of Side Tracks from the Main Line, issued in a
privately-printed volume during 1924, Shoup had several
rail stories along with other sketches. The PE head, like
his Whittier agent, was once a telegraph operator. But it
is doubtful if each knew the other had written raikoad
fiction. A little more sleuthing on the subject brings to
light that PE once had a gateman at the Main Street
Station who later excelled in writing mysteries. His name
was Willard Huntington Wright, better known as S. S.
Van Dine.
Bedwell's eighteen-year stay in Whittier with Pacific
Electric was a happy period in his life. He worked closely
with the Southern Pacific ticket seller, Charles Sterling
Wallace, in that friendly community. The two became
fast friends. Both had a deep interest in books and litera-
ture, and Wallace likewise had marketed short stories.
In contrast to the six feet, l l /2 inch height of the Iowa-
born agent, the SP man was a stocky five-feet-five; was
a successful amateur wrestler; but was not addicted to
reading railroad yarns. This sidelight is germane in that
Eddie Sand's most admired friend was an "op" named
"Wallace Sterling." All that was fine and grand, not to
say mischievous, is imputed in the "fictional" Walley. In
passing, it may be added that Charles S. Wallace wrote a
book-length story which won honorable mention in a
Mary Roberts Rinehart Mystery Novel Contest. Embodied
in a volume called Three Prize Murders, the novel centers
on bus operation, with much the same fidelity that Bedwell
bestowed on railroading.
Bedwell and Wallace enjoyed working together to the
satisfaction of the company, and having a little fun in the
bargain. The five-day-week was, of course, far in the
future. Nor were Saturdays half-day. Since PE was owned
37
by Southern Pacific, the two railroaders' duties overlapped
To put it stronger, with Bedwell and Wallace working as
a team, their duties sometimes turned out to be identical.
Ergo, if Wallace wanted to see all the Whittier College
home football games (which he did) appropriate arrange-
ments were made with Bedwell to represent the SP.
Conversely, when Bedwell wanted to get off early to go to
his beach house in Belmont Shore, a subdivision of Long
Beach, Wallace was pro tern the official representative of
PE. But for the most part they put in long days on duty,
and around Christmas they worked from twelve to four-
teen hours a day.
If Harry Bedwell endowed his "fictional" Walley with
a sixth sense almost to the point of being a soothsayer,
the Wallace who worked beside him at the ticket counter
was not so favored. The shoe was often on the other foot.
In truth Charlie Wallace never knew by what form of
clairvoyance Bedwell got results, when he and others
could not. To cite one instance:
Every spring the Whittier News ran a BEAUTIFY
YOUR CITY campaign. For years attempts were made
to get the railway to clean up its grounds by the freight
house on the outskirts of town. Scathing editorials were
written, and letters deluged the paper. Marked copies of
these items were sent to the PE officials who apparently
were not in the least concerned. The sniping by the press
continued and always with the same result: nothing
happened.
One day in desperation Wallace asked Bedwell to
request a lawn mower when the latter was making out
the material requisitions. The SP ticket seller was new
to Whittier and camped in the unused front office of the
freight house. The single hotel left much to be desired
in cleanliness, hence the temporary abode of the new
man. Wallace told the PE agent he would gladly cut the
grass and mow the weeds in front of his "home." The
requisition went in, but no mower came out. That, in
light of past experience, was to be expected.
38
Not long afterward the superintendent passed by and
dropped in to have a talk with Bedwell. He was not only
the Whittier agent's superior but a personal friend as
well. The official casually mentioned the lawn mower
and showed some curiosity as to why it was needed.
Bedwell explained the situation, and no more was said.
Next day out came the lawn mower together with rakes,
hoes, shovels and hose. The day following came a whole
landscaping crew. They rolled and graded and planted
until the freight yard was a thing of beauty. And all for
the request of one lawn mower!
About 1920 Harry Bedwell and Ellie moved to their
"ranch" at McCampbell station, just west of Rivera.
Their front gate, of what we would now call a semi-
sustaining acre, opened onto the PE tracks. By taking
the Big Red Car, Bedwell could be at work in the Whittier
depot in a matter of minutes. His mother, however, con-
tinued to live alone on West Philadelphia Street in
Whittier. Bedwell was very solicitous about her, calling
by phone daily and making frequent visits.
From all accounts the PE agent made friends easily,
seldom lost his temper, and never seemed impatient or
harried. He appeared poised and relaxed whatever the
company in section house, night club or parlor. He
could talk with equal ease to section men, farmers or
millionaires. Meticulous in dress and personal appearance,
the slender, well-groomed interurban representative be-
came a familiar figure in the college town.
Charles Wallace tells of an incident showing Bedwell's
popularity and at the same time indicating the wide
variety of the agent's customers. A shabbily dressed man
came into the station to reserve a drawing room to New
York. Wallace waited on him. Feeling sorry for a man so
poorly dressed with apparently limited means, he tried to
explain the comfort and convenience of a tourist car.
Traveling "tourist" was very economical and you could
carry your lunch in the car. At this point Bedwell inter-
39
rupted to introduce the stranger to Wallace and also to
explain that the gentleman always took a drawing room
on the best train.
When the "space" was procured and the man left,
Bedwell told his understudy the shoddy-looking individual
had once been his mailman. The postman had wanted a
home but could not afford Whittier prices, so he settled
for a few acres of sand and weeds nearby. The land turned
out to be right in the middle of the Santa Fe Springs oil
field. As a result of his purchase he became a millionaire.
The Southern Pacific would have gladly sent out a special
representative to take care of his travel needs but he
always went to Bedwell for old times sake. Besides he
had a feeling his old friend knew more about getting the
proper accommodations than did the "higher ups" in the
Los Angeles office.
Meanwhile, the Talbots, BedwelTs in-laws, had been
wanting him to go into business. With his knowledge of
bookkeeping and managerial ability they felt he would
make a competent executive. Although he disliked the
idea of working with relatives and really enjoyed rail-
roading, their offer was tempting. In the end he capitu-
lated. He gave up his PE agency in 1927 and was
subsequently made general manager of a fair-sized
bottling works in Los Angeles, called Dorado Club Bev-
erages. The firm had been losing money, but under
BedwelTs management it was soon in the black.
The depression, however, knocked the whole picture
out of focus. Richfield Oil, which one of the Talbots
headed, went into receivership. This jeopardized the other
interests of the family, including Dorado Club. And
Bedwell was out of a job. He also lost heavily in mort-
gaging real estate to help his relatives stave off disaster.
On top of this his wife died in 1934. The couple had no
children.
Los Angeles was a bedlam of bankruptcies, widespread
unemployment and general chaos. The rampant prosperity
40
and reckless inflation of the twenties came to a sudden and
gloomy end the autumn of 1929, Bedwell wanted to get
away from it all He sought peace and quiet. He urgently
needed a rest. After that he would turn to full-time writing,
more as a source of livelihood than as an avocation.
IV
RAILROAD WRITER
After the death of ElJie, Bedwell found sanctuary by
retiring to a small cottage near Alpine in San Diego
County. Situated twenty-five miles northeast of San
Diego on a large tract of land, it overlooked mountain
peaks and ridges. The house had a combination garage
and studio. The latter, being of knotty pine, served as
an admirable study.
During this period of semi-retirement Bedwell began
writing in earnest. Success came in a bound with the pub-
lication of "Imperial Pass" in The Saturday Evening Post,
January 13, 1934. This is a tale of a runaway train on a
mountain railroad. It took only one domineering and
inexperienced trainmaster to make trouble but several
seasoned crewmen to keep his poor judgement from
endangering life and property. The selection was the first
of nine railroad stories to appear under his by-line in
that popular weekly.
It was not until July that he placed another manu-
script. In this article Bedwell collaborated with his friend
Gordon Montgomery in telling the latter's experience
involving an oil well which caught fire in Venezuela. The
prize-story, called "The Lake of Fire,** in Bluebook
Magazine, netted the writers a modest $50.
Bedwell made his re-entry into Railroad with "A Man
Who Could Handle Trains" in November, 1936. Freeman
H. Hubbard, editor of that magazine, quickly realized the
potential literary merit of the newcomer and from that
time on actively solicited his stories.
42
Hubbard liked the sound operational details of his
yarns, but what captivated him the most were the warm,
homespun pictures of rural American life. Passages like:
"Indian summer had come to the prairies, and a
tranquil hush was on that bright land. River smells
floated through the trees. The air was like fragile
silk."
Better still is the account of the arrival of the evening
train:
Twenty-two, the 6:45 eastbound local passenger
train, was about due. Station and platform began to
hum and bustle with people, town and country folk
in search of diversion in the idle hours after the five
o'clock supper. Girls gathered in groups and chat-
tered. In the bare space between sidings, men and
boys played catch and pitched horseshoes. The editor
of the Auburn Weekly Enterprise was on hand taking
notes for his next issue. Laughter and guffaws ran
through the crowd.
Meanwhile the station force worked like a dex-
terous machine. Madden [the agent] answered the
wire and the telephone . . . Roy Dent [the clerk] sold
tickets, gave information, and delivered and received
express shipments. Eldon [the student operator] jug-
gled baggage and express on the platform.
The hack came from the hotel and the drayman
brought a load of drummer's sample trunks. The
pitch of excitement climbed as engine smoke smudged
the sunset. Human beings on the lower platform
milled and scattered. The train clanged in slowly,
tainting the lifeless air with its sharp scent. A brake-
man leaned from the car door and waved the engineer
to a stop with the combination baggage, express and
mail coach spotted at the freight platform.
43
Eldon loaded three sacks of mail and received
four in return. He trudged away at once to the post
office with the sacks on his back.
The clerk and the brakeman shoved the gang
plank across to the combination car and began
carrying out machinery parts, packages and suit-
cases, and rolling trunks to the platform. The agent
and the messenger exchanged receipts for valuable
packages. Then with the help of them all, and the
undertaker who had come to receive it, they carried
out a corpse in a great wooden box. The noise of the
crowd was suddenly hushed to a murmur.
The clerk and the brakeman began rapidly loading
the outbound goods that Eldon had accumulated on
the platform ten gallon cans of milk and all the
baggage and express that Auburn was forwarding for
that day.
"All aboard!" the conductor barked, raising his
hand as Dent and the brakeman sprang to the lower
platform and pushed the gangplank clear.
The engine's bell tolled, and Twenty-two clanked
and chuffed into the twilight.
The crowd broke into sections. The elders trailed
toward the square and the post office to await the
distribution of the mail. Boys and girls mingled and
strolled off in couples through the shaded twilight.
The above passages are from "The Careless Road."
They could well have come out of Willa Gather's novels
except for their very detailed railroad description.
Bedwell nearly always had his story-settings in rural
locales. He himself worked in small and often inaccessible
towns and hamlets. His world was closely linked with the
pot-bellied stove and village depot. Later he featured
diesels and centralized traffic control. Yet many of his
stories are period-pieces concerning the day of the horse
and buggy or shortly thereafter. Most of his best tales
44
contain nostalgic memories of this more leisurely era when
the Iron Horse meant so much to grass-roots America.
Having returned to Railroad, Bedwell hit his stride;
and in 1939 eight of his short stories or- novelettes had
appeared in that unique periodical within a twelfthmonth.
All told, his contributions to that magazine total 35, of
which only three were non-fiction. Written and read
primarily by those who run trains, line tracks and issue
train orders, Railroad is a Carl Sandburg type of maga-
zine. Because of its singular contribution to the folkways
of railroading, in which Bedwell played a leading role, a
brief sketch of the publication is in order.
Founded in October, 1906, its bright red cover was
familiar to railroad men until it merged with Argosy in
January, 1919. Revived in December, 1929, the name
was changed to Railroad Stories with the March, 1932,
issue and again to Railroad Magazine in September, 1937.
When Bedwell first started writing for it J. E. Smith's
philosophical-fiction series on "The Observations of a
Country Station Agent" and Emmet F. Harte's "Honk
and Horace" tales were very popular. In addition, Robert
Fulkerson Hoffman contributed many short stories, and
there were features of varying merit along with railroad
verse. At that time it was edited by Robert Mackay.
The revival of the magazine at the onset of the depres-
sion did much to provide a market for writers specializing
in rail fiction. Indeed, after World War I, authentic short
stories on the industry, barring a few notable exceptions,
were almost non-existent. Railroad, however, gave en-
couragement to such "fictioneers" as E. S. Bellinger,
probably America's most prolific rail short-story writer,
and to Charles W. Tyler, John Johns, James W. Earp,
Don Waters, and others. It also featured rich local color
reminiscences of yesteryear's railroading as seen through
the eyes of Harry K. McClintock and William F. Knapke.
And it, of course, fostered the work of Harry Bedwell, by
all odds the most gifted railroad short-story author to
appear regularly in its pages.
45
Nor were its contributors limited to "railroad writers"
as such. John T. Winterich, the distinguished bibliophile,
had story and verse; and Alvin F. Harlow, the popular
historian, regularly wrote features for the old Railroad
Man's Magazine. One also sees the names of the icono-
clastic H. L. Mencken and his theater-critic, associate,
George Jean Nathan, in the early yellowing pages. In
current years by-lines of Senator Richard E. Neuberger
and the equally prolific Stewart H. Holbrook have
appeared.
The author must confess his earliest published manu-
script ran in Railroad. While taking English courses at
the State University of Iowa in the summer of 1937, the
author mentioned the fact to Frank Luther Mott, then
head of the School of Journalism. He likewise confided
his first published short story had appeared in that maga-
zine.
"Do they still have that contract on the back of their
checks stating the author renounces all rights and privi-
leges upon endorsement in typewritten form?" the
scholarly dean queried with a grin.
"Yes," I replied, fondly recalling my earliest writer's
check.
It may be added this typed-statement was superseded
by a stamped notice around the time Popular Publications
purchased the magazine from the Frank A. Munsey
Company.
In writing for Railroad, Bedwell added stature to his
hero Eddie Sand. Born, as previously noted, in Short
Stories, the affable, independent, devil-may-care boomer
appeared in the majority of his tales. Eddie somehow
always came out on the winning side. Ever a likeable
"brass pounder," honest, competent and cocky, he en-
deared himself to readers. To a small degree Eddie Sand
became to railroad fiction what Casey Jones became to
folksong and John Henry to Negro folkways.
While Eddie was always top dog in Bedwell's railroad
46
fraternity, other strong characters were taking shape.
There was Walley Sterling, who flitted in and out of
stories, sometimes as dispatcher, more often as "op"
and one of the best. Other leading personages were Hi
Wheeler, a boomer brakeman, and Mel Hatch, another
"stinger," late of the farm. Somewhere along the line
one encountered the redoubtable Andy Sharp, locomotive
engineer, and two irascable conductors; "Galloping"
Gunderson and "Scrap Iron" Hawkins. On the managerial
level there was President Henry Hewitt Nickerson, better
known as Salt-and-Molasses Nickerson, revered by his
men, respected by Ms rivals, yet as plain as the proverbial
shoe. Of superintendents good, bad or unclassified were
the genial Welby, the wild Hibernian O'Conner, and the
martinet Buck Barabe. Finally, the roll call included a
wide range of trainmasters, from the seasoned "Clinker"
Ward to the rodent-faced Neff, with character in kind.
All these men and many rhore "railroaded" on the never-
never pikes of BedwelTs imagination.
There were women, too, but they usually played minor
roles. They were not as sharply drawn as the male charac-
ters, nor as real. Railroading to Harry Bedwell was
essentially a man's calling, and what love interest he
added was secondary.
Among the more popular stories published in Railroad
during this period were "Sun and Silence," "With the
Wires Down," and "In Search of the Sun." He also wrote
two yarns reminiscent of his interurban railroad days,
called "Pacific Electric" and "Tower Man." The former
relates how Eddie Sand on his own initiative provided
shuttle service from Whittier to Los Nietos during a
severe flood. Although the line was washed out west of
Los Nietos, connections were made with the Santa Fe
trains at that point for the remainder of the trip to Los
Angeles. This temporary expedient is said to have actually
occurred with BedwelTs inaugurating the emergency
shuttle. The second "juice" story has Eddie Sand in Watts
47
Tower preventing a serious accident on the four-track
line and, at the same time, outwitting an obstreperous
trainmaster. It has some basis of truth but more of fiction.
While not his best works, these two titles have the virtue
of being among the very few stories concerning electric
railways.
It was not until late in 1940 that Bedwell's second Post
story appeared. Titled "Snow on the Higji Iron," the tale
concerns a locomotive engineer who "lost his nerve" only
to find it in the teeth of a blizzard. The next year saw two
more Bedwell stories in that magazine. "Smart Boomer,"
which appeared in March, is Eddie Sand at his best; and
"Pass to Seattle," run in October, simply added to the
boomer's fame. The latter deals with such technical
obfuscations as "The Dutch Drop and the Two-Legged
Order" (which was its original title until changed by
Post editors), known to railroad men and no others. But
that's explained in the story.
While in Alpine Bedwell used to see Henry Herbert
Knibbs, who spent his last years in San Diego County.
Knibbs's novels and verse-narratives of the old West
were in vogue earlier in the century. In his varied career
the "Western" writer had clerked for the Lehigh Valley
and the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh, making him an
ex-railroader of sorts. Then, too, Knibbs was a close
friend of the late Frank H. Spearman, who wrote railroad
novels, short stories and other "Westerns." Apart from
this, Knibbs was a remarkable old gentleman, given to
spinning cowboy tales, which were to Bedwell's liking.
During the Depression Bedwell continued to keep in
contact with his friend, Wallace, who was then employed
by Pacific Greyhound in the Modesto bus station. When
an opening occurred, Wallace notified Bedwell; and the
two were again working side by side. Later Bedwell
became Greyhound's assistant agent at Modesto and sub-
sequently agent at Santa Cruz. But he was a railroader at
heart and afterwards resigned. He longed to get back on
the "high iron."
48
On May 13, 1940, BedweU married Lorraine Richard-
son. Coming from a railroad family, with one brother who
was locomotive engineer on the Pennsylvania and another
a conductor on the same road, Lorraine had much in
common with her husband. She liked him because of his
interest in writing, literature and life, but most of all
because he was "a magnet of charm and graciousness in
a down-to-earth manner." Both were fond of pets, and
many a lost dog found asylum in the BedweU household.
The couple made their home near Alpine, naming their
house "Lorwell," a combination of part of her given name
and his surname.
In 1941 BedweU traveled over nearly all of the Denver
& Rio Grande Western system as a guest of the trustees,
Judge Wilson McCarthy and Henry Swan. He was to do
some writing on the road. The Rio Grande men, described
by Bedwell as "a robust bunch of fellows . . . easy to like,"
brought back memories of when he was a young, lanky
"op" for that road in Utah, Very little, however, came
out of the extensive trip. Indeed, hardly had he returned
to Alpine when war was declared on Japan, and the
country desperately needed skilled railroad men regardless
of age or seniority.
The Southern Pacific called him back to work. Like a
good railroader he answered the call.
V
SOFT METAL MAM
Early in 1942 Harry Bedwell was back on the railroad,
one of the old Soft Metal Gang. These men, with "silver
in their hair, gold in their teeth and lead in their pants,"
as he put it, had come out of retirement. They gladly
pitched in during the manpower shortage to keep the trains
moving while the nation was at war.
BedwelTs first assignment was at Norwalk, near Los
Angeles, on a Southern Pacific branch line. While in the
midst of catching up on overdue reports, Bedwell went
to the phone to answer a call from Vic Carroll, the chief
traveling auditor. The last time the auditor had checked
him was at Whittier station before BedwelTs retirement.
Vic queried him as to what he had been doing when "off
the railroad."
Bedwell promptly replied, "Just as damn little as I
possibly could!"
Vic came back with: "Brother, you're not doing that
now!"
There was plenty of work to do but no train orders to
copy. The abstracting, revising and billing was far behind
due to the regular man's having been sick and the
crowding of rails with war-shipments. This meant the new
relief agent hadn't much time for sleep.
BedwelTs reemployment on the SP is thinly veiled in
"The Return of Eddie Sand," one of several short stories
on war-time and post-war experiences. The setting of the
tale corresponds in many particulars to the actual back-
ground of Norwalk.
50
Next he went to Glamis, where he had issued his last
train order thirty-five years before. He sat down at the
same telegraph table and began "sending" over the Morse
wire exactly where he had left off at age nineteen. In
contrast to the Glamis that he knew as a young man the
town was now alive with military personnel. General
George Patton's army was training there on the Colorado
and Mojave deserts, and they made Glamis a supply dump
for their maneuvers and sham battles. The Air Force
frequently bombed the community with sacked flour.
One-hundred car freight trains crawled out of sidings and
onto the next. Crews "died" on the "hog law" (the Federal
sixteen-hour law limiting the time train and enginemen
can work without having eight hours rest), and "block
busters" were sent out of San Francisco to get them
through the Yuma Yard. You get a nostalgic picture of
Bedwell as one of the old Soft Metal Gang in Ms two-part
novelette "Desert Job."
Back at work memories of his earlier years at lonely
depots came floating through his mind like kaleidescopic
pictures.
"Little, old, battered, telegraph stations under the
eternal frown of dark peaks, with Moguls stamping
solemnly on the grade. Headlights along the glittering
ribbon of steel, crowded close under the bluffs, with the
river smells heavy in the night. The restless lights and
ceaseless turmoil of great terminal yards. Lonely tricks,
at the tag end of night, when the stars died quietly and
the gallant challenge of a hotshot was flung across the
prairies to salute the dawn."
How railroading had changed in a quarter of a century!
Eddie Sand finds (in the story) that the telephone has
supplanted the "key" in sending train orders. His stylus,
which he had saved all these years, is regarded as "quaint"
by the little first-trick female Mexican operator. She
knows only a smattering of Morse, picked up in a tele-
graph school in Los Angeles. But when a violent dust
51
storm puts the telephone out of commission the old timer
has his inning and manages to keep the trains running
with the key.
Coming back from story to reality, one finds Bedwell
working at numerous stations on the main line of the SP
between Los Angeles and Yuma; also at Calexico. At
the latter town, on the Mexican boundary line, he saw
many "wetbacks," or "border jumpers" so vividly de-
scribed in "Night of Plunder." In boiling down the original
eighty-page manuscript of the story, the Post editors took
out some of the parts which had given the Mexican "wet-
backs" more sympathetic treatment than in the edited
version. As a result Bedwell received threatening letters
from across the border protesting against the way he por-
trayed the Mexican nationals in the story. "It looked for
a time as if it were going to cause an international inci-
dent," Bedwell wrote to the writer. He also had corres-
pondence "from a conspirator" who tried to ring him in
on a revolution that was brewing down there at that time.
"But I ducked out of that one," he commented.
While serving as relief operator at stations on the desert
and frequently moving from place to place, he left his
wife on the West Coast until some permanance of locale
was assured. One day at Glamis the temperature in the
drab, wooden depot reached 127, the highest his ther-
mometer would go.
The isolation of Bertram, a tiny station on the Salton
Sea, was described in his letter to William Knapke:
"... a lone yellow telegraph office set on the sand with
the rails and the sea before it, the dun-colored desert
sloping down from behind. The trains slammed by, seldom
stopping, and then the silence would come back and the
sun shine furiously or the stars would wink impudently.
Nothing else except you waited long enough and there did
seem to be something. Something that came in, out of the
silence, that you could almost touch, only those who did
touch it, they sent away and didn't let them come back!"
52
Through it all Bedwell never lost his sense of humor,
his ability to laugh at himself and with others. Rarely did
he laugh at others. He had too much humility and for-
bearance to find merriment at the expense of someone
else. But he liked to relate droll incidents, even when they
concerned himself. For example: When first stationed
along the Salton Sea, he wrote Lorraine about the recep-
tion he received.
"What's your name?" growled the first trick dispatcher.
"Bedwell," came the reply.
"Oh," the veteran DS (dispatcher) exclaimed, "I was
in jail with a Bedwell once and a very good criminal he
was, too!"
There was scarcely a letter his wife received which did
not reflect his love for animals. The following is typical:
"... I'm just belatedly reminded that I haven't
mentioned the most important individual in our com-
munity. He has just called to take me home. He is
Buster, an elderly shepherd dog, and a very amiable
gentleman. He calls at the station at one in the
morning to escort Geer [another operator] home.
He's at my door early in the morning, and if I don't
get up when he thinks I should, he warns me. Then
he takes me to work, and he stays around till he is
sure everything is going nicely ... He dives into the
Sea [Salton Sea] to chase the helldivers. A very
fierce dog in the Dusty [name of a beautiful Labra-
dor retriever which the Bedwells once owned] man-
ner all sound and fury, with a twinkle in the eye
... So, as I call him as my best friend here, I had
to add this."
From the Salton Sea Bedwell worked back again toward
San Bernardino and ultimately to Los Angeles. While he
was stationed at Garnet, about 55 miles southeast of San
"Berdoo," the inroads of automation were poignantly
53
brought home to Mm. Issuing train orders from the little
frame depot flanked by palmetto trees, he heard rumors
of Centralized Traffic Control being extended southeast
from San Bernardino.
CTC, it may be explained, is a method of electronic
operation controlled by a person sitting in front of a large
panel. On this panel are levers surmounted by tiny light
bulbs. When a train is in the district the bulbs light,
showing its exact location. By merely flicking a few
levers the CTC operator sets signals and switches so that
trains can safely meet without other human intervention.
When CTC comes in, the old fashioned train-operator
goes out. No more are tissues, or "flimsies," with their
blunt directives to "C & E" (Conductor and Engineer)
required. Train orders are verboten. Locomotive engineers
proceed entirely by signals which may be actuated by a
CTC operator in a tower a hundred miles away.
Soon rumors became fact. CTC was on the march. El
Casco ceased to be a train-order station. Next, Beaumont
operators were relieved. CTC moved on relentlessly
through Banning to Palm Springs station as more "ops"
got the ax. Finally it came to Garnet. Its side track was
lined with outfit cars and workmen. Then one day Bedwell
received the following message over the wire:
"Protect second trick Calexico four p. m. tomorrow."
At eight o'clock in the morning CTC took over and
Bedwell was on his way to a new assignment.
Later Bedwell saw duty on the SP's Coast Line between
Los Angeles and San Francisco. While living in Ventura
he was only a few feet from the blue Pacific. Here he
loved to watch the red-and-yellow Daylights speed by,
making the setting, at least for him, worthy of a Rem-
brandt. In protecting these assignments, he and his wife
generally lived in a trailer.
Shortly after he went back to raikoading in 1942, he
had his first and only book published. Titled The Boomer,
the novel is actually seven short stories rewritten and tied
54
together to make one harmonious whole. It received most
favorable reviews. The New York Times hailed the book's
hero, Eddie Sand, as "an upstanding, lovable fellow, a
legend among railroad men" and called the novel "A
pleasant, readable story, dealing knowledgeably with a
world one knows little about, and not without thrill and
adventure." The Herald Tribune exuberantly proclaimed
it "an exciting yarn in sinewy prose about brakemen and
engineers and telegraphers . . . Eddie Sand is a genuine
and winning character ... It has almost everything except
sound effects by Richard Gardiner."
The novel was reprinted (106,000 copies) in a pocket-
sized edition for the armed forces. Bedwell was proud of
his Iowa background, and the volume has many flashbacks
to his early years in Iowa and Missouri. Consider, for
example:
Eddie had come out of the prairies, learned the
trade "hamming" about a country station, and was
being moved from station to station as relief man
on the line along the Missouri River, a green boy of
sixteen who had arbitrarily added two years to his
age to get a job, a rebel kid who would fight for his
rights with impatient, willful alacrity, wide-eyed at all
the world; a good operator, lacking only seasoning,
when they shoved him into the St. Joe yard office,
a hot telegraph job. The pressure here was intense,
you worked with the fastest in the craft, and a kid
might have fallen down for lack of confidence.
That's Harry Bedwell mirrored in Eddie Sand.
Again, his homespun description of caboose ride is
tip-top Americana, if not "lowana."
The busy speed and the stubborn, muffled rumble
of the moving train made you feel tucked-in. You
felt at home in a caboose, the way you do in a farm-
55
house kitchen. The ghosts of a thousand sturdy
meals, ingeniously cooked by trainmen on the small
round top of the drum-bellied heating stove, were
faintly there among the shadows. There were smells
of a dozen brands of tobacco, some of them with a
range of forty yards, but all mellowed by time and
the milder mixtures of old leather upholstery and
signal oil. It was a snug, tight feeling, with the wash
of the rain at the little windows and the brisk rhythm
of the wheels clicking at the rail-joints. Dim lamps in
brackets and lanterns, red and white, by the back
door. Above, in the cupola, the faint outline of the
rear brakeman, lounging there on lookout. The high
wail of the engine's whistle trickled back, a thin
challenge.
It is hard to liken Bedwell to other Hawkeye writers,
simply because he wrote entirely on railroads. One can,
however, point out certain regional characteristics common
to Phil Stong's Village Tale. Stong's "Kaydee," moseying
along the 166-mile Rock Island line between Keokuk
and Des Moines, has the local color of a Bedwell setting.
Indeed, the "Six-Forty-Five" meant as much to the folks
of "Brunswick" as the old depot and local trains did to
Bedwell and other Kellertonians at the beginning of the
century. But BedwelTs salty, carefree railroaders, crafts-
men in their own right, bear a much stronger resemblance
to the lusty railroad linemen in William Wister Haines's
Slim and High Tension. Des Moines-born, Haines makes
his pole-climbing individualists have the same clear ring
as Eddie Sand, Hi Wheeler, Mel Hatch, Walley Sterling,
to mention a few of the characters in BedwelTs yarns. This
is not surprising, for both authors participated in the work
they portray, and have the happy faculty of putting their
experiences into story. Their expressions are pat, pertinent
and genuine. Their nomenclature is dictionary-clear to
those in the industry and is part of the woof and weave of
their calling.
56
Railroaders, like linemen, have their own lingo. The
boomer in particular has a saltiness and felicity of expres-
sion peculiar to railroading. His jargon is part of the folk-
ways of railroading. It is simple, picturesque and colorful.
Raikoad men, especially those out on the line, seldom
have much formal education. But many have innate intel-
ligence of a high order coupled with independence of
thought, a strong sense of humor and earthy figures of
speech, unspoiled by an over abundance of learning. Their
thinking is uninhibited and direct. Apart from sailing,
probably no other calling has a more pungent language of
its own than does railroading. Perhaps we should say than
did railroading, for the passing of the boomer and the
coming of automation has made for less individuality of
expression. Even at that the heritage of the boomer lives
on wherever men pull throttles and flag trains.
Bedwell almost unconsciously brought out this pheno-
menon in his stories. It comes naturally in his writings,
as it did in the fictional yarns of A. W. Somerville or the
true tales of Harry McClintock. These turns of expression
and "slanguage" were as much a part of the boomer as
his service letters. How many words the drifting brothers
coined is anybody's guess, but it is certain they constitute
the bulk of railroad slang. The itinerants were like bees
carrying pollen; they took the vernacular from one region
to plant it in another. Hence local expressions soon
became common terms among railroaders. Often they
combined certain permutations to germinate new words,
which they propagated and nurtured, thereby enriching
the folklore of railroading.
Anyone reading BedwelTs stories will soon come upon
such words as "crummies," "hogs" and "reefers," which
is to say, cabooses, locomotives and refrigerator cars.
Such bizarre personnel as "snakes," "stingers," "ashcats,"
"hoggers" and "skippers" are simply railroadese for
switchmen, brakeinen, firemen, locomotive engineers and
conductors. A superintendent or general manager on any-
57
body's railroad is, of course, the "Old Man," just as a
dispatcher is a "train delayer;" and even the layman knows
section men are called "gandy dancers." Slang if used
judiciously adds spice and color to authentic railroad
fiction. But overdone or wrongly placed, it appears
artificial, forced and "wooden." Nothing belies a spurious
railroad writer more than misplaced slang unless it is
deviation from the traditional practice of designating east-
bound trains in even numbers, and westbound in the odd.
In depicting the railroader, Bedwell always wrote as
one of the fraternity. Many of his readers were railroad
men; and at least one admirer, William A. Burke, Jr., a
telegraph operator for the Jersey Central Lines, became a
"brass pounder" after reading BedwelTs stories. Bedwell
was never a railroad fan as such, nor was he given to
studying locomotive rosters, engine-numbers or types of
valve gears. He left that to the master mechanic. He saw
railroading in its entirety, and he saw it whole. He could
say with Christopher Morley:
"Engines that go by steam
(For pistons and cranks,
Oh Lord, my thanks.)"
The steam locomotive was an integral part of his rail-
road mosaic when boomers "railroaded" in the grand
manner. To him that was self-evident. An engine was to
be appreciated, not analyzed. Nor did he delve into
minute details of raikoad history. On the other hand, he
liked history in its broader aspects in that it provided a
panorama of railroad development and national growth.
This was evinced in his being a charter member of the
Pacific Northwest Chapter of the National Railway His-
torical Society.
As a writer he showed some aspects of realism, but he
was primarily a romanticist. Railroading to him was not a
job; it was an adventure. He, like the late Edward Hunger-
58
ford, saw trains and all that goes with them in rosy-tinted
perspective. A prosaic railroad yard, for example, became
a sensuous and enchanted locale full of sounds and sights
and movement. Here is a typical word-picture from The
Boomer:
"The sounds of the iron highway came up from the
yard the clang of engine bells and the stamp of exhausts
and the solemn rumble of drawbars. A long, thin switch-
man on top of a rolling string of cars slid along the bright
sky, his arms extended, waving as graceful as a dancer.
A stock train clanked into the yard and sent up the faint
bleating of sheep. Far out on the prairie the limited
shouted her insolent warning. The restless traffic moved
with the minutes, day and night."
More than anything else Bedwell lamented the passing
of the boomers. "They were a restless breed," he soli-
loquized in his writings, "and their lives were high
adventure. They were the glory of railroading. They'd
split their last dime with you, or bust your nose if they
thought you needed it."
Only the boomers could roam over the nation's rail-
roads with jaunty indifference and yet have a fierce
loyalty for their craft. Good boomers kept their records
clean. They respected and sometimes admired the officers
under whom they worked but never wished to be of
their kind. As Eddie Sand expressed it (which is essentially
Bedwell himself) to desk-bound Superintendent Buck
Barabe:
"You've sat there for fourteen years," the boomer
mused. "And during all the while you've never
encountered much beyond this desk. All that interests
you comes and goes across that thirty-six square feet
of flat surface." His eyes drifted beyond the hot,
flickering flats. "You've never heard the Feather
River go raving mad down there a thousand feet
below the high iron. You've never listened to the
59
big jacks snarl coming up to Arkansas Junction,
where the line slips off to climb to Leadville. You
don't know the smell of magnolias on a wet night
down South, or the tang of the north woods when
they drip with the night fog."
VI
RAILROADING IN STORY
One can easily visualize Bedwell on the second trick at
some lonely station. He has OS'ed the last evening train;
the key is silent; and the pot-bellied stove cracks in the
dimly-lit waiting room. A cone of light shines on the table
where he sits with pencil in hand scribbling on a yellow
Western Union pad. He draws on his cigarette and then
leans back to meditate. Memories? Yes, a whole panorama
of them come sweeping through his mind. Back on the
"Q" for example . . .
He was nineteen when they sent him to a little town
along the Missouri River on the night trick. The depot
marked the end of a double track, to the south of which
extended but a single track. He recalls, as if it were only
yesterday, the dispatcher had put out a standing order to
"All Trains Southbound" notifying them of a broken
water spout. This spout was a few miles south of the
station where Bedwell worked, and to which he gave
the name "Rush" in an article. The faulty spout necessi-
tated trains going into a siding at Rush to get water. It
also meant southbound trains had to go out on the single
track and then back onto the siding.
On this memorable night No. 14, the southbound
passenger train, was late and the crew was in a hurry. They
had been accustomed to "the water spout order" and took
it for granted. But it so happened that Bedwell had another
61
order from the dispatcher instructing No. 14 to wait at
Rush for northbound passenger No. 19, which was running
an hour and thirty minutes behind time. The customary
procedure was for him to hand a copy of the standing
order to the engineer and another to the conductor as the
train went by. To save time, however, the crew had the
conductor get both copies of the order and, if it concerned
the faulty spout, the "skipper" would wave a "proceed"
signal to the head brakeman. Then the brakeman would
run ahead and open the switch. While the train pulled
out onto the single track, preparatory to backing into the
siding, the conductor would walk through the coaches.
Lastly, when they stopped for the rear brakeman to close
the switch, the conductor would alight and give the
engineer a copy of the order.
On this occasion the conductor on "14" came into the
station to sign the order as his train stopped. He read it
carefully, acknowledged it with his signature and inquired
as to when No. 19 would arrive. "She's coming over the
hill now," Bedwell replied, for he had seen the headlight
around the bend in the valley. The train could not be
seen again, however, until she was within about a hundred
yards of the depot. A grove of trees and stock pens
obstructed vision. Bedwell tore off two copies of the order
and handed them both to the conductor.
The conductor crammed one copy into his pocket and
carefully folded the other to give to the engineer. As the
"hogger" had no right to move until the agent gave him
a clearance of the "stop" semaphore, the conductor
paused to chat. Meanwhile, the engineer and brakeman,
thinking it was the same old "water spout order," did not
wait for the conductor's signal but started out onto the
single track line.
By a quirk of fate, Bedwell got up from the chair to
look out the big double windows. He espied the red
marker lights of No. 14 moving forward over the switch.
About the same time he saw a moving shaft of light over
62
the tree tops cast by No. 19. Over his face came an
expression of horror.
Railroaders are quick to read danger signals, and when
the conductor observed that look he dashed through the
doorway and ran along the track until he caught the end
of his train as it cleared the switch. Once on the car-
platform, he frantically pulled the signal cord and at the
same time called out to the rear brakeman to leave the
switch open and stand by it.
Slowly, very slowly, the train began backing into the
clear. The engineer, apparently, only had a vague idea
what was wrong.
Number 19 hove in sight from behind a clump of trees
like a one-eyed Cyclops. No. 14, meanwhile, had its
engine and baggage car still out on the single track. The
brakeman at the switch bravely calculated the distance
between the two trains with the spectre of death staring
him in the face. The engineers of both trains subsequently
went through the same close mental gymnastics and
stayed at their posts.
The "hogger" of No. 14 opened the throttle wider,
just enough to get maximum traction and not slip his
drivers. But the man on the right hand side of the cab
of No. 19 did not see the danger until he was close to the
other train. Then he "big-holed" her, as an emergency air
brake application is called. The brakeman at the switch
gripped the stand with both hands and tried not to be
afraid. During these seconds Bedwell had his eyes fixed
on the ghastly scene, eerily illuminated by the two bright
headlights. Number 14 barely pulled into the clear when
the alert brakeman threw the switch, shunting No. 19
by as the cylinders of the two engines came within inches
of hitting each other.
Bedwell leans forward, aroused from his reverie. Here
is just the thing he needed for that feature in The Amen-
63
can Magazine. He processed and polished the incident
under the flickering yellow ray of the lamp in the still of
night. Later he rewrote the pavid experience for the Post
story, "Smart Boomer." One will find Eddie Sand wit-
nessing very nearly the same circumstances but in a
different locale. Millions of Post readers noted its authentic
details, and BedwelTs name became synonymous with
sound stories of railroading by a railroader.
The above-pictured station-setting has its counterpart
in many flag-stops and village depots where Bedwell
worked from the time he started writing to his last agency
on the Southern Pacific. He preferred the night trick
because it provided the stillness and peace which he liked
and which are conducive to good writing.
This brings up the fascinating subject of how a writer
works, thinks, feels, lives.
Bedwell nearly always wrote his first draft in longhand.
Then he would type the copy, improvising, correcting and
editing as he went along. He did all his own typing. About
the only part Lorraine Bedwell played was to read the
manuscript for clarity. If some passages weren't clear
to her, they presumably wouldn't be clear to the Post
readers either. Then they would get together and thrash
out the garbled paragraphs and rewrite for clarity. Bedwell
believed in simplicity. He never used long, pedantic
words if shorter simpler ones would best convey his
thought.
He smoked incessantly when writing. A pack of
cigarettes went hand in hand with his pencil and paper.
He frequently drank tea as he worked over his MSS. In
the earlier period while with Pacific Electric he would
often walk across the room to "Rosy's" for a "Coke."
During these Whittier days he went at his writing just
as he did any railroad paper work. If there was a lull in
the office activity, be it morning, noon or evening, Bedwell
64
would bring out his story and work on it. In later years
he favored the morning hours as best conducive to writing.
Generally speaking, however, he went over his manu-
scripts as time permitted. He was never a temperamental
writer but wrote when and where he got the chance.
Bedwell took untold pains to revise and rewrite his
MSS. He would sometimes re-do a paragraph a dozen
times to bring out the proper meaning, color and setting.
Experience taught him, as it does all conscientious writers,
that one cannot be too careful in checking for accuracy.
Once he omitted a three-word phrase, "through the
siding," from a Post story; and he received over 70 letters
of protest from readers. "They read 'em over carefully,"
he chortled, "and they want their railroading correct!"
He admired competence, whether in writing or railroading;
and he himself was his hardest taskmaster.
Then there is the all-important question: can such a
thing happen?
One may have the talent of a Maupassant, but if his
short story is on railroads and his railroading is grossly
incorrect, he is damned. No railroad editor will buy his
writings. Raikoad men will shun his by-line. Even railroad
buffs will treat him as a pariah or a literary stuffed shirt.
That is why the expert railroader and the gifted writer
are seldom one and the same person. The one can "rail-
road" but can't write; the other can write but not "rail-
road." Rarely does a single individual have the two abili-
ties in a very high degree and in equal measure.
Harry Bedwell would buttonhole locomotive engineers,
conductors, brakeman, roadmasters . . . just about every
railroader who chanced to come into his office. He would
query each one as to the feasibility of a certain operation.
Could it be done the way he outlined it? Some said "yes,"
others "no." The older men were inclined to be skeptical,
whereas younger employees were prone to accept unusual
and thrilling maneuvers. Bedwell would not be satisfied
until he had talked with those "in the know." Often this
Frank Donovan photo
Bedwell's boyhood home in Keller-
ton as it looks today. It was here
that the local station agent, Dan
Cadagan, roomed.
Frank Donovan photo
Barn on the "Bedwell Place." Farm-
house where Harry Bedwell was
born is no longer standing.
A. J. Goodell Collection
Kellerton elementary and high school, where Harry Bedwell was educated.
Florence Whitson Collection
Kellerton Depot, where Bedwell
learned Morse in 1905. At that
time four daily passenger trains
were serving the town.
Frank Donovan photo
Leon, Iowa, where "Little Blue"
served as relief operator. Original
station is no longer standing.
Burlington Lines photo
Bartlett, Iowa, on the Burlington's "high iron" between Omaha and
Kansas City. Bedwell issued train orders here and at other locals on
this busy line along the Missouri River.
Burlington Lines photo
n nes poo
Mid-century automobiles accentuate the old-style motif of the station at
Union Star, Mo. The bay windows, order boards, hand-truck and
Western Union sign characterized the rural depot. Bedwell OS'ed trains
here in 1906.
Burlington Lines photo
Rushville, Mo., station is much the same as when the young Kellerton
railroader worked here as extra man. In Bedwell's day one could judge
the temperament and personality of a telegrapher by his sending. With
the coming of the Vibroplex key, commonly known as "the bug," sending
became evener and less likely to reflect the idiosyncrasies of the operator.
Rio Grande E. B. photo
Classic action-picture of a Rio Grande train struggling up the old 3.97
per cent grade to Soldier Summit, in the Rocky Mountains, about 1906.
The locale is mentioned in "The Superintendent's Story," one of Bedwell's
few non-fiction tales. Grade has since been reduced to a maximum of
2.4 per cent.
Rio Grande R. R. photo
Historic station and division headquarters at Helper, Utah. The colorful
railroad and mining town was a stopping off place for many a "boomer,"
including Harry Bedwell. A modern one-story building now serves the
Rio Grande B. R. photo
A Mallet-type locomotive at the head-end of a long freight ascending
Soldier Summit eastbound near Gilluly, Utah. Observe steam from helper
engine cut in the middle of train. Abandoned right of way, visible at
left, was the route of the original three-foot gauge, widened to standard
in 1890. The present line, with more favorable grades, was completed
in 1913.
Historical Collection, Security-First National Bank
Old Santa Fe depot at Riverside, Calif., where Harry Bedwell worked the
night trick in 1907. The wooden structure has since been replaced by
Florence Whitson Collection
Bedwell with his mother standing
second from left. At far left is his
aunt Tillie Hause; on right aunt
Mary Hoffman. The young rail-
roader was 6'l 1 /2" tall. Photo
taken in Whittier, Calif.
Florence Whitson Collection
Ellen, Harry Bedwell's first wife,
shown with their dog in California.
Mrs. Bedwell died in 1934.
Florence Whitson Collection
Trees and shrubbery abound behind the picket fence of the Bedwell's
modest Whittier home. Alongside of Harry is his mother, Flora, of
whom he was very fond. In 1909, when this picture was made, the
placid, Quaker community was peopled by retired "Easterners," students
and faculty of Whittier College, and business men of moderate
Watts Tower, showing Bellflower car on its way to downtown Los
Angeles. Photo taken by Ira Swett, May 16, 1958, eight days before
passenger service was dropped. At this junction interurban trains once
fanned out to Santa Ana, Redondo Beach and El Segundo, to say nothing
of Long Beach and San Pedro. Watts is the setting for the novelette
"Tower Man."
Historical Collection, Security-First National Bank
San Pedro, Calif., about 1909. Track on right is that of Pacific Electric;
on left the Southern Pacific. Center is SP freight house where Bedwell
probably worked as PE only had a shed for a depot. Note the two
Front cover of Railroad Magazine for May, 1940, featuring "Code of
the Boomer." Bedwell had 35 stories or novelettes in this unique periodi-
cal. His first tale appeared in October, 1909; his last in December. 1Q^
Freeman H. Hubbard, veteran
editor of Railroad Magazine, who
was referred to as "one of Eddie
Sand's best friends." Bedwell's
novel, The Boomer, was dedicated
to Hubbard.
Erdmann N. Brandt, associate edi-
tor of The Saturday Evening Post,
in which Bedwell had nine stories.
Mr. Brandt considered Bedwell
"one of the very best writers of
our railroad stories" with the "gift
of translating personal experience
into a fiction story."
The Clinker, Miss Selby, Double-Drop Brill and Latimer leading
characters in "Avalanche Warning," Bedwell's last published story. It
appeared in The Saturday Evening Post on May 11, 1957. Illustrated
by Stan Galli, the novelette recounted the hazards of mountain rail-
Jacket of The Boomer, designed by E. Franklin Wittmack. The novel
was widely acclaimed for its authentic railroad background and enjoyed
a 106,000-copy reprinting for the armed services overseas during World
War H.
Kailroad Magazine Collection
Harry Bedweli and his wife, Lor-
raine, looking over reprint of
The Boomer, which was widely
distributed to servicemen. Bedweli
married Lorraine in 1940. Photo
taken in their house-trailer at Santa
Susana, Calif., October, 1947.
Penny, the third member of the
Bedweli "family," pictured in their
railroad car-home at Seghers, Ore.
William Knapke Collection
Los Angeles Railroad- Writers' Dinner honoring Harry Bedweli in 1950.
Left to right (clockwise) are H. L. Kelso, Charles W. Tyler, H. C.
Reynerson, Harry K. McClintock, William F. Knapke and Bedweli. All
the group were railroaders; and, with the exception of Reynerson, they
Donald Sims photo
Santa Susana at night, The friendly bench on the platform is 1
characteristic of stations in warmer climes. Ladder on right goes up the
semaphore pole not visible in the dark. Over doorway are rods running
into the building by which the operator sets the signals. The present
"op" is Charles Munro, who traded rights with Bedwell when the latter
went from the Los Angeles to the Portland Division of the SP.
&( ,' A
Donald Sims photo
Harry Bedwell worked here. Still retaining the atmosphere of the
traditional depot, this Santa Susana operator's office is, nonetheless,
quite modern. Witness the teletype at left and the loud-speaker near
the dispatcher's phone. Note the customary practice of hanging the
operator's watch alongside his switch key. Bedwell worked the second
trick here for nearly four years the longest he remained at any Southern
Pacific station.
Operator Bedwel! pictured on duty at Chatsworth, Calif., by his friend
H. L. Kelso. Note train-order forks and signal lever. The tobacco can
in the resonator is an old "Morse-man's" trick to amplify sound Photo
taken in 1951.
H. L. Kelso photo
Before the advent of Centralized Traffic Control Garnet was an important
train-order station out on the desert on the Southern Pacific's Los
Angeles Division. Bedwell worked here until CTC took over. The
building, along with the tropical palmetto grove, has since been removed,
and only a sign post is left to mark the soot.
Another view of Chatsworth showing William F, Knapke, retired
Southern Pacific conductor and railroad writer, with Bedwell on platform.
Station is on SP's "Coast Line" between Los Angeles and San Francisco!
In background is the beautiful Santa Susana Mountains.
81
entailed extensive research. Sometimes it meant contacting
a master mechanic if it dealt with highly technical aspects
of locomotive performance.
However well versed an operator may be, there are a
lot of little things he cannot possibly know about the
running of trains. For details in this phase of railroading
Bedwell turned to his friend William F. Knapke, a retired
Southern Pacific conductor. Bill Knapke is a man of
parts, a boomer with a service record from 32 railroads.
He has twisted brake-wheels, pulled throttles, punched
tickets and flagged trains all over the nation and in
Mexico, the Phillipines and Cuba. And he is a writer,
too, having had almost as many true tales published as
the number of "pikes" on which he railroaded. At this
writing Knapke is eighty-eight, slender, active and alert.
It was he, as Bedwell's literary executor, who added
about 150 words to an unfinished novelette and placed
it with The Saturday Evening Post. The story, "Avalanche
Warning," Harry Bedwell's last published tale, netted his
widow $2,500. Curiously enough, it does not feature
Eddie Sand. But it is one of Bedwell's best yarns.
Bedwell, always a modest person, was ever ready to
give others credit. To show Ms appreciation for the help
and counsel of his friends he would occasionally bring
them into his stories. Knapke, for example, appears in
"Back in Circulation"; and the late Dan Cadagan is
mentioned in "Christmas Comes to the Prairie Central,"
probably as a Yule-tide greeting to the man who first
taught him railroading in the old Kellerton depot. Then,
as stated elsewhere, Charles S. Wallace was the "Walley
Sterling" who popped up again and again in his stories.
Incidentally, the description of Walley in The Boomer
resembles Charles Wallace in most details, although the
positions the latter held were not identical and certain
other items have been altered. At any rate, here is Eddie
Sand's portrayal of his friend:
Walley was a genius at life. He was neat and dis-
82
orderly, tireless and lazy. He had a round placid
face and a deceptive bland eye. Life in no way per-
turbed or baffled him. Most men liked him im-
mensely, when he wanted them to, and Eddie grinned
as he recalled the girls Walley had taken away from
him, just for the heck of it.
He looked fat, but he wasn't. He'd once trained to
be a wrestler, and that had amplified his burly
physique. Then he'd suddenly decided that it was
too strenuous an occupation, too much effort to put
into earning a living. He'd learned something of
other crafts meanwhile; printing and engraving,
machinist, blue printing and telegraphy. He had a
vast curiosity about all human activities, and a mind
like a steel trap. He'd decided, after a review of the
opportunities, that the telegraph operator earned his
wages in the easiest and most pleasant way. Jobs
were plentiful all over the country, and a railroad
man could get a pass to where he wanted to go, or
else find an agreeable local passenger train conductor
willing to carry him free on the cushions. That
covered your hankering to travel.
Little realistic touches like the brakeman tossing a
package of meat through a depot window for the agent
are true. This incident, according to Knapke, took place at
Glamis, California, even to the ripping up of the telegraph
instruments, causing chaos in the operator's work. When
Eddie Sand handed a hoop with a couple of blocks of
wood attached to a passing trainman, this crude joke had
been perpetrated before. To quote the salty Knapke,
"That was some hammer-headed ape, at Salton, handing
me a rusty iron barrel-hoop with two spikes attached."
Even the four timely wires of commendation Eddie Sand
received from railroad officials to help get a friend out
of a tight spot were based on "certain correspondence" of
Knapke's. The three items mentioned above are all found
in The Boomer.
83
In one significant respect (and there are others) Bed-
well was like Frank H. Spearman, doyen of railroad
fiction writers. He had the ability to listen. He seldom
talked about himself, preferring to let others do the
speaking.
He also had a great deal of sympathy for the deaf.
Apropos of this, Charles Wallace comments:
There was something uncanny about the way he
seemed to attract the hard-of-hearing and the way he
could talk to them. I never met so many hard-of-
hearing people as when 1 was with Harry. Just one
example. At a get-together of some Hollywood top
talent Harry was seated almost instinctively next to
Rupert Hughes and spent the evening relaying witti-
cisms to him. Hughes is very hard of hearing.
The similarity between Eddie Sand and his creator
carried over to their common interest in literature. Eddie
invariably carried a book. Bedwell since childhood was
an omniverous reader. Back in his PE railroading he left
a standing order at Fowler's Bookstore in Los Angeles,
for them to send him Joseph Hergesheimer's latest books.
He read nearly all of Rudyard Kipling and committed
much of his poetry to memory. No doubt he read and
re-read Kipling's "007," a classic railroad story of a
locomotive told through the medium of personification.
Other favorite authors included H. L. Davis, J. Frank
Dobie and A. B. Guthrie, Jr. He enjoyed many of the
old-line railroad storytellers such as Spearman, Packard
and Warman. It was a happy day for him when The
Saturday Evening Post featured an A. W. Somerville
"Patchbolt" story. Generally speaking, he favored virile
western writers with genuine local color and verisimilitude.
Bedwell's friends were of the same general pattern.
Many, of course, were railroaders. He particularly liked
84
robust, talented individualists. If some were short in
formal education they were long in wit, native ability and
resourcefulness. All had character. Some of his close
friends, like Wallace, Knapke and H. L. Kelso, had done
considerable writing as well as railroading. Others, such
as Fred Annable, general superintendent of Pacific Electric
and later president of the San Diego & Arizona Eastern,
and O. P. Davis, division superintendent of Pacific Elec-
tric, representing management, were among his esteemed
friends.
In the publishing world he considered Freeman H.
Hubbard of Railroad Magazine a personal friend although
he had never seen that New York editor. As a token of
appreciation he dedicated his novel, The Boomer, to
Hubbard. Then, too, he used to look forward to seeing
Erd Brandt, senior associate editor of The Saturday Eve-
ning Post, when the latter made his bi-annual trips to the
West Coast. Occasionally Ben Hibbs, editor of the Post,
would also visit him. Bedwell regarded the Post staff as
the "salt of the earth." Book publishers, on the contrary,
he found "negative" and lacking in "spark."
Besides his long list of published works, Bedwell had
one story issued as a radio broadcast. This was "Priority
Special," which appeared on the air June 6, 1945, and
was subsequently printed in a booklet by the Southern
Pacific and widely distributed. It described the careful
movement of a hospital train on the SP up and over the
mountains into the desert country with never a jolt or
jar. The selection, along with his "Smart Boomer," is
reprinted in Headlights and Markers, An Anthology of
Railroad Stories. The latter tale of mountain railroading,
in the words of Robert Selph Henry, "depicts extraordi-
narily well the curious mixture of group loyalties and
loyalty to the job which runs through the whole business
of keeping the trains moving."
Because of the interest in BedwelTs works Railroad
Magazine is currently reprinting his stories, some being
85
slightly cut or revamped for present-day readers. When-
ever they are quoted in this book, however, the original
versions have been used.
In 1950 Harry Bedwell was the guest of honor at a
railroad-writer's dinner in Los Angeles. The group con-
sisted of Harley L. Kelso, William F. Knapke, Harry K.
McClintock, Harold C. Reynerson, Charles W. Tyler and
Bedwell. All were railroaders or former railroaders and,
with the exception of Reynerson, they had written exten-
sively for Railroad Magazine. Everyone had a wonderful
time swapping stories of experiences in engine, train or
station service on nearly every major railroad in the
country.
Bedwell traded his rights on the Los Angeles Division
for those of the Portland Division in 1952 and worked
mostly on freight-only lines in Oregon. First he went to
Brownsville, near Albany, Oregon. Next it was on the
Siskiyou Line, deep in the heart of the Siskiyou Mountains,
at Glendale. He ended up at Seghers, an out-of-the-way
lumber mill in the dense timber country between Portland
and the Pacific Ocean. At Seghers the first time he went
to the mill's traffic office he noticed a huge map of the
Burlington on the wall. The first town his eye picked out
from all the communities along the vast rail networks
across the country was Andover, Missouri, population 25.
That was his first station. Seghers, it turned out, was to
be his last. He retired from the Southern Pacific on April
29, 1955, after 32 years with that road or its affiliated
Pacific Electric.
After leaving the SP Bedwell and his wife bought a
mountain home in Nevada City, California. From their
new house they had a beautiful view of the lower Sierras
to the south. You may be sure their little cocker Spaniel,
Penny, went along as part of the family. But the Great
Dispatcher was soon to give the sixty-seven-year-old rail-
roader his last order. In working about his new home he
slipped on a rock and was injured. Complications later
86
developed and he took a turn for the worse. While
critically iU he confided to his loyal friend, Wallace, "I
wanted to have this place all fixed up so you could come
up here and live and we could get busy on a novel."
That was as far as the joint-novel ever progressed. He
died October 4, 1955, and was buried in Rose Hills
Cemetery, Whittier.
His passing moved Charles D. Dulin, railroad tele-
grapher and poet, to write:
"The bay* is silent; not a click
Intrudes upon by somber mood
As I begin the graveyard trick
In sorrow's realm of solitude.
Although the Morse will weave its themes
In singing brass, the veteran hand
Will always be, in pleasant dreams,
That booming brother, Eddie Sand."
*The "bay mentioned here is that part of a station by a
bay-window where the telegraph operator sits, insuring
him an unobstructed view of the track in both directions.
Vil
BEOWELL AND THE "RAILROAD SCHOOL"
Railroading never had a prominent role in American
literature nor in world letters. Compared to the sea, for
example, there are no Moby Dicks nor works like Twa
Years Before the Mast. Global-wise, the industry has yet
to produce a Joseph Conrad. It is only in the United
States that railroads play even a significant minor part.
For want of a better name we can call this thin slice of
literature, the Railroad School. Harry Bedwell's role is
important because he is the last of its "graduates." The
Golden Age of railroad fiction is past. Whereas books on
rail history are on the increase, you can count on one
hand authors who write short stories or novels on the
industry. A brief resume of the Railroad School, then, is
necessary to assess Bedwell's contribution to specialized
writing and to Americana.
Railroad fiction enjoyed its greatest popularity from
about 1895 to 1915. During the first decade of the 20th
Century it flourished both in books and in periodicals.
The volatile S. S. McClure made it a point to feature the
best railroad fiction in his McClure 's Magazine. Scribnefs,
Munsey's and The Saturday Evening Post also solicited
short stories on the industry and occasionally serialized a
novel. It was an era which Grant C. Knight has aptly
called The Strenuous Age in American Literature in his
book of the same name. The romancing of the earlier years
had swung to realism and an awareness of American
industry in short story and novel. They were virile novels
88
about rugged individualists, dynamic and forthright. Big
business, of which the railroad was a typical example,
whether it be appraised, examined, glorified or con-
demned, appeared more and more in the nation's litera-
ture.
Later, World War I diverted attention from railroading,
and after the conflict the automobile usurped the role of
trains in short-haul travel. Gradually, too, the railroad
played a lesser part in the social life of the community
as the motor vehicle came to the fore. Because of this
and other factors the interest in railroad stories never
regained anything like its pristine glory. Bedwell came
in at the tag-end of the era. He carried on the tradition of
the "old masters," if we can call them that, to the mid-
century.
The best known of the earlier "fictioneers" was Cy
Warman, author of some ten books on rail themes, most
of them being volumes of short stories. Since he was a
locomotive engineer on the Denver & Rio Grande Western,
many of his tales had their setting in the Rocky Moun-
tains, with a strong frontier flavor. His first bound book,
Tales of an Engineer, published in 1895, was well received
and opened the way for other volumes often concerning
his own experiences. He also wrote fair verse and penned
the lyrics for that once-popular song "Sweet Marie."
The dean of railroad novelists and short story writers,
however, was Frank H. Spearman. Oddly enough, he was
the only exponent of the School who never worked for a
railroad. Spearman's Held for Orders, a volume of short
stories, is a classic in its field. His The Daughter of a
Magnate was one of the earlier railroad novels to be
serialized in The Saturday Evening Post before appearing
in book form. But Whispering Smith was by far his most
popular production and may well have set a peak in the
sale of a rail novel. This "Western" was twice filmed in
silent motion picture days and once in recent years in
technicolor.
89
Other representatives of the School include Herbert E.
Hamblen, who made his niche in writing realistic railroad
stories, along with those of the sea and of fire-fighting.
His The General Manager's Story is outstanding in its
genre. Purporting to be the biography of an official who
came up from the ranks in the link-and-pin days, it has
all the gusto and daring of old-time railroading. As a
locomotive engineer and a sailor, he drew on his experi-
ences and those of his acquaintances for tales of land and
sea.
Frank L. Packard, best known for his Jimmie Dale
mysteries, also penned some fine stories on the industry.
Among them are Running Special and The Night
Operator, volumes stemming from his observations as an
apprentice in the Canadian Pacific Railway shops at
Carleton, Jet., Ontario. Both titles are short story collec-
tions with robust western settings.
Finally, there is Francis Lynde whose railroad career
included a stint as a master mechanic on the Southern
Pacific, and traveling passenger agent for the Union
Pacific, Author of a long list of romances, many of which
were on railroading, he wrote more from the executive
viewpoint than that of the trainman. Among his more
popular titles is The Wrecker, concerning newly-
appointed general manager who saved a railroad from
being gutted by Wall Street speculators. His Scientific
Sprague is said to be the first American book of short
stories featuring a railway detective.
Bedwell, as he expressed it, "was brought up on Spear-
man and Packard and Lynde stories and . . . Somerville
when he came along." It is possible, although not likely,
that he may have read Burton E. Stevenson's, "The Boys*
Story of the Railroad Series." In 1905, the year Bedwell
hired out on the "Q," Stevenson wrote The Young Section
Hand while a railroad reporter in Chillicothe, Ohio. The
newspaperman and later librarian who is now best
known as the scholarly compiler of The Home Book of
90
Verse finished his rail tetrology in 1912. Far more
popular, although not nearly as well written, was Allen
Chapman's ten-volume "Ralph On the Railroad Series."
It started off with Ralph of the Roundhouse in 1906. But
the granddaddy of teen age rail-writers in the earlier
Alger-Optic-Beadle days was Edward S. Ellis. Among his
voluminous works, a half dozen of which concerned rail-
roading, were The Young Conductor and From the
Throttle to the President's Chair. Both were published in
the nineties.
Along with fiction for adults and teen agers there were
novels on social aspects of the industry. Seldom dealing
with actual operation of trains or the crews who man them,
they nevertheless had greater literary merit than products
of the Railroad School. Frank Norris's The Octopus is a
good example; and to a lesser extent is the American
Winston Churchill's Coniston and Mr. Crewe's Career. All
three concerned the evils of railroad domination in politics,
a spectacle which is far from true today. The first has its
locale in California's San Joaquin Valley, whereas the
others by Churchill have their setting in upper New
England.
The point is, the railroad played a noticeable role in
literature for two decades preceding World War I. Even
earlier William Dean Howells took time out from his more
serious writing to pen farces recounting the amenities and
humors of train travel. His sparkling little plays, The
Sleeping Car, The Parlor Car and The Albany Depot
delighted the readers for a half century. Meanwhile, Cy
Warman, whom the New York Sun called "The Poet of
the Rockies," continued to write verse on railroading.
Perhaps it would be more appropriate to call him "The
Bard of Railroading" as he was the first to extensively
turn out poetry on this subject. While he was far from a
great versifier, his "Will the Lights Be White?" has
appeared in recent editions of Bartlett's Quotations.
Again, the now-forgotten Josiah Flynt Willard, writing
91
under the name of Josiah Flynt, put tales of railroad
vagrants into popular magazines and on library shelves.
His Tramping With Tramps and Notes of an Itinerant
Policeman were considered top-drawer social literature
around the turn of the century. And did not Jack London
give a vivid account of "riding the freights" in The Roadl
In short, the railroad permeated nearly every phase of
American life and literature.
This fact became less and less true after the first world
conflict, and the slow, constant decline continued to the
present. By the twenties and early thirties the "top"
railroad fiction writers had thinned out. Harry Bedwell
was in the breach, but had not yet risen to his full stature.
This period, notwithstanding, did feature the remarkable
yarns of A. W. Somerville, mostly confined to The Sat-
urday Evening Post. William E. Hayes likewise wrote
some creditable tales, as did one or two others. When
these men ceased their story-writing the only rising star
in the limited galaxy of rail fiction authors was the ex-
boomer from Iowa.
That's how the picture looked when the forties roEed
around, and it has not changed much since. To bring the
record up-to-date, mention should be made of Albert B.
Cunningham, prolific author of the Jess Roden "who-
dunits." Under the pen name of Garth Hale, the ex-
Chesapeake & Ohio telegrapher wrote This Pounding
Wheel and Legacy for Our Sons, both having high-fidelity
depot settings. More recently James McCague produced
The Big Ivy, a lusty novel of turn-of-the-century rail-
roading; and Hollister Noble in Ms One Way to Eldorado
has honest railroad realism in an otherwise hyper-melo-
dramatic plot. The short story is represented in Life on the
Head End, nine rousing tales of pre-diesel days by P. M.
Adams, a Canadian Pacific Railway locomotive engineer.
Mystery-story addicts are currently getting a glow out of
Bert and Delores Hitchens's F.O.B. Murder and End of
the Line. Penned by a man-and-wife team the husband
92
being a Southern Pacific special agent; the spouse, a
veteran detective-story writer the stories have first-rate
rail backgrounds. They are probably the most "railroady"
of detective thrillers since the appearance of Frederick
NebeFs Sleepers East in 1933.
As for short stories in periodicals, the heritage of the
old Railroad School is virtually a memory. The only
writers in this category contributing tales with any regu-
larity are Jack Clinton McLarn and John Rhodes Sturdy,
the latter a Canadian.
The decline of railroad fiction in America has a parallel
in overseas literature. Only, England and continental
Europe had so few tales of the railway that they were
hardly missed when the strain died out. The Bay Psalm
Book of English collectors, however, is Victor L. White-
church's Thrilling Stories of the Railway, issued in 1921.
The work of an Episcopalian clergyman, it has the
distinction of being the earliest book of short stories
featuring a railway detective. Just three copies are known
to exist in America, and not many more are extant in the
British Isles. On the other hand, most European railway
novels and short stories seldom command more than their
original price, once out of print. W. Pitt Ridge's Thanks
to Sanderson and On Company's Service, stories by a
popular English writer, have a satisfactory and realistic
rail background. Others include C. Hamilton Ellis's Dandy
Hart, Rails Across the Ranges and Who Wrecked the
Mail? It is significant that Ellis often looks beyond his
country for "story" material. Only the first title has its
locale in England, whereas the others have their back-
grounds in Australia and Spain respectively.
When it comes to murder and mayhem, the railway
comes into greater favor. Because of the prevalence of
non-corridor cars in British and Continental trains, mys-
tery writers found them admirably fitted for their crimes.
There is nothing like the privacy of a European express
for a good clean murder! The Royal Scot, Blue Train and
93
Orient Express have long been favorites for detective
"thrillers." What the frontier is to the American railroad
storyteller the European compartment express is to his
English cousin. Of the long list of such works probably
Freeman Wills Crofts's Death of a Train has the most
accurate and detailed railway setting.
Of French railway fiction, Emile Zola's The Human
Beast is outstanding. A grim, horrible tale of human
depravity in which a locomotive driver is the central
figure, the novel is well researched as are all of Zola's
works. More recently, and on the lighter side, are the
escapades of Hercule in Pierre Audemars's mystery tales.
Among the books in which the droll and bizarre engine-
man appears are The Temptations of Hercule, Hercule
and the Gods and The Obligations of Hercule. German
and Russian fiction railwayise have produced Gerhart
Hauptmann's "Flagman Thiel" and V. N. Garshin's "The
Signal," respectively. Both are short stories of tragic
realism. There are doubtlessly more authors writing in
their native tongues who feature the railway in literature
of other nations. But the list is short and the fiction on
this subject is seldom noteworthy.
From the above one can safely conclude the railroad
story is primarily an American institution. Yet it ap-
parently has run its course, for Bedwell appears to be
the last of the specialized writers in this category. As
David P. Morgan, editor of Trains, expressed it: "He
was as capable a practitioner in the art of good railroad
writing as lived in our times." Many of his tales rank
with the best the Railroad School produced. True, his
cumulative writings may not come up to the standards
of Spearman, but his finest can hardly be said to take
second place to any of the "classic" raikoad writers.
Let us now stop to reflect on how Bedwell resembles
his forerunners; also in what way and to what degree he
differed. At the outset the fact should be stressed that
Harry Bedwell was essentially a short story writer. This
94
is not surprising, for the railroad yarn is best portrayed
in the short story. Nearly all the standard railroad writers
have found that the brief, rapid-fire incidents occurring
in the everyday life of the railroader call for a plot which
is equally compact and to the point a story which
moves. Action and character analysis given clearly and
concisely are preferred to love interest and delicate plots.
Let's face it, they are adventure stories, nothing more nor
less. You may read them for setting, atmosphere or local
color, but most of all you read them for enjoyment and
fun. To quote Vincent Starrett in his Books Alive, "Is
there anything in life more satisfying than the thrill of
danger experienced in perfect safety?"
It should be emphasized Bedwell wrote mostly of the
Midwest and far-West, with the latter predominating. He,
himself, had never worked east of the Mississippi. The
few tales he related of the East and South do not have
the ring of authenticity as do those whose settings were
found in the regions of which he was familiar. He was
likewise influenced by the spirit of the frontier but not
to the degree evinced in the work of Warman, Spearman
or Packard. Earlier the one potent factor dominating rail-
road stories was the frontier. All the loyalty, bravery and
self-reliance of the pioneer are found in the classic old-
time railroad yarn. Bedwell carried on this gusto of the
West, only in a more mellowed and polished manner
befitting a later period.
Like all the Railroad School of authors, with the
possible exception of Francis Lynde, BedwelFs "heroes"
are men out on the line: telegraph operators, locomotive
engineers, firemen, conductors, brakemen, switchmen and
the like. He wrote from the point of view of the rank and
file instead of management. His sympathy was for the
working man, and he believed strongly in labor unions.
Many of BedweU's stories show Eddie Sand or his allied
brethren coming out to their credit after a run-in with a
prejudiced superintendent or a "rawhiding" trainmaster.
95
On the other hand and this should not be overlooked
he was not averse to putting an arrogant conductor or a
browbeating engineer in his place. Furthermore, com-
petency, fairness, honesty and integrity, whether in a
"brass hat" or "brass pounder," he extolled. Witness the
respect and admiration he had for old Salt-and-Molasses
Nickerson, the shrewd, hard-fighting, beloved and alto-
gether human president, as pictured in The Boomer.
Often, too, the most unreasonable officer or obnoxious
crewman will in a combination of circumstances show
hidden strengths and highly commendable qualities. Man
is seldom entirely right or totally wrong. This redemptive
quality is the very core of many railroad short stories.
Regeneration is even more conspicuous in the tales of
Spearman and most emphatically in those of Packard.
One wonders how far and in what direction Bedwel]
could have gone if he had branched out more in his
writing. He wrote a few feature articles with varying
success. Most of the evidence, nevertheless, seems to
point out that his forte was fiction based on fact. What
Herbert S. Pease did in portraying yesteryear's telegrapher
in Singing Rails, or Joseph Bromley in telling the saga of
a locomotive engineer in Clear the Tracks or Edgar A.
Custer in depicting the robust life of a railroad shopman
in No Royal Road, Bedwell did in limning Ms own experi-
ences in fiction. Messrs. Pease, Bromley and Custer did
their recounting in free-wheeling autobiographical
sketches, factual stories, if you will. Bedwell did essen-
tially the same thing except for altered names, places
and situations actual experiences, none the less, imagina-
tively fashioned. Perhaps no one, least of all Bedwell
himself, could tell exactly where fiction started and fact
faded. But he admitted, and a little research will sustain
this admittance, nearly all the incidents he described
either happened to him or to those of his kind. Railroad
men are great storytellers; and their yarns, discounting
a degree of exaggeration, are true. Call it fiction-based-
96
on-fact, or fact-in-fiction, the two are intimately related
in BedwelTs works.
In reviewing the scope of the Railroad School of
writers, one has to concede that their total output in the
stream of American literature has not been great. Why?
Perhaps it is because the railroad is only a hundred and
twenty-five years old. Sea tales, on the contrary, go back
to the time of the printing press indeed, even to the
beginning of man. But this is scarcely a satisfactory
answer. The airplane is a half-century old, and already
some promising novels have appeared on flying. Maybe
it is because the mariners of other years were at the
absolute mercy of storms at sea. Their fate was in the
hands of God and a skilled captain. Also the period
of crisis may be a day or even a week depending on the
duration and ferocity of the storm. No such time-span is
evident in railroading. Accidents usually come quickly or
not at all. This may account for the lack of introspection
and philosophizing in railroad novels. Sailors were often
on the high seas for weeks, whereas most railroaders
seldom remain on trains more than a few hours. And yet
is this the complete answer? I think not. Perhaps the
reader has a more adequate explanation.
It is, however, better to be thankful for what there is,
be it ever so modest a contribution, than rant at circum-
stance. To quote Dr. Knight in his study of early twentieth
century literature: "Books, like persons, can be loved
even if they are not great." Bedwell aimed solely to tell
the railroad story and to tell it well. Therein lies his
"greatness."
In the future, railroad tales will be preserved in collec-
tions as a slice of a phase of American life. A few will
continue to be written as long as there is the flanged
wheel on the steel rail. But the reading public will
probably be aware of trains more in passages of Willa
Gather's novels, in selections of Thomas Wolfe's auto-
biographical fiction or in Christoper Morley's essays.
97
Others interested in the industry may resort to straight
business histories, spirited "railroad biographies" by
Edward Hungerford or the pictorial panoramas of Lucius
Beebe and Charles Clegg.
Finally, there will be readers who will want to vic-
ariously live the day of the nomadic care-free railroader
of the legendary past. They will turn to the Iowa story-
teller who was at Ms best in presenting the colorful
pilgrim of the rails the boomer. Here they will get
shrewd bits of the itinerant's philosophy, pungent pages
of the past, a nostalgic picture of a way of life and of
railroading that was and can never be again. The day
which Bedwell so fondly delineated was a time when man
and beast, and the products of farm, forest, mine and
factory went almost exclusively by rail.
Today the highway, airway, and to a limited extent, the
waterway have taken their toll. The branch line passenger
train is practically extinct. Centralized Traffic Control,
pushbutton yards and diesel motive power make for
efficiency but not for individuality. Harry Bedwell is one
with the steam locomotive. May his memory live as a
page of Americana which is turned forever.
BIBLiOGiAPHY OF HARRY BEDWELL'S PUBLISHED WORKS
Books and Booklets
The Boomer: A Story of the Rails. New York: Farrar &
Rinehart, Inc., 1942. 318 pp.
Priority Special. San Francisco: Southern Pacific Com-
pany, [1945], 30 pp. Paper bound.
"Smart Boomer" and "Priority Special" in Headlights and
Markers: An Anthology of Railroad Stories, edited by
Frank P. Donovan, Jr., and Robert Selph Henry. New
York: Creative Age Press, Inc. 1946. pp. 356-406.
Periodicals
Items are fictional short stories unless otherwise
indicated. Reprinted items are shown directly
after the initial printing.
ACTION STORIES
"Arizona Wires." IV (June, 1925), 44-68. Novelette.
ADVENTURE
"Indian Transfer." 197 (June, 1942), 96-106.
"Mutiny on the Monte." 116 (November, 1946), 30-
37.
AMERICAN MAGAZINE
"The Mistakes of a Young Raikoad Telegraph Op-
erator; And Some of the Thrilling Experiences Which
Grew Out of Them." LXIX (November, 1909), 71-
78; (December, 1909), 221-228. Article.
ARGOSY
"Yardmaster." 289 (March 19, 1939), 4-31. Novelette.
"Take 'Em Away, McCoy." 393 (September 30,
100
1939), 119-126.
BLUEBOOK MAGAZINE
"The Lake of Fire." by Gordon Montgomery as told
to Harry Bedwell. 59 (My, 1934), 130-132.
Feature.
FOREIGN SERVICE
"Christmas Luck." by Gordon Montgomery as told to
Harry Bedwell. 26 (December, 1938), 6-7, 32-33.
True story.
HARPER'S WEEKLY
"The 'Snake.'" 55 (January 28, 1911), 14-15.
Los ANGELES TIMES ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY MAGAZINE
"Lure of the Desert." (March 1, 1908), 15.
"Where Friendship Ceases." 12 (September 6, 1908),
302, 319.
"Those Merry Widow Hats." 12 (November 29, 1908),
686.
"Old Flighty's Deal." 13 (January 10, 1909), 46.
"The Touch of Genius." New ser. 4 (August 9, 1913),
11.
RAILROAD MAGAZINE
"Sun and Silence." XXIII (April, 1938), 34-48. 67
(April, 1956), 58-67.
"When There's Traffic to Move." XXIII (May, 1938),
44-62. 68 (December, 1956), 60-71. Novelette.
"Old Mogul Mountain." XXIV (July, 1938), 32-43.
67 (October, 1956), 30-36.
"With the Wires Down." XXIV (October, 1938), 40-
50. 69 (December, 1957), 48, 50-54.
"In Search of the Sun." XXV (January, 1939), 33-47.
69 (April, 1958), 52, 54, 56-60.
"The Careless Road." XXV (February, 1939), 32-61.
69 (June, 1958), 48-59, 61. Novelette.
"The Switchman." XXV (April, 1939), 52-64. "The
Kid Switchman." 68 (February, 1957), 58-64.
"The Ham." XXV (May, 1939), 17-24. "The Night
Operator." 68 (August, 1957), 66-70.
101
"Lassitude and Longitude." XXVI (My, 1939), 94-
108. "Gods of High Iron," 69 (February, 1958),
52-59, 61.
"The Yardmaster's Story." XXVI (August, 1939), 82-
107. Novelette.
"Official Appreciation." XXVI (October, 1939), 52-
68. "Wanderlust." 68 (April, 1957), 56-65.
"They Called Him 'Moonbeam.' " XXVII (December,
1939), 98-110. "Moonshine." 69 (August, 1958),
54-61.
"Anythlng's Liable to Happen." XXVII (February,
1940), 34-59. Novelette.
"Code of the Boomer." XXVII (May, 1940), 40-65.
68 (October, 1957), 48-55. Novelette.
"The Student Brakeman." XXVIII (June, 1940), 34-
59. Novelette.
"Back in Circulation." 28 (September, 1940), 88-109.
Novelette.
"Pacific Electric." 29 (January, 1941), 88-113. 70
(August, 1959), 56-64. Novelette.
"Tower Man." 29 (May, 1941), 92-120. Novelette.
"Restless Feet." 32 (August, 1942), 52-83. 69 (Octo-
ber, 1958), 50-54, 56, 58-66.
"Christmas Comes to the Prairie Central." 33 (January,
1943), 48-72. "Railroaders Don't Celebrate." 70
(December, 1958), 50, 52, 54-60, 63.
"The Return of Eddie Sand." 35 (February, 1944),
22-43. Novelette.
"CTC." 36 (November, 1944), 100-105. Article.
"Desert Job." 37 (May, 1945), 90-118; 38 (June,
1945), 86-115. Novelette.
"Not in the Contract." 40 (June, 1946), 42-65; (July,
1946), 110-131. Novelette.
"Jawbone." 44 (November, 1947), 40-65. "Delay at
Mest[uite." 70 (February, 1959), 50, 52-59.
"Mountain Standard Time." 47 (January, 1949), 122-
140; 48 (February, 1949), 112-129. Novelette.
102
"Against Orders." 65 (September, 1954), 16-18, 65-
67, 69-77.
"The Third Trick." 66 (June, 1955), 30-31, 59-63.
"The Superintendent's Story." 67 (December, 1955),
52-54. True story concerning Superintendent J. R.
Loftis of the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad.
RAILROAD MAN'S MAGAZINE
"Campbell's Wedding Race." X (October, 1909), 10-
19; Railroad Magazine, 70 (June, 1959), 54-60.
"With His Fingers Crossed." XI (March, 1910), 237-
246. "Night Trick at Armadillo." Railroad Magazine,
70 (April, 1959), 60-64, 66-68.
"The Secret Red Lights." XIV (May, 1911), 631-640;
XV (June, 1911), 151-160. Novelette.
RAILROAD STORIES
"A Man Who Could Handle Trains." XX (November,
1936), 30-44. Railroad Magazine, 67 (August,
1956), 48-56, 61.
"On the Night Wire." XXI (January, 1937), 91-104.
Railroad Magazine, 67 (June, 1956), 52-59.
"When I Was a Boomer Op." XXI (April, 1937),
112-115. Autobiographical sketch.
SAN FRANCISCO NEWSLETTER AND WASP
"Kang." 80 (November 14, 1936), 10-11, 18.
SATURDAY EVENING POST
"Imperial Pass." 206 (January 13, 1934), 16-17, 54,
56, 58-59.
"Snow on the High Iron." 213 (December 14, 1940),
18-19, 39, 41-42, 44.
"Smart Boomer." 213 (March 8, 1941), 20-21, 83-86.
"Pass to Seattle." 214 (October 4, 1941), 18-19, 52,
56-57.
"Lantern in His Hand." 215 (January 23, 1943), 22-
23, 66-68.
"Thundering Rails." 220 (March 27, 1948), 30-31,
57-58, 60, 63-64, 67.
"The Screaming Wheels." 221 (February 19, 1949),
28-29, 130-132, 134.
103
"Night of Plunder." 224 (December 22, 1951), 14-15,
55-58; (December, 29, 1951), 30-31, 47-50. Nov-
elette.
"Avalanche Warning." 229 (May 11, 1957), 30, 70,
72-74, 78, 82, 86-88. Novelette.
SHORT STORIES
"The Lightening That Was Struck." CXIX (May 10,
1927), 134-173. Novelette.
NOTE: Harry Bedwell's short stories and novelettes are
currently being reprinted in Railroad Magazine.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The following is a bibliography of publications con-
sulted in regard to Harry Bedwell and to railroad literature
in general. The search for material on railroad novelists
and short story writers has proven to be a merry one.
Most standard surveys of literature do not mention rail-
road works, and those which do scarcely have more than
a line or two. Such obvious reference sources as Who's
Who in America, Dictionary of American Biography, The
Standard Index to Short Stories, 1900-1914, Short Story
Index and Short Story Supplement, 1950-1954, were, of
course, consulted.
Books and Booklets
Bartlett, John. Familiar Quotations. Edited by Christoper
Morley and Louella D. Everett. Twelfth edition,
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1949.
Biographical Directory of the Railway Officials of
America. Chicago: Railway Age Co. Editions of 1901;
1906; and 1913.
Botkin, B, A. and Harlow, AMn F. (eds.) A Treasury of
Railroad Folklore. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc.,
1953.
Brooks, Van Wyck. The Confident Years: 1885-1915.
New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, Inc., 1955.
Burke, W. J. and Howe, Will D. American Authors and
Books, 1640-1940. New York: Gramercy Publishing
Co., 1943.
Carr, Harry. Los Angeles, City of Dreams. New York:
D. Appleton-Century Company, Inc., 1935.
106
Chamberlain, John. Farewell to Reform. New York:
Liveright, Inc., Publishers, 1932.
Cleland, Robert Glass. California in Our Time, 1900-
1940. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1947.
Cottrell, W. Fred. The Railroader. Stamford University,
California: Stamford University Press, 1940.
Donovan, Frank P. Jr. "Frank H. Spearman, The Zane
Grey of Railroading." Bulletin No. 93, The Railway
and Locomotive Historical Society, October, 1955.
pp. 7-10. (paper bound).
. "The Railroad in Current Literature." Bulletin No.
59, The Railway and Locomotive Historical Society,
October, 1942. pp. 12-20. (paper bound) .
. The Railroad in Literature. Baker Library, Harvard
Business School, Boston: The Railway & Locomotive
Historical Society, Inc., 1940. (paper bound).
-. (comp.) Railroads of America. Milwaukee: Kalna-
bach Publishing Co., 1949.
Donovan, Frank P. Jr. and Henry, Robert Selph. (eds.)
Headlights and Markers: An Anthology of Railroad
Stories. New York: Creative Age Press, Inc., 1946.
Duke, Donald, (comp.) Pacific Electric Railway. San
Marino, California: Pacific Railway Journal, 1958.
(paper bound).
Haycraft, Howard. Murder for Pleasure. New York: D.
Appleton-Century Co., 1941.
Hill, Laurance L. La Reina, Los Angeles in Three Cen-
turies. Los Angeles: Security-First National Bank,
1931. (paper bound).
Hoehn, Matthew, (ed.) Catholic Authors, Contemporary
Biographical Sketches, 1930-1947. Newark, N. J.: St.
Mary's Abbey, 1947.
Holbrook, Stewart H. The Story of American Railroads.
New York: Crown Publishers, 1947.
Hubbard, Freeman H. Railroad Avenue. New York:
McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1945.
Hutchinson, Veronica, (ed.) Tales of the Rails. Cleve-
land: The World Publishing Company, 1952.
107
Kennan, George. E. H. Harriman. 2 vols. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1922.
Knight, Grant C. The Strenuous Age in American Litera-
ture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1954.
Kunitz, Stanley J. (ed.) Twentieth Century Authors, First
Supplement. New York: The H. W. Wilson Company,
1955.
Kunitz, Stanley J. and Haycraft, Howard, (eds.) Ameri-
can Authors, 1600-1900. New York: The H. W. Wilson
Company, 1938.
. (eds.) Twentieth Century Authors. New York: The
H. W. Wilson Company, 1942.
Lewis, Lloyd and Pargellis, Stanley, (eds.) Granger
Country. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1949.
Millett, Fred B. Contemporary American Authors. New
York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1940.
Morley, Christopher. The Ballad of New York, New York
and Other Poems, 1930-1950. Garden City, New York:
Doubleday & Company, 1950.
Moskowitz, Samuel, (ed.) Great Railroad Stories of the
World. New York: The McBride Company, 1954.
Mott, Frank Luther. A History of American Magazines,
1885-1905. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1957.
Overton, Grant. Cargoes for Crusoes, New York: D.
Appleton & Company, 1924.
Overton, Richard C. Milepost 100. Chicago: Burlington
Lines, 1949. (paper bound).
Queen, Ellery. The Detective Short Story, A Bibliography.
Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1942.
. (ed.) Twentieth Century Detective Stories. Cleve-
land: The World Publishing Company, 1948.
The Railroad (Stories from McClure's). New York: Mc-
Clure, Phillips & Co., 1901.
Regier, C. C. The Era of the Muckrakers. Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1932.
108
Riegel, Robert Edgar. The Story of Western Railroads.
New York: The Macrnillan Company, 1926.
Sandberg, Carl. The American Songbag. New York: Har-
court, Brace & Company, 1927.
Spearman, Eugenie Lonergan. Memories, Privately printed
at Los Angeles, California by Modern Printers, 1941.
(boards).
Starrett, Vincent. Books Alive. New York: Random
House, 1940.
Stories of the Railway (Stories from Scribner). New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1893.
Taylor, Walter Fuller. The Economic Novel in America.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1942.
Thomas, Gilbert. How to Enjoy Detective Fiction. Salis-
bury Square, London: Rockliff, 1947.
Warfel, Harry R. American Novelists of Today. New
York: American Book Company, 1951.
Warman, Cy. The Story of the Railroad. New York: D.
Appleton and Company, 1898.
Who's Who in Railroading. New York: The Simmons-
Boardman Publishing Company. Editions of 1930;
1946; 1949; and 1954.
Wilson, Neill C. and Taylor, Frank J. Southern Pacific.
New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1952.
Periodicals
Cafky, Morris. "From Throttle to Typewriter," Trains,
15 (September, 1955), 48-54. About Cy Warman.
Conrad, George. "The Boomer," New York Herald
Tribune Books, 18 (July 26, 1942), 10. Review of The
Boomer.
Cournos, John. "A Saga of the Rails," The New York
Times Book Review, XCI (July 19, 1942), 4, 20.
Review of The Boomer.
Donovan, Frank P. Jr. "A Boomer Turns to Books,"
Tracks, 38 (December, 1953), 30-34. About Albert B.
Cunningham.
109
. "Fiction Rides the Rails," Tracks, 32 (November,
1947), 841.
. "Harry Bedwell, Railroad Raconteur," The Pal-
impsest, XXXIX (May, 1958), 209-240.
. "O. Henrys of the High Iron," Tracks, 32 (June,
1947), 2-5.
. "Pacific Electric," Trains, 2 (June, 1942), 10-31.
. "The Railroad in Literature as a Public Relations
Medium," Railway Age, 109 (August 31, 1940), 307,
312.
"Railroading on the Bookshelf," Wheels, 9 (March-
April, 1954), 26-32.
"Ex-Boomer," The Saturday Evening Post, 214 (October
4, 1941), 4. Autobiographical note by Harry Bedwell.
Frederick, John T. "Town and City in Iowa Fiction,"
The Palimpsest, XXXV (February, 1954), 49-96.
McClintock, Harry. "Helper Town," Railroad Magazine,
29 (January, 1941), 38-45.
McKelvey, Nat. "The Indomitable Epes Randolph,"
Trains, 10 (July, 1950), 44-49.
"Pacific Electric, Ail-Time Roster of Cars," Interurbans
(Special No. 13), 10 (December, 1952), 1-36.
"Rail-Fiction's Most Popular Character," Railroad Maga-
zine, 33 (October, 1942), 53. Review of The Boomer.
"Round Trip," The Saturday Evening Post, 220 (March
27, 1948), 10. Biographical sketch of Harry BedweU.
Sims, Donald. "Yuma Division," Trains, 17 (February,
1957), 38-51.
"What the 'W Stands for in D&RGW/' Trains, 18
(April, 1958), 18-27. About the Salt Lake Division.
Who's Who Monthly Supplement, Series 3 (October,
1942), 203. Contains biographical sketch of Harry
Bedwell.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author is greatly indebted to Lorraine Bedwell, of
Los Angeles, for her gracious help and friendly interest.
Besides aiding in many ways she compiled a list of Harry
BedwelTs published works and made available certain of
his correspondence. Charles S. Wallace, of Monrovia,
Calif., likewise provided invaluable information in re-
counting incidents of his close association with Bedwell
for over three decades. His 14-page letter alone shed
much light on Bedwell's career with Pacific Electric.
Similarly, William F. Knapke, of Orinda, Calif., corres-
ponded at length and cheerfully answered many queries
concerning his long friendship with the noted railroad
storyteller. Additional reminiscences came from Ralph L.
McMichael, assistant general freight agent, Southern Pa-
cific Co., Los Angeles.
A pleasant visit with Bedwell's cousin, Florence Whit-
son, in Kellerton, Iowa, proved rewarding in tracking
down aspects of his boyhood years. Additional sidelights
on his farm background came from Virgil E. Lillie, of St.
Joseph, Mo., retired conductor on the Burlington's St.
Joseph Division, and A. J. GoodeU, of Kellerton. Unfor-
tuneately, circumstances made it impossible to interview
Daniel W. Cadagan, of Kansas City, who taught Bedwell
telegraphy. The writer arrived in the Union Station on
Great Western No. 5 at 1:45 p.m., October 20, 1958
just one hour and fifteen minutes after Cadagan's death.
From the time the biography was started to its com-
pletion Freeman H. Hubbard, editor, Railroad Magazine,
has been most helpful. His pertinent criticism and aid in
securing illustrations and in providing typed transcripts
112
of BedwelTs early stories from the old Railroad Man's
Magazine are much appreciated. Erdmann N. Brandt,
associate editor of The Saturday Evening Post assessed
BedwelFs writings in that popular weekly.
In the pictorial role, H. L. Kelso, of Los Angeles, Frank
B. Putnam, Assistant Cashier and Historian, Security-First
National Bank, Los Angeles, and Donald Sims, of nearby
Sepulveda, very generously provided unusually good
photographs, which immeasurably add to the value of
the book. Other welcome illustrations were secured from
Ira L. Swett, editor, Interurbans, and the public relations
departments of the Burlington, Rio Grande, Santa Fe and
Southern Pacific railroads.
Special thanks is due William J. Petersen, superin-
tendent, The Iowa State Historical Society, Iowa City,
for permission to reprint the map and that part of the
text which originally appeared in The Palimpsest. The
maps are the careful work of Norman F. Podas, Jr., of
Minneapolis. The verse about Eddie Sand is used with
the permission of Charles D. Dulin. Mr. Dulin (who may
be addressed at 1720 New Jersey Ave., Kansas City 2,
Kan.) is the author of Sage and High Iron, one of the
few books of authentic railroad verse.
For reading the MS and offering suggestions the writer
is indebted to John H. Cleland and Raymond L. Norton,
both of Minneapolis. Bibliographic help was courteously
rendered by the Library of Congress and the California
State Library, Sacramento. Acknowledgment is also made
to The James Jerome Hill Reference Library, St. Paul, for
use of Study Room No. 5. Finally, a word of appreciation
is due the author's wife, Janice, for her help from script to
page-proof.
Frank P. Donovan, Jr,
Minneapolis, Minn.
January 30, 1959
INDEX
Adams, P. M., 91
Albany, Mo., 16
Albany, Ore., 85
Albany Depot, The, 90
Alcott, Terry, 16
Allan, L. E., 13, 14
Alpine, Calif., 41, 47, 48
American Magazine, The,
17, 20, 25, 30, 62
Andover, Mo., 17, 19, 85
Annable, Fred, 84
Argosy magazine, 44
Atchison, Topeka & Santa
Fe Ry. (Santa Fe R.R.),
27, 46
Audemars, Pierre, 93
"Avalanche Warning," 81
"Back in Circulation," 81
Banning, Calif., 53
Barabe, Buck (fictional
character), 35, 46, 58
Bartlett, Iowa, 19
Bartlett, John, 90
Bay Psalm Book, The, 92
Beaumont, Calif., 53
Beck, Vern, 15
Bedwell, Chester (HB's
father), 15
BedweU, Ellen Hart (HB's
1st wife, nee Talbot),
32, 38, 39
Bedwell, Flora (HB's moth-
er, nee Crow), 15, 32
Bedwell, Howard (HB's
brother), 15
Bedwell, Lorraine (HB's
2nd wife, nee Richard-
son), 48, 52, 63
Beebe, Lucius, 97
Bertram, Calif., 28, 51
Bethany, Mo., 16
Big Ivy, The, 91
Blue Train, The, 92
Blue book Magazine, 41
Books Alive, 95
Boomer, The, 53, 58, 81,
82, 84, 95
"Boys' Story of the Rail-
road Series, The," 89
Brandt, Erdmann N., 84
Bromley, Joseph, 95
Brownsville, Ore., 85
Buffalo, Rochester & Pitts-
burgh Ry., 47
Burke, William A. Jr., 57
Burlington Lines (Chicago,
Burlington & Quincy R.
R.), 13, 19, 23, 85, 89
Butler, John Edward, 27,
28
Cadagan, Daniel W., 16,
17, 81
Gainesville, Mo., 18
Calexico, Calif., 51, 53
"Campbell's Wedding
Race," 29
114
Canadian Pacific Ry., 89,
91
"Careless Road, The," 43
Carleton Jet., Ontario, 89
Carroll, Vic, 49
Cassidy, Butch, 25
Gather, Willa, 43, 96
Centralized Traffic Control,
53,97
Chapman, Allen, 90
Chariton, Iowa, 13, 16, 18
Chesapeake & Ohio Ry., 91
Chicago, Burlington &
Quincy R. R. (Burling-
ton Lines), 13, 19, 23,
85, 89
Chicago, Rock Island & Pa-
cific R. R. (Rock
Island Lines), 13, 55
Chillicothe, Ohio, 89
"Christinas Comes to the
Prakie Central," 81
Churchill, Winston, 90
Clear the Tracks! 95
Clegg, Charles, 97
Coniston, 90
Conrad, Joseph, 87
Crofts, Freeman Wills, 93
Crook, Oliver L, 33
Cunningham, Albert B.
(Garth Hale), 91
Custer, Edgar A., 95
Dandy Heart, 92
Daughter of a Magnate,
The, 88
Davis City, Iowa, 14
Davis, H. L., 83
Davis, O. P., 84
Daylight (train), 53
Death of a Train, 93
Dellinger, E. S., 44
Denver & Rio Grande
Western R. R. (Rio
Grande R. R.), 24,
25, 27, 48, 88
Des Moines, Iowa, 16, 17,
55
"Desert Job," 50
Dobie, J. Frank, 83
Dorado Club Beverages, 39
Duffey, Charles, 23, 35
Dulin, Charles D., 86
Earp, James W., 44
East Leavenworth, Mo., 19
Edom, Calif., 28
El Casco, Calif., 53
Ellis, C. Hamilton, 92
Ellis, Edward S., 90
End of the Line, 91
"Flagman Thiel," 93
Flynt, Josiah (Josiah Flynt
Wfflard), 90, 91
F. O. B. Murder, 91
From the Throttle to the
President's Chair, 90
Gardiner, Richard, 54
Garnet, Calif., 52, 53
Garshin, V. N., 93
General Manager's Story,
The, 89
Giles, Iowa, 14, 16
Glamis, Calif., 28, 50, 51,
82
Glendale, Ore., 85
Graceland College, 14
Groftholdt, Peter, 33
IID
Green River, Utah, 24, 25
Gunderson, "Galloping"
(fictional character),
46
Guthrie, A. B., Jr., 83
Haines, William Wister, 55
Hale, Garth (Albert B.
Cunningham), 91
Hamblen, Herbert E., 89
Harlow, Alvin F., 45
Harper's Weekly, 34
Harriman, E. H., 28
Harte, Emmet F., 44
Hatch, Mel (fictional char-
acter), 46, 55
Hauptmann, Gerhart, 93
Hawkins, "Scrap Iron"
(fictional character) ,
46
Hayes, William E., 91
Headlights and Markers, 84
Held for Orders, 88
Helper, Utah, 24, 25
Henry, John, 45
Henry, Robert Selph, 84
Hergesheimer, Joseph, 83
Hercule and the Gods, 93
Hibbs, Ben, 84
High Tension, 55
Kitchens, Bert, 91
Kitchens, Delores, 91
Hoffman, Robert Fulker-
son, 44
Holbrook, Stewart H., 45
Hole-in-the-Wall gang, 25
Home Book of Verse, The,
89
"Honk and Horace," 44
Howells, William Dean, 90
Hubbard, Freeman H., 41,
42, 84
Hughes, Rupert, 83
Human Beast, The, 93
Humeston, Iowa, 14
Hungerford, Edward, 57,
97
"Imperial Pass," 41
"In Search of the Sun," 46
Jersey Central Lines, 57
Johns, John, 44
Jones, Casey, 45
Kellerton, Iowa, 13-16, 19,
55, 81
Kelso, H. L., 84, 85
Keokuk, Iowa, 14, 55
Kipling, Rudyard, 83
Knapke, William F., 44,
51, 81, 84, 85
Knibbs, Henry Herbert, 47
Knight, Grant C., 87, 96
Koyle, Iowa, 17
"Lake of Fire, The," 41
Lamoni, Iowa, 14
Langdon, Mo., 19
Legacy for Our Sons, 91
Lehi, Utah, 24
Lehigh Valley R. R., 47
Leon, Iowa, 14, 16-18, 19
Life On the Head End, 91
"Lightning that was Struck,
The," 35
London, Jack, 91
Long Beach, Calif., 37
116
Los Angeles, Calif., 29, 31-
33, 39, 46, 50, 52, 53,
83, 85
Los Angeles Harbor, 31
Los Angeles Times Illus-
trated Weekly Maga-
zine, 29
Los Nietos, Calif., 32, 46
"Lure of the Desert, The"
29
Lynde, Francis, 89, 94
McCague, James, 91
McCarthy, Wilson, 48
McCIintock, Harry K., 24,
44, 56, 85
McClure, S. S., 87
McClure's Magazine, 87
MacKay, Robert, 44
McLarn, Jack Clinton, 92
McMichael, Ralph L., 33,
34
"Man who Could Handle
Trains, A," 41
Masters, F. B., 30
Maule, Harry K, 35
Mencken, H. L., 45
Merriwell, Frank, 16
"Mistakes of a Young Rail-
road Telegraph Opera-
tor, The," 30
Mr. Crewe's Career, 90
Moby Dick, 87
Modesto, Calif., 47
Montgomery, Gordon, 41
Morgan, David P., 93
Morley, Christopher, 57,
96
Mott, Frank Luther, 45
Mt. Ayr, Iowa, 14, 16
Mount Lowe, Calif., 31
Munsey, Frank A., 29, 45,
87
Munsey's Magazine, 87
Nathan, George Jean, 45
National Railway Historical
Society, 57
Nebel, Frederick, 92
Neuberger, Richard E., 45
Nevada City, Calif., 85
New York Herald Tribune,
54
New York Sun, 90
New York Times, 54
Nickerson, Henry Hewitt
(fictional character) ,
46, 95
"Night of Plunder," 51
Night Operator, The, 89
No Royal Road, 95
Noble, Hollister, 91
Norris, Frank, 90
Norwalk, Calif., 49
Notes of an Itinerant
Policeman, 91
Obligations of H ercule,
The, 93
"Observations of a Country
Station Agent, The," 44
Octopus, The, 90
"Old Mogul Mountain," 27
On Company's Service, 92
One Way to Eldorado, 91
".007," 83
"Orange Empire Trolley
Trip," 31
Order of Railroad Tele-
graphers, 27
117
Orient Express, The, 93
Osceola, Iowa, 16
"Pacific Electric/' 46
Pacific Electric Ry., 28, 31-
34, 36-39, 63, 83-85
Pacific Greyhound Lines,
47
Pacific Jet., Iowa, 20
Packard, Frank L., 83, 89,
94, 95
Palm Springs, Calif., 28,
53
Parlor Car, The, 90
"Pass to Seattle," 47
Patton, George, 50
Pease, Herbert S., 95
Pennsylvania R. R., 48
Popular Publications, 45
Portland, Ore., 85
"Priority Special," 84
Provo, Utah, 24
Railroad Magazine, 27, 41,
44, 45, 84, 85
Railroad Man's Magazine,
29, 34, 44-46
Railroad Stories, 44
Rails Across the Ranges,
92
Ralph of the Roundhouse,
90
"Ralph on the Railroad
Series," 90
Randolph, Epes, 28, 29
"Return of Eddie Sand,
The," 49
Reynerson, Henry, C, 85
Richfield Oil Co., 39
Ridge, W. Pitt, 92
Rinehart, Mary Roberts,
36
Rio Grande R. R. (Denver
& Rio Grande Western
R. R.), 24, 25, 27, 48,
88
Rivera, Calif., 38
Riverside, Calif., 27
Road, The, 91
Rock Island Lines (Chica-
go, Rock Island & Pa-
cific R. R.), 13, 55
Rosenthal, Horace E., 32,
63
Royal Scot (train), 92
Running Special, 89
St. Joseph, Mo., 14, 16,
18-20
Salton Sea, 28, 51, 52, 82
San Bernardino, Calif., 28,
31, 52, 53
San Diego & Arizona East-
ern Ry., 84
San Diego, Calif., 41
San Francisco, Calif., 50,
53
San Pedro, Calif., 31, 32
Sand, Eddie (fictional char-
acter), 34-36, 45-47,
50, 54, 55, 58, 63, 81-
83, 86, 94
Sandburg, Carl, 44
Santa Cruz, Calif., 47
Santa Fe Ry. (AtcMson,
Topeka & Santa Fe
RyO, 27, 46
Santa Fe Springs, Calif., 39
118
Saturday Evening Post, The,
41, 47, 51, 63, 64, 81,
83, 84, 87, 88, 91
Scientific Sprague, 89
Scribner's Magazine, 87
Searsey, S. B., 23
Seghers, Ore., 85
Shambaugh, Iowa, 14, 19
Sharp, Andy (fictional
character), 46
Shenandoah, Iowa, 14
Short Stones magazine, 35,
45
Shoup, Paul, 36
Side Tracks from the Main
Line, 36
"Signal, The," 93
Singing Rails, 95
Sleepers East, 92
Sleeping Car, The, 91
Slim, 55
"Smart Boomer," 47, 63,
84
Smith, J. E., 44
" 'Snake,' The," 34
"Snow on the High Iron,"
47
Soldier Summit, Utah, 24
SomerviUe, A. W., 56, 83,
89,91
Southern Pacific Co., 28,
34, 36, 39, 48, 51, 53,
63, 81, 84, 85, 89, 92
Spearman, Frank H., 47,
83, 88, 93-95
Springville, Utah, 24
Starrett, Vincent, 94
State University of Iowa,
The, 45
Sterling, Wallace (fictional
character), 36, 37, 46,
55, 81, 82
Stevenson, Burton E., 89
Stong, Phil, 55
Strenuous Age in American
Literature, The, 87
Sturdy, John Rhodes, 92
Sullivan, Ind., 23, 35
"Sun and Silence," 46
Swan, Henry, 48
"Sweet Marie," 88
Tales of an Engineer., 88
Temptations of Hercule,
The, 93
Thanks to Sanderson, 92
This Pounding Wheel, 91
Three Prize Murders, 36
Thrilling Stories of the
Railway, 92
Togo, Iowa, 16
"Touch of Genius, The,"
29
"Tower Man," 46
Trains magazine, 93
Tramping with Tramps, 91
"Travel Town," Los An-
geles, 32
Twin Star Rocket (train),
13
Two Years Before the
Mast, 87
Tyler, Charles W., 44, 85
Union Pacific R. R., 28, 89
Union Star, Mo., 19
Van Dine, S. S., (Wfflard
Huntington Wright), 36
119
Ventura, Calif., 53
Victorville, Calif., 27
Village Tale, 55
Wallace, Charles Sterling,
36-39, 47, 81, 83, 84,
86
Ward, "Clinker" (fictional
character), 46
Warman, Cy, 24, 83, 88,
90, 94
Warner, Matt, 25
Waters, Don, 44
Wheeler, Hi (fictional
character), 46, 55
Whispering Smith, 88
Whitechurch, Victor L., 92
Whittier, Calif., 32, 33, 36-
39, 46, 49, 63, 86
Whittier College, 37, 38
Whittier News, 37
Who Wrecked the Mail? 92
"Will the Lights Be
White?" 90
Willard, Josiah Flynt (Jo-
siahFlynt), 90, 91
Winterich, John T-, 45
"With the Wires Down,"
46
Wolfe, Thomas, 96
Wrecker, The, 89
Wright, Willard Hunting-
ton (S. S. Van Dine),
36
Young Conductor, The, 90
Young Section Hand, The,
89
Youth's Companion, The,
16
Yuma, Arizona, 28, 50, 51
Zola, Emile, 93
120525
II
