Very proud we were as we ran into Albany at 11.15 A.M. on time to the minute, having made the run of one hundred and forty-two miles in one hundred and fifty-six minutes, an average of 53.8 miles an hour. This exceeds the average of the Chicago flyer, which is 48.2 miles an hour, although for a much greater distance. Several times our speed had reached seventy miles an hour, and with better coal and other conditions equally favorable, Buchanan has driven 870 up to the eighty-mile point. With the sound devils still dancing in my head, I watched the engineer as he rubbed down his iron horse after the hard run. He was tired himself, and his face was white, but he went over the rods and cylinders as tenderly and carefully as if he was refreshing the muscles and sinews of a living creature. "She's a beauty, isn't she?" he said, in a tone which bore witness to the love felt by the man for the machine. "You see, she has always been true to me, 870 has, and I've run her ever since she was built. She's never cranky or sick, and she makes her three hundred miles a day three hundred and sixty-five times a year, and does her duty every time. That's more than you can say of many men, or women either, isn't it?" It seems that there are about fifty engines in constant use on the New York Central with the power and dimensions of 870, and only the peerless 999, with her heavier build and smoke-consuming device, can boast any points of superiority. The life of an engine like 870 is about twenty years, during which time she makes several visits to the hospital for new cylinders, new flues, and a new fire-box. Aside from that, the engine needs about an hour's care morning and night, and a washout and blowout of her boilers at the end of alternate weeks. Only at these periods is the engine's fire allowed to go out.