Such responsibility continues outside of the main shops to the smaller shops, down to the roundhouse forces, by whose care and vigilance the big locomotives are kept fitted for their important work; down still farther to the car-inspectors, who, blue signal-lights in hand, creep through the long freight-yards of a winter's night to strike the flaw in the metal, to sound the note of alarm before the worst may come to pass. Some of these last you hear in the night as you scurry across the country. As you rest in your berth, and the express is changing engines at some division point, you may hear the car inspectors coming along the train, striking with their hammers against the wheels, listening intently for the false ring by which they may detect trouble. If you trouble yourself to lift the curtain of your berth, you may see them, a grimy crew, working busily with their hammers, thrusting their torches in among the trucks to see that all is well. Responsibility for the safety in railroad operation does not cease at the doors of the mechanical department. CHAPTER XXV THE RAILROAD MARINE STEAMSHIP LINES UNDER RAILROAD CONTROL--FLEET OF NEW YORK CENTRAL-- TUGS--RAILROAD CONNECTIONS AT NEW YORK HARBOR--HANDLING OF FREIGHT-- FERRY-BOATS--TUNNEL UNDER DETROIT RIVER--CAR-FERRIES AND LAKE ROUTES-- GREAT LAKES STEAMSHIP LINES UNDER RAILROAD OWNERSHIP. In the beginning land transportation must have looked up in something resembling fear and awe to water. We can picture the railroad of the thirties as a slender but resourceful David facing the veritable Goliath of water carriage. In earlier chapters of this book we have shown how the canals, representing a distinct phase of water transportation, sought to throttle the railroads at the beginning. But the modern railroad has no fear of water rivalries, either upon the coast or inland. Just as the first railroads were ofttimes timidly built as feeders or complements to water routes, so to-day almost every inland water route is part of a railroad--in operating fact if not in actual ownership. The tables have been turned--the railroad finally dominates. Nine-tenths of all the great water routes in and aroundabout the United States are more or less directly owned and controlled by the railroads. They have become, in every sense, corollaries to land transportation.