"We load out of the transfer-house a through car over the Northwestern from Chicago every day," the man who has this yard in charge explains. "It's up to me to have a Northwestern empty for that when I can. When I can't, I do the best I can." He scratches his head. "Perhaps I'll use a Canadian Pacific, and so get her started along toward home. If not, something from the Sault; just as I am going to start that New Haven car over toward Connecticut to-night. If I were to send that New Haven car out beyond Washington there'd be trouble, and I've got to dig out something empty from the Boston & Maine to take that stuff over to Lowell. Mos' generally, though, when we've got a turn of Western stuff, I've got my 'empty' tracks stuffed full o' them New England cars." We mention something about the transfer-house being a mighty good thing. "It's a necessary evil," says our guide, correcting us. He starts to explain. "See here. The X----, over in its Jersey City transfer-house, got near a carload of that fancy porcelain brick through from Haverstraw las' week, and that young whelp of a college boy that's hangin' round there learnin' the railroad business gets it into his noodle that it's somethin' awful, awful for that stuff to be goin' through to Middle Ohio in a Maine Central box, an 'LCL' at that. So out he dumps it into a system car right here an' now, and saves his road about one dollar and fifty cents _per diem_. Of course they pay about one hundred and thirty-five dollars for damages to that brick in the transferrin'. But the boy's all right in the transfer-house. If he was out on the engine he might blow up the biler." * * * * * Here is another great railroad yard--this almost filling a mighty crevice between God's eternal hills. This is within the mountain country, and the gossip that you get around the roundhouse is all of grades. You hear how Smith and the 2,999 pulled seven Pullmans around the Saddleback without a pusher; how some of the big preference freights take four engines to mount the summit; the tales of daring are tales of pushers and of trains breaking apart on the fearful mountain stretches. Randall is yardmaster here, and Randall is the opposite of the layman's picture of a yardmaster--a slovenly, worn, profane sort of fellow. Randall does not swear; he rarely even gets excited; his system of administration is so perfectly devised that even in a stress he rarely has to turn to work with his own hands. With him railroading is a fine, practical science. He will tell you of the methods at Collinwood, at Altoona, at Buffalo, at Chicago--wherein they differ. He is cool, calculating, clever, a capital railroader in addition to all these. [Illustration: SOMETHING OVER A MILLION DOLLARS' WORTH OF PASSENGER CARS ARE CONSTANTLY STORED IN THIS YARD] [Illustration: A SCENE IN THE GREAT FREIGHT-YARDS THAT SURROUND CHICAGO]