while, travel round
the foot-plate and keep his balance, and replenish his fire and climb
the tender frequently; but the passenger trains are a luxury in
comparison to the luggage trains. The luggage engines being bigger and
stronger than the passenger engine requires more steam and water,
because she has more than double the load to run with, and at the
stations wagons have to be shunted frequently and often re-shunted; some
are left and others taken to far-off places; the guard's van has to be
detached always in order to have it at the end of the train; the stoker
is hard at work with the brake putting it on and off, jumping down to
hold the points, or coupling wagons--this is not his business, but he
does it to facilitate the work. When the luggage train had to get into a
siding to let a passenger train go by, there was no pit (except at a
station) for the engine to stand over, and both men would have to crawl
under the engine to do anything necessary, through wet, or snow, or mud;
and when starting the engine out of the siding or from a station, and
the driving wheels slipping round, the stoker had to jump down with his
shovel and scrape up a bit of gravel, or sand, or clay, and pop it on
the rail in front of the driving wheel, and if that should stop the
slipping, the engine gave a bound forward and the stoker had to run to
keep up with the engine, throw his shovel on to the foot-plate, and
scramble up the best way he could, or be left behind. In bad weather, if
it rained, hailed, or snowed, both driver and stoker had to keep a
look-out by holding their hands up before their eyes and looking between
their fingers; when it rained, and one side of each man was wet through,
they would change places till the other side got wet through also. These
were the good old times. Drivers and firemen in the present time may
thank their stars that the way was well paved for them before they
started. So there is hardly any similarity between a stationary boiler
stoker and a locomotive stoker, except keeping the steam up perhaps; the
loco. stoker is the king of all stokers.

33. _Question._--How is the stoking done on a big steam ship?

_Answer._--In a Royal West Indian Mail Steam Packet, in which I was
stoker, there were forty-five stokers and coal trimmers, forty-five
sailors, besides a number of stewards, stewardesses, six engineers, six
ship's officers, several mail officials, butchers, bakers, and a brass
band of eighteen m