I guess you've figured out I'm researching trains. Well, steam trains during the 1870s, to be precise. After an internet search, I discovered a train museum in Chandler, Arizona, and I couldn't wait to check it out. I wasn't disappointed! The volunteers at the museum were super friendly and informative. They had a steam engine from around the era I was researching, which you can see in the above photos. Something I didn't know is that the engineer and the fireman were seated across from each other, and the burner was between them (third photo). Imagine the heat as the fireman loaded the burner right there. Also, there was no opening to see out the front of the train. In the last picture above you can see the engineer's seat and his window to the outside. Something else I discovered is that when the engineer was coming into a station, a worker would place torpedoes (basically small explosives) on the tracks. The loud popping noises as the train ran over the torpedoes would alert the engineer to slow down. Another misnomer is that the engineer was the person in charge. Nope, it was the conductor who oversaw everything and everyone. Below, other than the trunk, the pictures are from eras later than what I'm writing about, but just as fascinating. The second picture displays different seats from different train companies in an early 1900s coach. The third picture is sleeping quarters with a hide-a-potty. The last is from a personalized car. Wealthy people bought their own cars and made them magnificent; kind of like we do nowadays with RVs. Hopefully, I've gained enough information to keep from writing a serious error in my story with regard to travel via train in 1878.
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