"I Looked Around, and There on the Deck Stood Two Guys with Masks on Their Faces, Holding a Couple of Guns That Looked Like Cannons"

"Weight of Experience."

By Leland Sherwood (?-?; no information about the author  available).

First appearance: Railroad Man's Magazine, April 1930.

Illustrator unknown.

Novelette (13 pages).

Online at Archive.org (HERE).

When he came to commenting on the value of experience, Mark Twain chose to forego a fancy aphorism and instead put it in more down-to-earth terms: "A man who carries a cat by the tail," he wrote, "learns something he can learn in no other way." We'll probably never find out about our young railroad detective's experiences with cats, but when it comes to catching train robbers, what he already knows about railroading will prove decisive . . .

Principal characters:

~ Stover ("I’m not much of a detective myself—just a railroader, and that’s why I saw it"), Cap Baldwin ("with this story to back me up, I’ve got him whipped before I start"), the engineer ("They scared me so bad that I didn't know what it was all about till it was over"), Jim Cotter ("I’m with you, if it costs me my job!"), Harper ("That sleuth stuff works out fine in books, but it's no good in real life"), Bennett ("No one around the station knows me from Adam"), and Morgan ("brought his gun hand into view").

References:

- "ordered for deadhead equipment":

  "A train or truck moved between cities with no passengers or freight, in order to make it available for service." (Wiktionary HERE.)

- "a plain-clothes bull":

  "(U.S., slang) A policeman; a detective; a railroad security guard." (Wiktionary HERE.)

- "in my flivver":

  "(colloquial, dated, Canada, U.S.) An automobile or cart, particularly one which is old and inexpensive." (Wiktionary HERE.)

- "If it ain't Hawkshaw himself":

  "(dated, 19th century) A detective." (Wiktionary HERE; also see Wikipedia HERE.)

- "he maneuvered a black stogie from one side of his expansive mouth to the other":

  "(slang) A cigar." (Wiktionary HERE.)

- "the third-trick bunch":

  "(Western Pennsylvania) A daily period of work, especially in shift-based jobs." (Wiktionary HERE.)

- "cut according to Hoyle":

  "(idiomatic) In strict accordance with the rules, especially of card games; in the proper or expected manner." (Wiktionary HERE.)

Resources:

- FictionMags's listing seems to indicate that Leland Sherwood confined his short fiction to railroading magazines (ss = short story):

  (1) "Weight of Experience," (ss) Railroad Man’s Magazine, April 1930 (above)

  (2) "Red Block," (ss) Railroad Man’s Magazine, July 1931

  (3) "The Nut," (ss) Railroad Man’s Magazine, September 1931

  (4) "Clear Board," (ss) Railroad Stories, May 1932

  (5) "Sandhouse Chatter," (ss) Railroad Magazine, October 1943.

- Other ONTOS encounters with railroads include, but aren't limited to:

  Francis Lynde's Scientific Sprague (HERE)

  Victor Whitechurch's "A Warning in Red" (HERE)

  Roy Vickers's "The Eighth Lamp" (HERE)

  Freeman Wills Crofts's "The Mystery of the Sleeping-Car Express" (HERE)

  D. C. Freeman's "The Stolen Ten Thousand" (HERE)

  Arthur M(inturn) Chase's "The Disappearing Diamonds" (HERE)

  B. M. Adler's "A Million Dollars" (HERE)

  Ian Bell's "Mystery Trains: Crime Writers and the Railway" (HERE)

  Howard Rigsby's "The Body in Roomette 9" (HERE)

  Agatha Christie's "The Plymouth Express Affair" (HERE)

  Leroy Yerxa's "One-Way Ticket to Nowhere" (HERE)

  Albert Harris's "The Commercial Traveller" (HERE)

  Augustus Wittfeld's "The Gold Coupler," "The Goat Degree," and "The Alcohol Annihilator," with "Dirk Johnson's Bank Robbery" tossed in (HERE)

  Cutcliffe Hyne's "At Close Quarters with Death: A Story of the Rail" (HERE)

  Johnston McCulley's "Tramps' Christmas Eve" (HERE)

  Johnston McCulley's "New Year's at Rock Siding" (HERE)

  Railway Related Stories (2017) (HERE)

  W. L. Alden's "The Missing Pullman Car" (HERE)

  C. Langton Clarke's "The Ends of Justice" (HERE)

  William Edward Hayes's "High Iron Rolling" (HERE)

  Ernest Bramah's "The Knight's Cross Signal Problem" (HERE)

  and David M. Norman's "Satan Turns the Timetables" (HERE).

The bottom line:

  "Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."

    — S. L. Clemens

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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