PAY AS YOU ENTER CARS
CAUSE SOME TROUBLE.
People are Getting Slowly Educated
to the New Way -- Woes of
the Conductors.
"These pay as you enter cars are causing lots of trouble just now," remarked a conductor on one of the new kind of cars the other day. "A great number of people don't know just how to take them. And even those that do always stop in the doorway and ask me my opinion on the way they are going to help out in the crowded hours.
"Sometimes I get a fellow on the car who comes up with his little nickel all ready in his hands, and he stands in the doorway holding it out for me to take, while the rest of the crowd that's trying to get on have to wait. Now and then a man will hand me a $2 or $5 bill as he enters and expect me to make change, while everybody else is pushing forward trying to get on. These fellows are all traveling men; those that have had experience with the pay as you enter cars in Chicago and New York.
"They see the car all fixed up like I was ready to take the coin just as the passenger gets on the step and tries to get in the door, and so, being wise to the kind of car and the principal which they are worked on, they try to have their money ready for me. It would be surprising to see how many of that kind get on my car every day.
"The company is running many of these pay-as-you-enter cars now so as to educate the people as to how to get off and on; but say, do you think they are getting education fast? Not much of it. You ought to see the women crowd and squeeze, all trying to get off and on through the same little door. It was bad enough when they had the wider doors in the cars, but with these half-doors, two women and two Merry Widows don't mix at all.
"When they do get to running these cars in the way they are planning to run them, it's going to be easy sailing for us conductors. We can just sit back on our little stools in the curve of the railing and take it easy while we are shoving the nickels into our money changers.
"It is said that all of the pay-as-you-enter cars will be put on the Northeast car line July 1, and then the conductors expect to have a great many amusing experiences to carry home to their wives at night."
