Thrown Off the Train for Three Miles
A railroad conductor enforces a strict, rigid, and brutal fare policy against a weary worker in Centralia.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Frank Tabor had been at work for Mr. Agne at Centralia and decided to come home on the passenger train. Knowing well the peculiar working of the company in this respect, he claims to have gone to the ticket office fully two minutes before train time, and also claims the agent was out, and consequently he was unable to purchase a ticket. When the conductor stepped off the train at the depot, he called his attention to the fact, receiving in reply no satisfaction. Rather than be left, he boarded the train. Some distance outside of Centralia, the conductor asked him for his ticket, and Mr. Tabor offered him 50 cents. A demand was then made for $1.05. An explanation that the amount earned during the day did not enable him to pay 80 cents for a ride of three miles was not the conductor's business. 'Get off or pay.' The train was slowed down and Mr. Tabor was ordered off. Two miles from home, afoot, and weary under the day's toil, way after dusk, he was forced to walk to Centralia.
“The train was slowed down and Mr. Tabor was ordered off. Two miles from home, afoot, and weary under the day's toil, way after dusk, he was forced to walk to Centralia.”
This 1884 account of a transit worker enforcing arbitrary, dehumanizing penalties on a rider highlights a long-standing tension in the Pacific Northwest between monopoly-held transportation and the working class. Today, the debate has shifted from boarding trains to the accessibility of transit-based infrastructure and the social costs of exclusionary fare enforcement.
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