Didn't work out too well for Eddie.
But it did for the brakeman. And Eddie chose to stay with the train, he wasn’t abandoned.
They didn't in the novel, not really. Francisco d'Anconia abandoned his people in Mexico. Midas Mulligan at least made a clean exit. What happened when Ellis Wyatt's oil workers woke up that morning to find their fields aflame and the boss taking a powder is not recorded.
It's definitely an issue. In fiction Rand personalized the whole thing to the point where an attack on Wyatt Oil or Reardon Industries was distilled into an attack on only one man. Taggart Transcontinental's employees are listless no-loads in one part of the book and loyal, armed guardians in another. It's an issue I'm not sure Rand really resolved, one we'll be following chapter by chapter as we go through the book.
Yeah, Eddie did get screwed over, huh? Lifelong friend to Dagney and never made it to the gulch.
THANK YOU! I had gotten wrapped up in my own discussion on this thread, and was wondering if anyone else notices the prepostrous injustice Rand / Taggart / Galt serves to Eddie.