Waterbury evening Democrat., 1890-10-30
THE ENGINEERS LOT.
According to . Member of the Craft It
 Not . Happy One.

According to . Member of the Craft It Ts
 Not Happy One.
 "You talk of locomotive engineers be- ing nervous lot" said John Blower, an old knight of the lever, who has now re- tired from active service, 'sbut if you knew all that we have to go through in the course of twenty or twenty-five years experience on the road you would not wonder that we are nervous. The cause of your surprise would be that we have any nerves left and that we do not allgo to the mad-house after few years at the work. My experience extended over a quarter of a century, and could tell you stories of things that have gone through that would make your hair stand on end. tell you, if all loco- motive engineer sees and goes through were written in a book, it would be more exciting than the most gory dime novel that ever was printed. At least, some of the things that have gone through appear to me that way when try to re- call them. It is all very fine, I suppose, to have nice things written about you after you have been picked up in pieces along the tracks and to be described as 8 hero for standing by your lever in face of inevitable death. The trouble about all that is that a fellow is not here to read all these fine things about himself. They come too late to do him any good and the thought that they will be said is not likely to occupy his mind very much when he is looking into an open switch fifty yards ahead of him and his machine is going at the rate of fifty miles an hour, or when he sees another train coming round curve at the rate a mile a minute on the same track he is on, but in an opposite direction, while he is rushing to meet it at the same rate. There is not much room for thoughts of glory in his mind then, I can tell you, and after having gone through few of such scenes it is not to be wondered at if his nerves do get shaky once in while. See that wide scar running from my crown to the back of my head? That is the result of one accident of the kind that I have come through. got that on the Grand Trunk railway of Canada, between Hamilton and Toronto. I had charge of freight train at the time and | we were ten minutes behind and going at fifty mile gait to try to make up. Rounding a curve we saw rushing down on us fast passenger express that should have waited at the last station until we go past, but which through some mistake of the train dispatcher had been sent on to the next stopping place. had only time to grab the lever and reverse the engine when the two trains were together. The last remem- Der was making a bound from the cab just as they struck. The next I knew I was lying in my own cottage in To ronto, six weeks after, with my head all tied up and every inch of my body ach- ing as if it were being slowly torn to pieces by grappling irons. It was three months before could get on my feet
 again, and six before could do my
 work. How long it will be till cease
 to feel any effect from it depends, sup
 pose, or how long I live This I do
 know, that though it is now nearly ten
 years since it happened I frequently
 feel as if I were going through all the
 horrors that experienced when I first
 recovered consciousness. That, I sup
 pose. was the closest call have yet
 had, though I have had many hair
 breadth escapes from similar catastro- phes. s."-Chicago Evening Post.