Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1894-01-11
"OLD TIMERS"
The Early Days on the Maine
Central.
Had Many Hard Battles With the Big
Snowdrifts.
How Elisha Ran Down Wis Engine and
Other incidents.

WATERvILLE, Me-, Jan. TO- Special. -
Bump, bump. Ca-chuck, ca.chuck. How
the old freight saloon rolls from one
eide of the track to the other and in the few
moments in which it is upright, how it toss
es up and down.
himself of the luxury in travel offered by
the regular passenger coach behind, so took
a place in the car with the train men.
He perched himself on the top of trunk
by the side of the car and so formed one
end of the semi-circle about the stove.
Near the center sat broad thouldered
man with sandy whiskors we'll mixed with
grey, who had probably faced the winds of
sixty, or more Maine winters. At his right
and left sat two other men who evidently
had seen about as much of life as the fret
one and the scribe. from his elevated seat,
was quietly sizing them up and calling to
mind the old saying of "three Of kind, "
etc, when the man in the center took the
bfi4r from his mouth and knocking the
ashes from it said:
"D'ye mind giving me another pipe full
O. that plug O your'n?"
The remainder of the cut of B. L. was
handed over and as the man produced big
knife and commenced to cut off the tobacco
he continued, "To tell yer the truth, I've
whitfield so much tobaccer in the last year
N a half, that darned if my hands hsint all
calloused. Yer see us bout all had Z do
up there in the woods on that narrer gauge"
The newspaper man soon found that the
three persons who formed the center
of the groups around the saloon car
stove on that particular night were some
of the "old timers" who had railroaded it
for thirty years or more on the different
roads which now go to make up the
great Maine Central system. They
had seen the road develop from
half a dozen poor, struggling lines on
which the traffic was handled with small,
weak locomotives and cars, up to the
present great combined, machine like system
which /, the pride and life of the State of
Maine.
Ina few moments that briar pipe was
puffiug out cloud of smoke almost as dense
as the one emitted from the I'm Jke-stack of
the locomotive ahead, while the man
behind it continued swapping anecdotes
Of rair Jading in bygone days with the two
companions beside him.
"D'yr rem mNcr old Lisha that used to
run number u on the oil Portland N Ken
nebec: Wal now he was putty good run
ner for them days now after all they have
to say about him. The old feller under
stood the machine from top t bottom N be
took lots O. pride in keeping her looking
nice n in good workin' tim. You remem-
Der he used t preach at schoolhouses some
times, N | SUPPOSE that he has though. out
more sermons. set in in the cab on old 81,
th an any other man in the business. I've had
him Gin me scripter by the hour, off an on,
put it all togeih r.. But after all, somehow
he always $, emed r have a passage, right
on his tongues end that WAS jest suited to
the casion every time. He was pooty
cool headed feller on the ingine though, but
you bate yer boots zee BIN scat once.
1--WE was comm ont of Brunswick an
had IN a pooty heavy train for them days,
enuff 80 27 was workin' for bout all she
could. Wal Jest after we had got across
tn, lo,g bridg,. g, whz' if one O
hem diisin' wheels under the in
gine didn't come cbock OFT and start
rolin' off down the bank Lisha sot there
for fun minute With his hand on the lever,
and his hair stsndin' up straight on his head
afore he { ,lied for bresks. l never could
see what made the OH mat hine keep oa the
iron, right lie up. but she did n after we
got the train stopp we went along side
the ingine and there was Lisba the scatest
man yer ever see in all yer life. Every word
he could say was MY goodness What er
snose made that pssky thing do like that
Never knew it to do it afore.
A general laugh followed the conclusion
of this story and then one of the others
commenced:
..Wal do yer remember the time Lisha
ran race with his ingipe and beat her out:
Lemme see, believe that was down TO
Bruusu ick, too. Twenty-sevtn was down
there to the old tank tskin water. Li'ha
was IN on the tank tending the spout an
there want nobody on the machine at all.
Some body. l don't remember who. now,
came up in front with another ingine an !
told Lisha TO get his old apple cart out O.
tn way or he would run over 1t. L'sha
bo,lered down from the tank for him to go
.h, sd and fire away, and more in fun than
ANYTHING ell Sc. the other feller run up and
g.ye 9. A quite a good turk on the nose.
Well Won know Lisha had left the re-
versin; lever back and the ,r opened the
,hr ottle lust little and away she went up
the road, alone. Twenty y-foui was standing
nm on the main line and Lisha down eff'sn
that tank an after hi. ineine, an
the way he run up that track
was a caution to lots of the young fe'iers OF
+ ow days; but he caught her though I've
card bin say lots o times, he done it with
his last breath, =,
"Did you have much trouble with the
snow in those days." the JOURNAL man
veu'ured to ask.
"Yes, Eve been 80 hours gettin from
Auousts to Portland," sal the center man
THAT was the winter that they put the new
bridge on there vt Augusta. All the way
along il was Just shovel out and start on
a niece and get stuck again. The fsnge.
they had then only ~orked one way and l., h.e
to be turned just like snow plough. ihel
again the ingines were all wood burners an1
didn't carry such great deal OF water. J
rsnamber lots of times of havin' to mel
snow for water for the biler. bat don't thinl
I was ever on Ghen We were blocked anf
out of wood.
,:1 ono nf the 9th er3, Il re-