, 1896-09-03
BEFORE THE COLLISION.
Thoughts Flies Rapidly When the En-
gineer Sees Inevitable Disaster.

There is something attractive about
IIilrGId life to the man who nee en-
ais it. The railroad companies rarely
give up a reliable. faithful man. He
my become MANNED and unfit for Ghe
| nest re~munerative positions and be
ilrced to accept some humber place
w.,h a smaller salary attached to it,
bLl it is an unwritten law with most
The man WAC is injured in their SER
vice shall be placed in some position
where he may obtain his livelihood.
Thus it may happen uhat when you
fall in conversation with the "a who
! occupies a humble switch house of a
tlagman's shanty you + talking with
one who has had his share of excite
ment. and been through experiences
that would make the hair of the aver
age man stand upon md. A reporter
met a switchman the other day the
pathos of WHOSE life was expressed in
the wooden leg which he used, and as
the Empire dashed by he looked up
and said:
Yes, | like r%ailroaiing. | have been
in the business all my life. and expect
{ o spend the rest of my days over the
rails, but | am quite content to remain
here in my little cottage and tend to
my tagging rather than have the posi-
ton of the man who holds the throt-
tie on that big engine which just whiz-
zel by here. You may think 1t a snap
to sit there and ride over the country
at the rate of a mile a minute, but
tell you that mar carries a load of re-
sponsibility on his shoulders which
would not want on mine, and which
the average man knows very little
about. l know something of 1t, for
was fireman some years ago on one OF
the fast engines and lost my leg in an
accident between here and Albany. But
if l had come out Of that accident as
sound as you are | never should have
been able to hold my nerve for any
more fast trips. That finished me for
that work"
Then if a man has been hurt in a
railroad accident it makes him scary
of chat kind of work, does it," asked
the reporter.
you bet it does answered the
]switchman with emphasis, "and don't
let any one fool you with that it don't.
The man who wis running the engine
the day | was hurt escaped with hard
ly a scratch. but he never could keep
his time up the way he did before that,
and finally was put on a freight engine,
where the running was a great deal
slower.
81 shall never forget the way he look
ed the afternoon the smash-up occur
red. Just before the crash came
looked at him. We were rounding
curve down by Schenectady. His long
gray hair was flowing in the breeze, his
face SET, and his eyes fixed on the tract
ahead.
"All at once he jumped to his fee
and reversed the lever and exclaimed
in a startling tone. "My God, we arr
caught" 1t vas probably not more
than half a minute after when | wa
lying beneath the engine with my les
crushed, utterly unconscious of the fac
that a great wreck had occurred, but
every movement and occurrence of thai
half minute is as WILDLY impressed
upon my mind as if it had taken weeks
, of time TO impress it there.
AS ne spoke l looked through the
cab window ahead of us, and there,
coming straight at us, and there was
not possible chance TO escape a crash.
The engineer was doing his duty.
knew that. He was reversing THE lever,
Applying the brakes and doing his best
TO avert what he knew was inevitable,
but l had nothing to do, and 1t seemed
as if everything in my 1ife was before
me in those few seconds. l felt abso-
luteIy sure l was going to die. Strange
as it may seem, the Thought did not
seem horrible to me. A whole lot OF
slang sayings, such as You are learn
ing to fire here in this world * as to
be prepared for the next and You
won't mind a hot job over there and a
number OF those stale things wlhfch a
fireman has to take. oame into my
head, and even in that awful POSITION
it occurred to me in a sort Of humor-
GUS way THAT 1 had made a good start
here below, or here above, as l might
say. The NEXT moment l vas thinking
of my wife and children-yes, and OF
mother too. who, had been dead a num-
Der of years. A man always thinks of
his mother at such 4 time. But / don't
think l had a particle OF fear Of death.
The last thing that was on my mind
the question, Who was to blame
for the a%ocident?' and that Is the last l
remembered.
when l came ito my sense l was in