The San Francisco call., 1896-11-26
JUST BEFORE THE COLLISION
The Thoughts That Flash Through the
Engine Mans Brain,


Engine Mans Brain.
There is something attractive about rail-
road life to the man who once enters it.
The railroad companies rarely give up a
reliable, faithful man. He may become
manned and unfit for the most remunera-
tive positions and be forced to accept some
humber place with a smaller salary at
tached to 1T, but it is an unwritten law
with most of the great railroad corpora
tfons that the man who is injured in their
service shall be placed in some position
where he may obtain his livelihood.
Thus it may happen that when you fall
in conversation with the man who occu-
pies humble switch house or a tiagman' s
shanty, you are talking with one who has
had mis- share of excitement, and been
through experiences that would make the
hair OF the average man stand upon end.
A reporter met switchman the other
day. the pathos of whose life was ex-
pressed in the wooden leg which he used
and as the Empire dashed by he looked u D
and said:
Eyes, like railroading. 1 have been in
the business all my lie, and expect to
spend the rest of my days over the rails,
but l am quite content TO remain here in
my little cottage and tend TO my tagging
rather than have the position of the man
who holds the throttle on that big engine
which just whizzed by here. You may
think it a snap TO sit there and ride over
the country at the rate of nile min ute
but tell you that man carries load of
responsibility on his shoulders which |
would not want OH mine, and which the
average man knows v-ry little about.
know something OF it, for | was fireman
some years ago on one of the fast engines
and lost my leg in an accident between
4. d.
of that accident as you are / never shou ID
have been able to hold my nerve for any
more fast trips. That finished me for
that work"
Then if man has been hurt in a rail-
road ccident it makes him scary OF tha
kind of work, does it?" asked the re-
porter.
''You bet it does" answered the switch.
man with Emphasis, s'apd don't let any
one fool you that ii don't. The man who
was running that engine the day / was
hurt escaped with hardly a scratch, but
he never could keep his time up the way
he did before thai, and finally was put on
a freight engine where the running was q
great deal slower.
Il shall never forget the way he looked
the afternoon the smash-up occurred.
Just before the crash came l looked at
him. We were rounding a curve down by
Schenectady. His long gray hair was
flowing in the breeze, his face set and his
eyes fixed on the track ahead.
"All at once he jumped to his feet and
reversed the lever and exclaimed in a
startled tone. My God. we are caught I
1t was probably not more than half min
ute after when / was lying beneath the en-
gine with my leg crushed, ut erly uncon-
scious OF the fact that a wreck had oc-
Cured, but every movement and occur
renee Of that half minute is as viyidiy i'm
pressed upon my mind as ii 1t had taken
weeks of time to impress 1t there.
LAS he spoke l looked through the ca b
window ahead of us, and there, within
twenty robs, was freight engine coming
straight at US, and there was no possible
chance to escape crash. The engineer
was doing his duty. / knew that He
was reversing his lever. applying the
brakes and doing his best to avert what
he knew was inevitable, but had nothing
to do. and it seemed as if everything in my
life was before me in those few seconds. I
felt absolutely sure l was going to die.
Strange as 1t may seem. the thought did
not seem horrible to me. A whole lot OF
the slang sayings, sue as You are learn
ing to ire here in this world, so as 10 be
prepared for the next and You won't
mimi hot job over there and a mum Der
OF those stale things which a fireman has
to take, came into my head, and even in
that awful position it occurred to me in q
sort of humorous way that / had made a
good start here below, or here above, as
might say. The next moment l was
thinking of my wife and children. YES
and oi mother, too, who had been dead a