The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1896-08-05
The Night Train sisnaler.

Dut wasting 80 much of the day in bed
Pound We used to call sleep in those
days, because we stopped pounding
brass 10 pound our ears on an express
package pillow, with a waiting room
benz b for a bunk. Funny thing Is
trade slang. In those days there were
very few semaphore signals, and we
had to get out On the track with red
and white lanterns and swing trains
up, and our chiefest bane was a hold
ing order, for there must be no sleep
with them on our hands
"For instance, il west-bound trains
had the right Of way, the dispatcher
might send me an order TO Hold No.
36 for orders and then run east
bound trains against it all the way up
the line. Quite responsibility To put
on a l7-year-old boy. Well, If we hap
pened TO be terribly sleepy it was a
hard fight. have been so sleepy that
daren't sit in my chair for fear l
would fall asleep, and I have stood up
and walked around many a time for
an hour or 50 along in the small hours
Of the morning until the order was re-
voked or the train got in. One way
we had was to put high stool out in
the centre Of the floor and sit on that.
IL we went to sleep we would tumble
off. | nearly broke my neck once that
way. have often had a call on the
wire wake me up. There's something
peculiar about that. / have been
sound asleep in the room adjoining the
telegraph Office, had a train go by and
an alarm clock go off without waking
me up, with two or three instruments
clicking away like mad all Of the time,
and then start up suddenly wide
awake, when some one called my Of
flee on the wire. 1t always seemed TO
wake me up in the same way. L
would dream that my station was
being called and that some one was
holding me down to prevent my an
swering it. I would struggle and
strain to escape and then suddenly
awake 10 find the instruments calling,
just as I dreamed they were. Once
when / was very sound asleep | act
ually got up in my sleep and walked
across a waiting room into the Office
and had my hands on the key to an
swer before woke up.r
"This wasn't infallible however, un-
fortunately, and we used to try all
sorts of schemes to awaken ourselves,
usually beginning with an alarm
clock. The trouble with an a arm clock
is that a man becomes accustomed to il
and it fails to rouse. We learned that
the way to Use one was To give the alarm
only one turn the first two or three
times we tried, then two turns for a
while, and 30 on until il was fully
wound up each time and when it be-
gan to lose its effect, a. it would, like
the continued Use Of opiates, We dis
continued it for a while and tried
something else. 1 have often set my
clock twenty minutes ahead, lay down
and slept peacefully for that brief per-
iOd.
'The greatest trouble we had was in
reporting the passing of trains. Some
of the night expresses would rush by
20 quick that we wouldn't get thor
oughly awake, and then, by and by,
after the train had been reported from
two or three stations above, would per-
haps wake up and find the dispatcher
calling. Then he would ask, perhaps,
for No. Al, and We would answer "NOt
yet" there would be bad few min
utes in store for Us, for very severe
things can be said over a wire, and they
sound a thousand times worse than
faee-to-face abuse.
"For a while had a dog who would
begin to growl when a train was a
mile away and would wake me up. but
after while he got afflicted in the reg
ular way, and would only grOwl for
tramp. At last / devised a novel
scheme. ran light string across
the track about five feet from the
ground, tied one end to the fence and
ran the other through the keyhOle.
To this end I attached coal hod filed
with pokers, tin cans, etc, so that
when the train passed the string would
break and down would come the hOd
with terrible chatter, and / would be
reused. Well, had it all nicely fixed
for the Chicago express the first night,
when about O'Clock a tramp trudged
along up the track and the string
caught him just under the nose. Say,
he was the maddest man ever heard.
If 1 hadn't had my dog with me /
don't believe he would ever have
ealmed down.
THAT scheme WIS pretty satisfae-
tory for quite a while, but got 80 that
I'd sleep through that, too, sometimes
II would get caught occasionally and
wouldn't work, and it was a mean rig
ging to arrange, anyway, so 1 decided
that the safest plan was to tie the end
of the string to my arm. The first
time tried that / was out of cotton
string, 50 l rummaged around in the
Office and found a bali of this fine,
hard twine which the express people
use, and / stretched that, like a big
fool, tied one end of it around my
wrist and laid down on a cot. In
about an hour along came the New
York limited, about fifty miles an
hour, and, say!-why, that twine
would have tOwed a eanalboat. Before
it broke it hal tipped over the cot,
dragged me half way across the floor,
nearly frightened me half to death and
cut into the flesh Of my wrist nearly TO
the bone. My arm was nearly dis
located. You can bet that used cot
ton twine after that"
Since lS7S there have been nine epi-