The Houston daily post. [volume] (Houston, Tex.) 1886-1903, 1897-04-04

There is another thing that may seem
queer The moonlight casts strange shad.
ows on the track sometimes, and often
makes a man feel as II his heart was in
ms throat as he sees what he believes &c
be an obstruction on the line ahead OF
him, especially when he is running at the
rate OF mile Il minute. tell you it's a
wonderful sense OF relief when he find.
out that it is only moonlight
The fastest run ever made was at tho
rate of sixty miles an hour for thirty
miles. when / was running to make up
YORK, and made thirty of the forty miles
IN twenty-one minutes. You can bet
watched the machinery pretty closely. and
mad my eye out every minute. There is nc
fun in running passenger train at high
speed. Talk about care. Say, care is be-
Side you every minute"
The engineer who runs what is called the
night express from Jersey City to Phila-
dolphia, travels over as good a piece OF
track as there is anywhere, He runs one
of what are called the swell trains on the
pennsylvania system, and his responsible
~ is very great indeed. Edward Simpson Is
the name of the man who holds the throt-
lie of the engine that pulls this train. and
he Is an old timer II always feel sense
of freedom and eXhlaration, he said
when going at full speed over the line
aud am perfectly happy when in the cab.
You see when once man comes TO know
his engine he knows just how to handle
her and how 10 get the best work out OF
her Sometimes an engine seems to take
a freak and Will not work as we'll as al
other times, and then we call her cranky,
1t generally turns out there is no apparent
reason for 1t. and as rule the orankinesC
disappears as suddenly as 1t comes. No
body knows how 10 account for this, but 1t
is fact well known TO all railroad men.
when am on run. I have only two
thoughts; one is to keep on schedule time
and the other to keep an eye out for sig
nails. An engineer who does not constantly
keep lookout for danger is not 1T for his
position and the same statement applies TO
a man who loses his nerve
The greatest place around railroad to
hear yarns spun is the roundhousc. pro-
vided ono says nothing and listens. They
tell an interesting story over in the round
house of the Pennsylvania In Jersey City
of an engineer named Briggs. He used to
run on the Philadelphia line. but now
keeps an oyster house In Jersey city. This
WAS n case of a man and an accident. His
engine collidcd with another and although
uninjured, he was worthless as an engineer
ever afterwards. He tried 10 keep In the
business, but his nerve had left him, and
he WIS totally unable to force his engine
10 make time Finally he gave up the task
and stopped railroading altogether
One Of the old timers of the Pennsy lvania
Is Ned Perkins who. In addition 10 his
other virtues, acknowledges having been In
an accident Il guess that nine tenths OF
all the railroad men In the country have
been mixed up in some sort OF an accident
IN the course of their experience" said he.
II had one once which took me AZ near
death as care 10 co. until the actual end
comes. was running local out OF Phlla-
delphia on the western division. and had
n good fireman hut poor engine. She was
cranky machine II ever there was one.
and the mon in the roundhouse were al
weys joking me about the mule. as she
was called.
~ had been pretty lucky and was con-
graduating myself upon avoiding accidents,
when one day my turn came. ! was ut
tie behind time and had just got fairly
started on my run. was eoing along ut u
forty mile speed. when we came In sisat VI