The times., 1897-08-22
Whistles and Their Ways.

There used To be no kind OF uniformity
about whistle signals, Different roads
Lad their own codes, and it was confusing
But lately there's been a move TO make the
same scr apply TO all roads, and IL is meet
ing with a good deal OF success A good
engineer can make his whistle do almost
anything. They used to tell OF how Edi-
SIN once, when the telegraph line was
washed down into wide river, climbed
up into cab and InonEeyed with the
whistle until he attracted the attention OF
the operator with the work crew on the
other side, and they transmitted their mes
sages that way until the wires were
stretched again. Sometimes engineers on
night trains get little too stuck on the
whistle, and make it d nuisance to the peo-
Pile who want TO sleep When the sliding
wnistIe-the kind that most of the big
passenger engines have-first came out IL
scared the lives nearly out of the country
people You could make II sound ike
almost any uTearthly thing-Inake it roar
like il lien or sob like gbOSt-and that was
about what the boys did Why. when the
frs one was put on midnight run out OF
st. Louis about fifteen years ago the peO-
pie were nearly crazy with terror, and the
new spapers were full of guesses as 10 what
kind OF wild beast 200 feet tall was going
about through the night looking for chance
TO eat up the world
But since then communities have taken
to passing laws regulating the blowing OF
whistles somewhat, and now, although YOU
may think there's a lot of needless tOOt-
ing, you " ould find if you We're to look it
up that the engineer meant business every
time he put his hand ON the whistle lever
Some time you may have heard three
long blasts OF the whistle. That isn't a
frequent signal, though. 1t is sounded
when a drawbar pulls out when the train
is whiriing along, OF when a pin breaks,
or when from any cause the train Is broken
| in two. In a case OF that kind the first
| thing for the engineer to do Is To shoot
ahead and get the forward part OF his train
out of the way o I the bac end, 80 the rear
section won't oyertake him and bump into
| him and mix up broken cars and goods q.
| the Country around. As soon aS the IN
! gineer notices that his train is broken in
| two-which he usually can see by the sud-
| den Iightness of the load he is pulling
he repeats that signal until he arouses the
trainmen at the rear. It's his play to keep
ahead OF that lot of flying cars until the
/ traiRmen have brought it TO n stop
Then there's the crossing signal. the
oae that the farmers hear most. There's
| O. regularly scheduled alarm for the cross
| ings, but this is a place where the indi-
yidual likes of the engineers show them
| selves The regular signal is two long
sounds and two short ones. But some men
! give her one long one and two short ones,
| some give a long, short and another long
one, and one pull her for two short. fol-
lowed by one long blast. 1t really doesn't
| make any particular difference, for the
object simply is TO make a noise and scare
people off the crossing Anything ought
to do tnat. The cattle alarm is OF course
pretty Wen known to everybody. It's Just
a lot OF short barkS, and honestly don't
think a scaIier thing. could have been
thought up to fit the purpose. Even the
duruG animals seem to know that it means
business, while humans, although they
never saw q locomotive before. feel th s!r
hair rise at the sound Chicago Record