Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1897-03-11

locomotive himself. He surveyed the
line, decided upon the grades and
curves and aided by ordinary labor
made the roadbed laid the rails and
now runs the engine. The boy railway
king, as might be expected, is the envy
OF his contemporaries. He is presi-
dent, he is treasurer, he is auditor and
okays his own vouchers All this would
be quite enough for any grown man,
who has spent years struggling to ac-
quire wealth in railway stocks and like
securities, but is not enough for the
boy. The acme of bliss comes further
down the line when the president, ETC.,
climbs into the cab, moves the lever,
opens up the throttle and, while swim
ming in a delirium of joy, rings the
bell, blows the whistle, toots for him
self to let Off the brakes, and, pulling
open the door of the fire-boX by a
chain, fires up with shovels Of coal,
sets the blower a-going and the train
running up the road on schedule time
and the fence posts passing by thick
as the teeth in a flne-tooth comb.
While the Bucks Hill railroad has
not yet attained the dignity of inclus-
ion In an official railroad annual, there
is no telling what good fortune is in
store for it, or to what extent recog-
milton by the established railroads OF
the United States might benefit its boy
engineer-president, 1t is known to the
knowing that there are railroad presi-
dents who can boast in truth of very
little over which to preside. Some of
them ostensibly governing imposing
lines of railway really only preside
over a prospectus or the oft-quoted
two streaks Of rust and the right Of
way"
The want that Tyler's Bucks Hill
railroad has at last practically filled
arose out of conditions in which his
father, William M. Tyler, farmer on
a large scale, is interested, and that
were incidental to the character Of
Connecticut soil and the topography
of that part Of the state. Farming,
owing to preponderance of rock,
boulders and gravel, is not all it might
be in Connecticut, and hence Connecti-
cut agriculturists would fain make
both ends meet by adding to agricul-
ture poultry or fine live stock raising,
and anything in the way of quarrying
or numbering that might prove profita-
BILE. 1t was manifest that profits as
well as fun awaited the success of a
miniature railroad running over Bucks
Hill. Tyler, who went to work at it in
very crude. small boyish way at first,
soon compelled his elders to have faith
in him as a civil and mechanical en-
gineer and road constructor. Then the
cash capital was forthcoming without
difficulty as fast as 1t became necessary
for Tyler to invest in material.
The boy engine builder very sensibly
RETAINED from attempting to follow
the lines of drive-wheel locomotive.
Tyler was Indifferent to appearances,
but bent on practical results. He chose
the rotary mechanism best adapted to
steam launches and small motors, us
ing the gear ordinarily used for such
purposes. Tyler's lever connections,
brakes, the exposure of his boiler and
machinery and his primitive coal bunk
ers all wear an air of crudity. The
boys sensible aim was to save and
make money and not to spend it ex-
travagantly.
The lad modestly states that Engine
No. 1, the Mogul of the Bucks Hill