The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-06-24
TRACKS IN THE EAGLE STREET
YARDS OF THE OMAHA TAM
PERED WITH.
WATCH WAS PLACED ON THEM.
RESULT WAS THAT A BOY WAS
CAUGHT ACTING SUSPI-
CIOUSLY.
That He and Others Had Done Ii for
the Fun of Seeing the Cars
Jump.

Charles Coschac a nine-year-old boy
living on the upper flats, was arrested
by Special Officer Doody, of the Omaha
railroad, last evening, while, with a
companion who escaped, in the act Of
opening switches in the aEgle street
yards. The lad, though frightened at
being taken to the police station, did
not realize the grave consequences
which might have attended his act,
and claimed that the switches had
only been opened "for fun
For the past month the Omaha road
has been having a great deal of trou-
BILE in the Eagle street yards because
of open switches. Scarcely a night has
gone by that a train has not been de-
rallied, and at times two or three cars
would be off the tracks in different
parts of the yard. Fortunately no one
has been injured, though the crew of
freight train had a narrow escape
Tuesday night, when an entire train
narrowly escaped being thrown into
the river, and Richard Morrissy,
brakeman, was forced to leap for his
life from the top of a freight car into
the water Aside from the danger to
life attending the depreciation of those
interfering with the switches, a great
deal of time has been lost nightly in
getting the derailed cars back on the
tracks.
For a time it was thought that some
one with fancied injury against the
company was endeavor1ng to work re-
Venge by Wrecking trains in the Eagle
street yards. There are fully fifty
switches in this yard, extending from
the Union depot to Eagle street, and
the situation had become such that an
engineer dare not run a train over the
tracks except at the slowest possible
rate of speed, lest a wreck should oc-
cur. The practice of the persons open
ing the switches has been to partly
turn the crank moving the rails, thus
making the fact that switch had been
tempered with difficult to discover, but
leaving the moving rails in such a po-
SitiOn that the wheels of the cars in
evitably leave the tracks. Many pas
senger trains entering the city pass
over the Omaha tracks in this yard,
and, realizing the gravity Of the situa-
ton, the railroad officials detailed Of
ficer Doody to keep watch for the per-
sons opening the switches. At dusk
the captured lad and a companion
walked through the yards toward their
homes on the flats, and according to
Officer Doody opened several switches.
He caught Charles Coschac, but the
other boy ran away. BE-. ..-.
At the police station the boy admit
ted that he and a number of others
about his own age, living on the flats,
had made a practice Of throwing open
the switches every night as they went
home from begging tours about the
city. They thought 1t was fun, the
lad said, to see the cars jump the
track. The lad said there were also
about ten youths sleeping in a cave
in the bluff near the tracks, who left
their rendezvous at night and opened
the switches. He gave the names of
number of boys who had engaged in
the dangerous fun" and, upon the
advice of Capt. Rouleau, was taken by
Officer Doody to find their homes Of
ficer Doody said that warrants would
be sworn out for the arrest of the boys
parents, as the railroad company had
determined to put a stop to the dan
erOuS amusement.