Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1899-11-11
For Sale by Jones & Gibson.
ENGINES AT $50 MILES AN HOUR.
They Are Possible. Says One Man, bus
Engineers TO Run 1hem Are Not.

81 read piece the other day." said
an old locomotive engineer, lin which
Il New Orleans railroad man said that
$50 miles an hour was one of the posi-
bilities of future travel l venture to
disagree with him, and III tell you
why-he doesn't take INTO account the
human machine in the cab. L don't
doubt but that they VIII build engines
that can stand a I5O-miie gait, but
they can't build the engineers. On a
fairly good roadLed one notices very
little dinerenCe between twenty-five
and fifty miles an hour. l mean the
strain on the nerves isn't materially
increased; but nything above that
limit is the pace that kills. The SEN
sation is simply indeaciibabie in
words. 1t seems to laI every sepa. te
fiber in the body, and the tension is so
terrible that one is apt to feel the
effect for days. The average man
can't stand many spurts at even sixty
five miles an hour, let alone $50. lie
comes out of such an ordeal all broke
up and jumps when he hears uneX-
pected noises, like a hysterical woman.
My own theory is that the effect is
produced mainly through the sight.
You have to look straight ahead, but
at the same time you see things whiZ-
Zing past on both sides out of the til
of your eye, and it is as if something
had hold of the optic nerve and was
pulling it out like a rubber band.
That's a pretty clumsy explanation,
but it's near as L can come to it.
Many's the time I've staggered when 1
got up from my seat in the cab
THAT thing of staring straight
ahead,' continued the engineer, lis
bound to get on any mans nerves in
the course of time, particularly during
night runs. One sees queer things,
and I've had some scares in my life
that would have turned my hair as
white milk if hair really turned
white that way. The worst trouble
is with shadows. It's no uncommon
thing for bird to fit across the head
light and throw shadow down the
track as big a boxcar. OF course
it's gone in an instant, but in just that
heartbeat the nerves have been given
a shock that they may not recover
from in a week. I've had that happen
to me several times. / would be tear
ing along at fifty-five sixty mile
clip, when all of sudden something
big and black would loom out of the
dark right between the rails and not
four telegraph poles ahead. Next sec
ond / would know it to be the shadow
of bird, but far as 1 was con-
cerned the mischief was already done.
L had had vision of sudden death
and a sledge hammer blow on every
nerve center in my system. The new
electric headlights are worse than the
others as shock producers. They cast
such sharp shadows that bug NOV
ing across the glass will make you
think COW is lying just in front of
your pilot. 1 owe electric light bugs
q number of grudges for little jokes
ii that kind, and my experience isn't
In the least unusual. All engineers go
through the same thing. The man
who was never scared is a man who
Is careless of the live entrusted to his
vigilance. and such a fellow isn't fit to
be in the business These are things
that make me doubt the practicability
of 100 miles an hour and the possibil-
ity of $50. God help the engineer of
such train, He would go mad in
week.-New Orleans Times-Demo-
crat-