Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1899-08-10

Over in the lounging room for the
trainmen at the terminus of one of the
trunk lines in Jersey City several train
men were exchanging stories Of hair
breadth escapes. .fastrides and instances
of presence of mind, while waiting to
be summoned to their duties. Finally
it came the turn of a small, gray
haired, keen eyed man.
''Well, yes" he said, taking a chew
of his neighbors tobacco. Il had one
excitin trip. 1t was long back in 'S8,
before the comm of these double
eabbed Mother Hubbard enjines on
which, if you want to speak to the fire
man, you have to stop at a telegraph
station n send him a message or else
slap the air over in the 'mergency
notch n bring him up to you whether
he wants TO come or not. Never did
like these pesky double deckers. was
doing stunts on the 607-a good old
mogawl she We're, too. Just out the
shop, where she'd been overhauled n
had the airbrakes put on her.
81 left the other end of the division
on trip right after pay day N my reg
ular fireman had reported i'll. I'd seen
him the night before n he looked
rather weak n tired. n thought he'd
been taken ILL., They used to have a
great trick doin that after they's got
their mon. l had fellow by the name
of Conroy in his place, n we hadn't
got along very far fore | came to the
conclusion that he was a mite under
the weather, too, n he couldn't make
the old 607 steam nohow. The outcome
Of it was that we laid down several
times on the trip II barely caught
the steamer with our export freight
Old Nuthead. the enjine dispatcher, he
made me walk the carpet. n said if
didn't do better'n that he'd drop me
back on coal again. hadn't been rum
min fast freight very long u left him
feelin rather testy, but | didn't say
anything bout Conroy. as | thought
that durin our lay over in this end he'd
kinder pound his ear n sleep off the
booze n be all right goin back
'We caught train 70 for the return
trip with about Is cars perishabie stuff
for Chicago which were rugged up
with the air. which was a purity good
string of airbrake cars for those days.
n about 10 scabs. without air. was
thinkin what a stop you could make on
short notice with them. n how you
could turn things over in the caboose.
Old Joe Hoffman was our conductor,
p he was an awful man to swear n
cut up high jinks if everything didn't
come his way.
sWe hadn't moved out very far along
the meaders when | saw as how I'd
have to do some tall fgurin to git that
train in on time. Soon's we'd git to a
little grade I'd drop her down notch
or two n she'd kick up her heels n
lay right down for want of wind. Con-
roy. instead of sleepin while he was off
duty. had gone out n put on some fin
ishin touches n made it worse.
you can just guess was mad clean
through, n | thought TO myself as how
would get Mr.. Conroy about 80 days
In which to rest n praps end his little
railroadin career soon's we got home
again When we got to the first wa
term tank. about 40 miles out. we had
used up jest 2 hours n Is minutes.
The regular runnin time was only /
hour n 40 minutes, SO you see we'd
lost 30 minutes on 40 miles almost lev
ell n with a light train. The outlook
was that we'd never make the heavier
grades on the western end unless Con-
roy took a brace. While | was oilin
around Hoffman came runnin up cuss-
in like one mad u says:
.Blankety blank blank, you. what
the blanks matter wider? | wanter
git home in time for church Sunday
Here's a message from Jersey which
says as how if yer don't hurry un
they'll take yer off here at the mex
plug n give us respectable man.
aAs this was only about midnight
Tuesday night his speech got my dan
der up. n told Tim as how he "a .Ier
sey could both go where ashestus cloth
In is boon n the broilin sun never
SETS But climbed up on the tank. n
maybe l didn't give that fireman a
settin out.
"'You long, lanky blunderbuss.' /
says. for he was big codger. much
bigger'n meself. If you don't take a
purity sudden brace n keep the wind
up on this mogawl till we get in you
might as well sit right down here n
send your regrets to the super cause
I'll report you soon's we git in, or my
name amt John Stafford
"He give me kinder reproachful
look n commenced fixin his fire AS
turned to put my oil can in the box |
spied a bottle of whisky | grabbed
that bottle n turned roun to CoproE
:Ahar ! says. so this is the cause OF
our gaspin for breath every i've min
utes. Is it? Well. here she goes. n |
plugged that bottle over on the track
% broke il into 30 pieces, not without
some regrets as Il he'd > srnttv good