El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1900-12-06

years. there will be no time left on
the road for freight trains If the
road keeps up its freight traffic it will
have to build another track
He says that four special trains have
already been engaged from the Santa
Fe to take people to the Epworth
League convention to be held in San
Francisco in June. ~
HUNTING FOR RAILROADERS.
There is a little commotion down
the Mexican Central road because of
the big wreck which occurred at JIM
uico last week. ta
Many of the friends and relatives of
those who were killed and injured are
securing the country over to find the
conductors and the engineer who es-
capped. They allege that the wreck
was caused through negligence and
have determined to find the guilty ones
and bring them to account
The officers too, are taking a great
deal of interest in the case and If the
men are found on Mexican soil they
will try prison life for a time If not
suffer death.
The Juarez authorities have received
notice. it is said. to watch for the men
and if they are found here to put them
in Jail This will hardly be done as
all the men are now in FL Paso and it
is understood that they have very little
business on the Mexican side of the
river
Near Jimulco the natives opine tina
the men have not escaped from that
country and scores of them are
securing the mountains in hopes of
finding them Could they do this the
accused would hardly trod American
soil agin for the natives have sworn
vengeance.
HORSES USED BY SWITCHMEN.
A letter from Walsenburg, Colo. in
a Chicago paper, says: Absolutely
unique in the history of railroading
are the cowboy switchmen Of South
ern Colorado. With the Introduction
OF automatic couplers. and the present
use of double-header trains of fifty
cars in length, it was discovered by
1ong-headed railway officials that men
on horseback could couple up trains
much quicker than those on foot.
Although not a general custom, this
unique method of switching has been
tried with success in both the yards of
WaIesburg and Trinidad Here are 10
Gated great coal mines and hundreds of
cars a day were handled formerly by
fOOt-SOre Switchmen, who trudged
many miles coupling trains. One day
a cowboy dashed up and watched the
switchmen at work With grunt he
urged his pony across the tracks, rode
fearlessly between the cars. arranged
the coupler. then backed out and gave
the signal for the engineer to back
ap- The coupling was made. and then
the cowboy dashed further up the
track, -uncoupled another portion of
ha nd il ari0
formed the work of the regular switch
man in half the time it would have
taken him to do IL.
Three brothers named Berry, who
we're working for a ranch close to the
range, came into town resolved to go
to work on the railroad. They learned
the duties of yard-switchmen, and
then introduced their ponies. These
animals had a special training and
were taught not to balk at the cars,
never to stand on the tracks, but be-
tween them. so there is no possibility
OF being run over They were also
trained to follow their owner along
the train. should he climb on the cars
to set brakes.
The Rio Grande railroad. seeing the
possibilities of this new method of
switching, soon introduced several
cowboys, who became fully as expert
AZ the Berry brothers. train of forty
cars was recently made up, the air
connected and the brakes loosened in
eighteen minutes. This necessitated
twelve switches. and is the best on
record |
The Brotherhood of Railway Train |
men took the matter up and after a |
long investigation they decided that |
the new method was not down in the |
agreement with the railroads ond
therefore, II must De abolished. Rail- |
roads. however, fought the brother
hood. claiming that they had used the |
cowboys more as an advertisement |
than for any other reason, and seeing
that 1T interfered but little with the /
work of the road crews, they would /
continue to use the cowboy switchmen,l