The evening times., 1900-10-20
NO NEED OF A smAsH-UP.
a Safe Plan for sleepy Railroad Tel
eEraph Operators-
CFrom The New York Sun. }

(FFom the New York SUM-
However tired OF oyerworked he may
be the railroad operator who allows
trains TO smash into each other while he
pounds his eaE-is-a -brainless idiot" said
William James. an old-timer. "When l
was a youngster / was in charge Of a
station down in Pennsylvania. I went to
sleep On duty because I couldn't Keep
awake. Trains met there every hour or
So and I was the7enly person 10 run the
business at that point. I went to sleep
and slept six hours, and there wasn't
any smash-up or the slightest possibility
of one. so far as my station was con-
cerned.
Il was fifteen years old when l applied
for job to Supt. Robert Pitcairn of the
Philadelphia and Erie. By the way he's
in England now making big coal contracts
for the Pennsylvania people. He took me
on Immediately and sent me out to Kane.
That was the place where DR.. Kane the
Arctic explorer once lived and it was
named for him Kane is on top of a
mountain with Wilcox at the bottom on
one side and Wetmore on the other Oil
is the great product there now. but in 1856
the traffic was in general freight. Big
trains met at Kane and for a small place
the traffic was considerable.
II was me. at the station by a big. wild
eyed man, who said that he guessed was
the kid that was going to relieve him He
said he was glad to get out, but he
guessed I'd like the work.
You'll have the night trick, said he,
and you'll only have to be here from
p. N. to I a. m.
.I looked up with dfsmay, but he was
striding ahead into the station. He in
structed me in my duties; told me of a
country tavern about two miles away,
then swung on to the train that had been
waiting twenty minutes for lunch and was
gone.
When the day man relieved me the
next morning put for the hotel and found
it after tramping about for two hours and
made arrangements to stay there. The
proprietor's wife seemed to take moth
erly interest in me and that afternoon
when I started for work she had a bang
up lunch of fried chicken and jam and
things.
We'll, that night about II o'clock got
hungry for that chicken and hauled out my
lunch basket. I had just got things nicely
spread out on the instrument table when
in come a fat engineer
's'Helle, kid said he, that's too good
a feed for you. It'll give you beilyache.
sure's the world
''Whereupon he put me on bench, sat
On my legs, and ate my supper. Then he
got up sucking his teeth and said:
:. See them woods over there?' pointing
across the track. There wasn't anything
else in sight well, them woods is forty
miles long an fifteen miles wide, an
chuck full O berries. Con eat yuself t.
death
He walked Ieisurely out to his engine
and I went to the lunch shanty just below
the station and ate UP two days salary
before l discovered how determined the
keeper was to have plenty of money to
support his cid age.
1.-The next day Iedida't go to the hotel,
but stayed near the station and plotted
revenge 1t was the, custom to teIegrapl 4
up from Wilcox the number OF pas sen
gers who wanted meals at the Kan
lunch shanty, and. when l got the fl st
message that night AFTER vainig sen m
ing all day an idea struck me. The mes
sage read: six stippefs on 81 I made
it read twenty-six and carried it to ~thu.
lunch keeper, wac fairly danced with
glee at the Unexpected rush He I'M