Evening star., 1905-09-13
LONESOME JOB
is That of the Pipe Walker, and Few
Can Stand the Monotony.
From the Kansas City Star.


From the Kansas City Star.
Talk about the mono;ony OF sheep herd
ing and track walking and sentry duty"
said pipe line walker sitting at his camp
fire near here last night, lit is nothing COM
pared with the horrors of my job. The
track walker hears the trains go by and
he hears noises compa panionable sounds and
things which make him think he Is a part
of life. Occasionally he gets "A chance TO
officiate at wreck. or to prevent wreck
and get his name in the papers and medal
from the Humane Society and a bonus from
the railroad The sheep herder has his dogs
and his sheep for company, and. besides.
he is always on the move to some place or
other. Now pipe line walker is the limit
The man who doing the talking Is
college graduate, who came TO Kansas for
the outdoor life TO build up his constitution.
He is pipe line walker for the Kansas
Natural Gas Company out of this place.
and he covers twenty-five miles day. He
starts at 6 o'clock in the morning and re-
turns at o'clock in the evening.
"Oh, ii was fun at first" he went on.
You know. in the east do not have
this succession of prairie and trees and
creeks. That is, We do not have them IN
New York. Well. L liked ii. 1t was re-
freshing TO get out in the morning and
tramp away through the fresh air to the
end of the section. The smells of the
morning were good. The birds seemed TO
take on new note for me. I felt if
1t was worth all of life to be out here walk
ing the dump Then / got TO know every
tree. to know every bird call, TO know ev-
cry twist and curve OF the route, to know
every road crossing, to know every detdll
Of the whole thing. ! got tired of 1t.
dreamed of 1t. | thought about the same
old things for the same Old hours every day
for more than a month. l forgot VINO Is
President of the United States and what
county New York city is in, and where the
Declaration of Independence was signed. /
forgot all about the japanese war. 1t was
all a blur of trees and land. OF land ana
trees, of more trees and then more land
lust always trees and land
IF the pipe lines followed the railroad
or even the roads where We could see
things It would be different. But all the
lines around here go across country. All
we have to do is to look for leaks. we
have to keep our ears strained for hlsslhS
sound. That is all we are hired TO look
for-iust the leaks. Now, when you nave
only one thing to look for and listen tor
and II does not occur every day the antici-
patory nervousness breaks you down. Every
time the trees rustic you think there Is d
leak ahead OF you. Every time cicada
drones YOU think the pipe line has gone
to smash. You start out in the morning
with the fear of disaster and II t"ls
cracks under your feet you get the JUMPS,
II break would come along once IN a
while IT would be easy. But The ionellileSS
of 1t gets into your bones; worse than that.
IT gets into your mind 1t stays on youl
mind This perpetual period of introspcc-
tion grows oppressive. Finally you beSis-
pinching yourself to see IL you are all there;
Then you begin talking to yourseit TO see
IL you can hear. Well, l haven got TO lie
very last stage, but 1t looks like osawdt-
omie to me. So me to New York and lhe
chutes on Coney Island. ., a.,
Pipe line walking is a new aVocatleh ~
Kansas. The Standard Oil Company en-
ploys no pipe line walkers. But the nat haa,
ural gas companies hire several huiiu III su
young men to look out for-th leaks. ne
Standard Oil Company uses machlue {
which resembles the machine when he th
cable companies have for ascertalhlns o,,,a ny
breaks in its pipe line. But the gas com -. .
panies cannot use any machine. hehce 'he
great expense for a patrol. ou,n,
There are some 800 or 4ro men patroiii'.,s pi =, :
49, go y,,na lines in Kansas now, and as
:he lines increase the patrol increases. MoS' toI
Of the patrolmen are high-class young ,ei- M
n.',sa # looked like a snap. The job pays
from sGO to 500 month