Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1905-04-05
THE HORRIBLE SUBWAY DEATH
PROVIDED BY NEW YORKS SUBTERRA-
MEAN RAILWAY
is MORE SWIFT, GRUS0ME AND
Fearful than ANY Conceived in the imasina.
lion OF Edgar Allen Poo.

Every day or two such headlines
as these appear in the New York
newspapers.
Who are these track walkers whose
lives are sacrificed at the rate of
three or four or more week?
The track walker is the human
safety device of the great Subway
system, who faces constant death in
the dark for twenty one cents an
hour.
His duty is to patrol night and
day every foot of the four tracks
over which two express trains and
two local trains are speeding past
any given point in the gloomy tunnel
every few minutes in opposite direc-
tions. He carries wrench with
which to tighten any loose bolts and
a sledge hammer to drive back any
loosened spikes which threaten
thousand lives in those rushing trains.
Every minute or two, in front or
behind him, comes this roaring death
IN cloud OF dust, if his mind is one
instant confused.
Much has been written of the great
Subway that tunnels under the city
of New York and the five hundred
thousand passengers day that it
carries swiftly the length of the great
city down among the cellars, flying
like an arrow under crowded thor
oughfares where there is scarce room
for man or beast.
Pages have been devoted to the
engineering feats that have been
performed to dig this huge trench
under the busiest arteries of the me-
tropolis, of the s4O,0O0,00O the Sub
way cost, of the block system and of
the emergency train stop on each
platform. The public knows that if
the motorman should fall dead at his
post the brakes would be auto
matically applied. 1t regards the
motorman as the man most RESPONSE.
bic for the safety of the passengers
and surrounds him with sort of
glamour. 1t pictures him in his
little cage, his hand on the lever,
tensely watching the signals as they
fly past, and peering out ahead into
the twilight of the Subway on the
alert for danger.
MOST IMPORTANT SAFETY DEVICE.
But almost no mention has been
made of the most important safety
device used-the track walker, who
earns twenty-one cents an hour.
The slightest error on his part,
moments carclessness, the least in
attention, and nothing else can avail
to save some flying train with its
hundreds of passengers.
AT home there is the wife and her
Children. They must be fed and
clothed. Twenty one cents an hour
will not provide a brownstonc palace,
nor silks, nor jewels, nor automobiles,
but it keeps the wolf just outside the
threshold Of humble home.
Soin the gloom of the Subway this
toiler of the darkness wends his
weary round, week after week, Ian
tern in hand, risking his life six hun
dred minutes every day, for the
meagrc means of livelihood.
The track walker doesn't consider
himself hero, and the public doesn't
consider him at all. Yet in the safety
OF half a million lives every day he is
far and away the most important
factor. The least flaw in a rail, a
broken bolt, spike bent ever 80
little out of its place, a bit of car
framework loosened from its fasten-
ing and lying with one end on the
third rail and the other across the
trafllc rail- let ms eye MISS any one
of these, and scores of precious lives
may pay the penalty of his momen.
tary relaxation.
Step down with him into the great
underground highway and follow
him in his task. Patiently plodding,
alw ays toward the oncoming trains,