Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1908-06-25

and the little shanty by the side of the
| track seemed almost. Anyone who
| spends II hours OF the "a in a railroad
switching yard must accustom his
voice to a neyer-ending contest with
a bedlam of whistles, bells and rush
ling steam.
tanning the receiver on its hook
and opening the little door, Grim bent
his siX-foot frame through the open
ing. His lantern swung from the
stump Of his right arm, which had
| just enough of an elbow to make
hook for it. Successive bars of vel
| low light at every slant and angle
glinted in the darkness as the reuect,
ion came from one track or another i'll
the tangle. He picked his way across
| them and stopped to throw the switch.
Scarcely I'D he Strengthened up,
when out of the night rushed mo g."
1t clattered past the shanty, Numbered
over the high iron bridge and then,
like a spent szy-rocket, it could be
seenlslowly bending it's stream Of light
around the curve before the last
straight stretch into the white glare
of the train shed.
You see," said Griffin, as he showed
the door shut and gave the stove the
only housekeeping attention which the
shanty demanded of him, there's two
O. them mains. Ones the right main
and the others the wrong main.
They're the two tracks across the
bridge. The right main going toward
the depot is the wrong one coming
out But sometimes if the right one
is blocked we have to send the trains
in or out by the wrong main"
Suppose" said I, another train
was coming out on its right main at
the same time you might be sending
B. and o. No 6 in its wrong main.
Wouldn't something happen?'
Sure. They'd clean it up with am
balances, and you'd hear the kids yet
lin extry. That's just the thing
we've got to look out for"
His frankness was q relief 1t
showed one thing certainly, that Crit
fin was keenly aware Of his respOn-
sibility. In fact, I felt a sense Of as
surance in discovering Griffins motto
nailed to the wall beside a Sunday
supplement picturec There was an
element of dead certainty aboutlits
strong language. 1t read, Live every
day so that you can look any damn
man in the face and tell him, go to
hell" a vigorous way, to be sure, OF
saying, BE sure you are right" bur
one, nevertheless, that gave you a
comfortable sense of double riveted
security, with error not even among
the possibilities.
Job important Well, you can size
it UP for yourself. The magazines
have had q big lot Of hot air about
the engineer. All their railroad yarns
tell about the trainload of passengers
whose safety rests with the man IN
the cab. What in heavens name
would he do, I'd like to know II we
feIIers didn't keep the switches right?
Guess the lives of the train loG IS de
pend on the man in the shanty, too
I was not in a mood to dispute the
statement, as Griffin caught sight OF
light in the distance, which rapidly
swelled to a full moon. "Great Wes,-
ern, No g." he was hollering through
the phone. 'All right, Tom, the
wrong main for her." and it seemed
as if he had scarcely gone outside Of
the shanty when the full moon,
backed up by 80 tons of pounding iron,
r. oh cd
by, trailing half a dozen sleepers that
looked like one elongated car.
AS I accustomed myself to the sur
roundings, however, l began to think
of the things to find out for which
had stumbled down the wet and rick
ETY. steps from the ViadUGt and made
my uncertain way across and along
the tracks. [ had heard that a large
proportion of sWitch-tenders were
crippled. [ wanted to find out how
they came to be so, how they got
their jobs, what their wages were, ana
what, if any, efforts were under way
to better their conditions Already l
had become impressed with the fact
that a sWitchtender must be "alI
there all of the time, even if his
'aIl" did happen to include less than
the normal total of limbs and digits.
Sure, we're the human scrap heap
in this business. There's about a.
many of us manned as able-bodied.
Look down that row Of white lights to
the right of the nearest track. Each
one Of 'em has a shanty and switch
tender. There's me and Bill'' Will
liams-he's my day partner-in this
shanty. Both Of us lacking a right
arm. Dave, in the next shanty, he's
got no left hand. Next feIler's all
sound. But the two after him
neither of them can count more'n
about six all told on his fingers. Out
of 20 in this yard there are seven
MANNED, and among the 700 or there
about in the city, l expect there's. be-
tween third and half handicapped
Dunno how you would find out for
sure
How did we get chopped up? Wei
mostly all about the same way. You
see, we're all Of US trained and ex-
perienced railroadmen. This is the
only kind they can use in this job.
| No Teller that's manned outside the
railroad service could work in Fact
/ is, most of US were regular switchmen
the boys that ride around on the en-
CINE footboards and couple cars
Some day or other it happened to the
rest of them just about the way It did