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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 2, Issue 8 (December 1, 1927)

A Wee Bit Nervous

A Wee Bit Nervous.

“Gettin' nervous?” queried my host.

“No!” cried I, lyingly and graciously.

A pair of tenderfoot eyes gazed steadfastly forward.

“We're pulling three sleepers through for the southwest,” called Parker, after another hitch at the firebox. My mind still was on the fog. “They go to Texas,” continued the fireman. “Lots of our mail is through stuff, too.” I wondered whether the conductor knew about that fog. “It ain't often we drag down now with less than eight cars.” The fog made it appear to me that we were hurtling through space at a terrific rate, yet getting nowhere. “I throw ten to twelve tons of coal in that firebox between Bloomington and St. Louis, 160 miles!” Fogs and railroading, I figured, never ought to be consolidated. “And this boiler uses 10,000 gallons of water on the same trip.” A hog on wheels, I admitted to myself, and resumed my worrying. Suddenly we commenced to bound, pitch and bowl. Parker leaned far out of the window again. In a moment came the call from engineer to fireman:

“Clear board!” I would have sworn, from the reaction, had it been possible, that 659 heard the “Clear board!” call and responded to it much as a dog answers impulsively to familiar signals.

“Going through Auburn,” yelled Parker. I couldn't even distinguish company buildings within the right-of-way. My admiration for the two boys who made that dash with 659, or some other 600-engine every night, regardless of weather, was increasing every minute. Before we plunged through Virden the fog lifted. So page 13 did my morale. I settled down to enjoy the rest of the trip-until we got almost to Nilwood. I, too, had seen that the block ahead was showing red instead of green, but Sid Bean, of course, caught it first. There was a terrific screaming of brakes, and in a quarter of a mile or so, we came to a full stop. I wondered what next. We waited a moment, then started moving forward though slowly.

“May be a wreck, may be another train in the block, trying to get out of our way, or it may be just nothing,” explained Parker. “What we do in a case like this is to proceed cautiously until we get to the next block. If that shows green, away we go.”

An Inspection Tour in Taranaki.Front-Measare Beasley (Dist. Engineer) and Mackin (I. P. W., Stratford): Centre-(driver); Back-Mesars Gillespie (I. P. W., Aramoho) and Hopkirk (F. O. W., East Town).

An Inspection Tour in Taranaki.
Front-Measare Beasley (Dist. Engineer) and Mackin (I. P. W., Stratford): Centre-(driver); Back-Mesars Gillespie (I. P. W., Aramoho) and Hopkirk (F. O. W., East Town).

Which was what happened. All went well-for me-untill we slowed at Rinaker Station, to pick up an order, then started down through the curved and highly graded stretch known to Alton railroad men as “Macoupin Hill,” and the bottoms. For twelve miles it is one severe turn after another. We shot out upon the long reverse twist that reaches its climax at Beaver Dam Lake Station. I watched this bit of track race back under the locomotive. We pitched and lurched. The flexibility of the engine astounded me. A curve would show up in front of us. To all appearances, the locomotive was done following rails. Track and all would disappear. It would look like curtains. And, the track sat on a high hill. Crunching, grinding, groaning and roaring, the locomotive would rush staggeringly toward the abyss, then grudgingly start jerking itself about-until track was visible ahead again. And so on, with each curve.

I noted the little lake station shanty where, as a boy, I used to loaf between fishing excursions to Beaver Dam Lake, and watch trains pass. It fairly jumped at us from out the darkness, as the engine's penetrating headlight glare snatched it from the deep, murky darkness of the night. We had scarcely attained the first series of descents before fog enveloped us again. Sid Bean merely redoubled his vigilance.

The next three towns were-to me-substantial blanks. I realised, from the contact with switches and the plunging of the huge locomotive that we were in areas characterisd by yards, sidings and the like, but the fog obliterated details. We rushed on. Soon after we passed through Godfrey-I knew the place because Ed Parker very courteously identified it-we slowed down perceptibly. The fireman, after tending his fire, went to the passage-way between engine and tender, let himself down and shortly crawled back up again, calling “O.K.” to the engineer as he returned, carrying what looked to me like a piece of rubber hose eighteen inches to two feet in length.

“What's that thing?” I inquired, when Parker returned to the seat behind me.

“They call it a ‘spann,”’ replied the fireman. “We usually dub it ‘the stick.”’

“What do you do with it?” I pursued.

“Drop it off at Wann,” Parker informed me. “That is part of the signal system on this stretch, and while that spann is out of its socket and here in our cab, a derail is thrown at Wann that keeps any train from coming up the hill and running into us. We drop it off at Wann, then the next train picks it up and carries it back. We don't have to worry about block signals while we've got the ‘stick’ with us.” At Wann, where we met train No. 78, companion to ours, though northbound, we slowed down while the fireman leaned out and tossed the spann into a canvas sack near the track. I pondered that transaction until we got going strong again, just before entering Granite City whence the Merchant's Bridge across the Mississippi led us to the Missouri side.