Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 7, 2025
Two days later it was Patsy Callahan; and though he escaped with his life and his job, it was a close call. He was chasing a time freight with the fast mail, and the freight was taking the siding at Delhi to let him pass. One of the red tail-lights of the freight had gone out, and Callahan mistook the other for the target lamp of the second switch.
Just as it did so I sprang out upon the platform, and had the satisfaction of seeing, a moment later, the red tail-lights of the Berlin express disappear. I fancy I saw the Captain's head out of the window and heard him shout, but next instant he was lost in the darkness."
"It's a poor night for making a schedule," was all he said. The arcs of the long yard threw white and swiftly passing beams of light through the windows, and the warmth within belied the menace outside. At the rear end of the car the flagman worked with one of the tail-lights that burned badly, and the conductor watched him. Gertrude laid aside her furs and threw open her jacket.
As soon as the train, which was No. 22, a livestock express, had departed, I made my O. S. report, and then heaved a big sigh of relief. Scarcely had the tail-lights disappeared across the bridge and around the bend, when the despatcher called again and said, "For God's sake stop that train." I said, "I can't. She's gone."
The red tail-lights of the private-car special were yet within a sprinter's dash of the trackhead, but the train-master lost no time chasing a ten-wheel flyer with "Red" Callahan at the throttle. "Up to my office!" he shouted; and ten seconds later Kent was leaning breathless over the desk in the despatcher's room while M'Tosh called Durgan over the yard limits telephone.
The train slowed almost to a stop, the grinding brakes eased, and it drew away, leaving Pete and Brevoort squatting behind a row of empty oil barrels along the track. As the tail-lights of the train disappeared, Pete and Brevoort rose and walked down the track several hundred yards.
Excuse me, madam, but you've the track.... She's stuck on a dead-centre again bein' specially designed not to." The Compound crawled across the tracks on a long slant, groaning horribly at each switch, and moving like a cow in a snow-drift. There was a little pause along the yard after her tail-lights had disappeared; switches locked crisply, and every one seemed to be waiting.
Then, as the tail-lights on the caboose sped by, a deep hoot of the whistle came back from about a quarter of a mile off, and soon afterwards the fading glimmer vanished round a curve. It seemed to be going slower, and the rumble died away suddenly. Foster thought there was a side-track ahead, where the freight would wait until a train going in the other direction crossed the switches.
They learned several interesting things from him among others that his name was Perks, that he was married and had three children, that the lamps in front of engines are called head-lights and the ones at the back tail-lights. "And that just shows," whispered Phyllis, "that trains really ARE dragons in disguise, with proper heads and tails."
Then Harry and I walked down to the freight-siding, where the big box cars hauled out ready from under the elevators were waiting. Two huge locomotives were presently coupled on, there followed a clanging of bells, and we watched the twinkling tail-lights grow dimmer across the prairie.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking