The Young Train Dispatcher

by Burton Egbert Stevenson

“Perfectly,” answered the superintendent, dryly.

“Well,” Jim continued, “I suppose the box of fusees in the caboose must have been broken open and scattered about. Anyway, I found this one the next day in some bushes at the foot of the embankment. I suppose I should have returned it to the company—but—well—I thought I’d keep it for the Fourth of July.”

His voice trembled and stopped, and he stood with hanging head, like a criminal waiting his sentence.

Let it be explained here that a fusee is a paste-board tube filled with powder—the same sort of powder which produces the red fire which forms a part of every exhibition of fire-works. At one end of this tube is a spike which can be thrust into the ground. The other end of the tube is closed by a cap containing a piece of emery-paper. To light the powder it is only necessary to remove the cap and scrape it on the end of the tube till a spark falls into it. A fusee burns with a bright red light for exactly ten minutes, and no train may run past one which is burning.

Its uses are manifold. It makes a brilliant danger signal, and one which no engineer can fail to see, which no mist nor snow can obscure, and which no wind can extinguish. But it is usually used by night—as torpedoes are by day—to protect the rear of a train which has been temporarily disabled and delayed between stations.

If a train is stopped by a hot-box, for instance, a brakeman is at once sent out to protect the rear. He walks to a distance of two or three hundred yards, carrying a flag in the daytime or a lantern by night, with which to stop any train which may happen to come along before his train is ready to proceed. Ordinarily, there is no danger to be apprehended from in front, because the dispatcher will permit no train coming toward them to pass the next station until the train which is in trouble arrives there.

As soon as the heated journal has been cooled sufficiently to allow the train to proceed, the engineer blows four blasts on the whistle to recall the brakeman. But, obviously, during the time that he is walking back to the train and the train itself is getting under way, another train may come along at full speed and run into it. So, before he returns, the brakeman sticks a fusee in the middle of the track and lights it. It will burn for ten minutes, and during that time no train may run past the spot, so all danger of accident is avoided. If the breakdown occurs during the daytime, the brakeman will affix two torpedoes to the track instead of using the fusee. The first train which runs over these torpedoes explodes them, and the engineer must at once get his train under control, reduce speed, and look out for a stop signal. A single torpedo is a signal to stop.

It was one of these fusees, a number of which are carried in every caboose, which had enabled Jim Anderson to flag Number Two, and lucky it was that he had it, for on a night such as the one before had been, a lantern would almost certainly have failed to be seen. But Jim did not think of that, as he stood there with hanging head. His only thought was that he should not have kept the fusee, that it belonged to the company—that he might be thought a thief. He looked up at last to find the superintendent smiling at him.

“My boy,” said Mr. Heywood, “if, as you go through life, you never do anything worse than you have done in keeping possession of that fusee, you will never have any reason for remorse. It had been abandoned there by the company; you found it. You were under no obligation to return it. We had lost it through our own carelessness; it may have been missed, but was thought not worth searching for. So dismiss that from your mind. I called you boys before me for a very different purpose than to reproach either of you. In the first place, I want to thank you for your prompt and intelligent action, which saved the road what would probably have been one of the worst wrecks in its history. It is the sort of thing the road never forgets.”

There were four cheeks now, instead of two, that were flaming red. The praise was almost more embarrassing than the expected blame.