“I’ve been on the line twenty year, and of course I’ve seen a little in that space, and I could tell you hundreds of things about the different dangers, if I had time. Now, for instance, I’ll tell you what’s a great danger that some railway servants has to encounter, and that is being at a small country station, say where perhaps very few trains stop in a day. It don’t matter whether it’s clerk or porter, the danger’s the same; there’s the fast trains thundering by over and over again, twenty times a day may be, and after a time you get so used to them that you don’t hear them coming; and many’s the time some poor fellow has stepped down to cross the line right in front of one, when—there, you know the old story, and I’ve got one horror to tell you, and that will be quite enough, I dare say.
“‘Carelessness—want of caution—the man had been years in the company’s service, and must have known better,’ says the public. But there—that’s just it—it’s that constant being amongst the perils that makes a man forget things that he ought to recollect; and are you going to try and make me believe a man can have such power over his thinking apparatus that he can recollect everything? He must be a very perfect piece of goods if there is such a one, and one as would go for ever, I should think, without a touch of the oily rag. No spots of rust on him, I’ll wager.
“Shunting’s hard work—terrible hard work—for men; I mean the shunting of goods trains at the little stations—picking up empty trucks, and setting down the full ones; coupling, and uncoupling; and waving of lanterns, and shouting and muddling about; and mostly in the dark; for, you see, the passenger traffic is nearly all in the day-time, while we carry on the goods work by night. Ah! shunting’s queer work where there’s many sidings, and you are tripping over point-handles, and rods, or looking one way for the train and going butt on to an empty truck the other way. There’s some sad stories relating to shunting—stories of fine young fellows crushed to death in a moment; let alone those of the poor chaps you may see to this day at some of the crossings with wooden legs or one sleeve empty—soldiers, you know, who have been wounded in the battle of life, and I think as worthy of medals as anybody.
“Of course, you know, a ‘pitch-in’ will come some time spite of all care; and I’ve been in one or two in my time, but never to get hurt. I remember one day going down our line and getting pretty close to a junction where another line crossed the down so as to get on to the up. I knew that it was somewhere about the time for the up train to come along, for it was generally five minutes before me, and I passed it about a couple of miles before I got to the junction—me going fast, it slow. Sometimes we were first, and then it was kept back by signal till we had passed, so that on the day I am talking of, I thought nothing of it that my signal was up ‘All clear,’ though the up train hadn’t crossed, and with my stoker shovelling in the coal, I opened the screamer and on we were darting at a good speed—ours always having been reckoned a fast line.
“All at once, though, I turned as I had never turned before—thoroughly struck aback; for as I neared the station I saw the signal altered, and at the same moment the up train coming round the curve; then it was crossing my line; and it seemed to me that the next moment we should cut it right in two and go on through it. But we were not quite so nigh as that, and before we got close up I had shut off, reversed, and was screwing down the break, for my stoker seemed struck helpless; then I just caught a glimpse of him as he leaped off; there was a crash, and I was lying half stunned back amongst the coal in the tender, and we were still dashing on for nearly a mile before I was quite recovered and the train at a standstill.
“I was half stupid for a bit, and on putting my hand to my head I found that it was bleeding, whilst the screen was bent right down over me, and had saved my life, no doubt. As far as I could see then there was no more damage done to us, and just then the guard came running up and shook hands when he found I’d got off so well.
“‘But where’s Joe?’ he says, meaning my stoker.
“‘He went off,’ I says, ‘just as we went into ’em. How about t’other train?’
“‘Let’s run back,’ he says; and I put her gently back; but all the while in a muddly sort of way, as if I wasn’t quite right in my head, which bled powerful. Then there was a good deal of shouting and noise amongst the passengers; but my guard went along the foot-board from coach to coach till he had quieted them all pretty well, and then by that time they signalled to us to stop.
“Not many ruins to see, there wasn’t, only the guard’s break of the up train, which my engine had struck full, and another few seconds of time would have let us go clear; while how the points didn’t throw us off I can’t tell, for it’s quite a wonder that my train kept on the line.