Sam, on the left side of the cab, watches the track ahead. The engineer sits on the right, keeping a sharp lookout. When they come to a curve, Sam looks back along the train to make sure everything is all right.
After a while they see a little town up ahead, and beside the track stands a signal they have been expecting. It looks like a round plate, with places for nine lights in it. But only three of the lights are ever flashed at once. At the top of the page you will see what each set of lights means.
This time three green go-ahead lights are showing.
“Clear signal,” Sam calls to the engineer.
“Green eye it is,” the engineer replies.
All through the trip he and Sam will call the signals back and forth to each other, just to make sure there is no mistake. The engineer gives one long blast on his whistle to tell the station agent in the little town that the train is coming.
As they go past the station, Sam leans out of the cab and snatches a hoop from the station agent’s hand. Quickly Sam takes a piece of paper from it and tosses
the hoop out again. In the meantime the agent hands another hoop to the conductor in the caboose.