“What is that?” one of the party asked.
“It is the accomplishment of a feat that has always been disastrous in every other part of the globe, that of two trains passing each other on a single track.”
“It certainly results in disaster as far as I have ever known,” Dr. Whitney answered. “I have never heard of two trains trying to pass each other on a single track without both of them coming to grief.”
“Well, you know that Australia is a land of contradictions,” was the reply; “and why shouldn’t we be contradictory in this as well as many other things? The way we perform this trick is this:—
“The railway climbs the mountain by means of zigzags, running first one way, and then the other, and all the time making an ascending grade. At the end of each zigzag the track is prolonged sufficiently to hold two railway trains. When an ascending train sees a descending one coming, the engine driver runs his train to the end of this prolonged track and stops. Then the descending one comes down, runs upon the track, is switched off down the mountain, and the way is then clear for the ascending train to proceed. There is no double track anywhere, and yet the trains have passed each other, and safely too.”
“Very simple when you know what it is,” said Harry, and the others echoed his remark.
When they crossed the Blue Mountains they found the zigzags, readily recognizing them from the description. On seeing the rugged character of the mountains, they were not at all surprised that the engineers were appalled at the difficulties before them. Neither did they wonder that the officers in command of the first convict settlement at Sydney for a long time regarded the Blue Mountains as impassable, and believed that escaped convicts traveling in that direction would be stopped by this formidable barrier. The Blue Mountains were not crossed and the country beyond them explored until 1813, although the settlement at Sydney was founded in 1788.
Mountain regions are always considered healthy places to live in, and this is especially the case with the region of the Blue Mountains. A fellow-passenger in the train told our friends that it was a favorite saying in the country that nobody ever dies in the Blue Mountains; he simply dries up and disappears. Another passenger said that once, when a town was founded in the Blue Mountain district, the people wanted to start a graveyard, and took along an elderly man who was in the last stages of consumption. They had agreed to pay his expenses and give him a grand funeral, on the condition that he lived until he reached the site of the town. Not only did he live until he got there, but he continued to live for many years, and finally dried up and blew away. The people felt that they had been defrauded, and if the man had left anything in the way of property, they would have brought suit for the recovery of damages.
Harry recorded the above anecdote in his notebook, adding to it the words, “Interesting, but of doubtful authenticity.”