Popular Science Monihht 



of the lines may mean a stoppage of the 

 whole railway system, with hundreds of 

 thousands of dollars worth of freight 

 tied up, confusion, loss, waste. 



And well he knows his work. The 

 crane for this car, the jacks for that. 

 This engine looks like scrap but will 

 probably run; put her on the otlu-r 

 track. That engine looks all right but 

 is vitally wounded; throw her ofT. This 

 car is too inextricably tangled with 

 another in loving embrace to take to 

 pieces, part by part; Ijurn it up and 

 throw the trucks trj one side. The small 

 man, a necessary factor, crawls into and 

 out of openings and holes too small for 

 his stronger mates, attaching chains and 

 ropes, reporting conditions, doing work 

 as valuable as that of the Hercules who, 

 with a crowbar, heaves up a tangle of 

 wheels that a jack may be slipped into 

 position. 



The doctors and 

 the nurses and the 

 relief-train have come and 

 gone ; down the line stands an 

 impatient express, behind it 

 a long freight. In the other 

 direction, a local is filled with 

 fuming commuters and per- 

 haps the President's special 

 * *-- is close behind. All along 

 the division, and soon to spread through 

 the whole system, is delay, stalled trains, 

 trains waiting orders, trains costing the 

 company thousands of dollars a minute. 

 Over the tangled debris one man 

 stands supreme, snapping his orders like 

 the crack of a whip, utterly unmindful 

 of the property he destroys that other 

 l)ropcrty may move. x\nd, as if by 

 magic, the lines clear. The last of the 

 bent and broken cars are turned on their 

 sidesand slid down thebank. Theinjurcd 

 engine limps off behind a fussy switch- 

 engine sent for the purpose. If the delay 

 looks long, a temporary side-track has 

 been swittly built and the se\'eral waiting- 

 trains pulf slowly by. The wrecking-train 

 whistles. Its crew, dri\ing the last spikt- 

 to make the injured track secure, pull out 

 jimmy-pipes. The big crane folds its sin- 

 gle arm and rests. The men pile into 

 their caboose. The wreck isoff the lines — 

 time, fifty-five minutes. The wrecking- 

 train has finished its work. 



