A Queer Railroad.

Auckland Star, Volume XVII, Issue 235, 6 October 1886, Page 3

A Queer Railroad.

There is a little narrow-gauge railroad in Contral Illinois which is rather amusing. It runs through a rich farming country, and is owned and managed by wealthy farmers. Tho conductors, engineers, and brakemen aro farmers' sons who have grown weary of raising cattle and corn, and who have taken to "railroading" as a relief. The variouß stations along the line of the little railroad are of no consequence whatever, except to their score or more of inhabitants and to the farmers of the neighbourhood. A train starts from each end of the road every moroiog after breakfast, runs to the opposite end of the road k>y dinner-time, returns again for tea, and ties up for the night. As there is no telegraphline connected with the road, nobody at any of the stations knows when a train is coming until it arrives in sight. Ac the rails are laid on ties placed on the flat prairie, and as no grade exiets from one end of the road to the other, the tall grass has an awkward habit of getting under the wheels and stopping the train. Not unfrequently, also, the light rails spread apart and the cars run off the track, and go tumbling along on the virgin prairie. Whenever a little accident of this kind occurs the engineer, conductor, brakemen and passengers jump to the ground and lift the cars into place again The passengers ride in a car reserved for them in the rear of a long line of freight cars, Half of this car is partitioned off in order that it may also servo for carrying mail bags, express mattor^and baggage. Not infrequently passengers wain into a village ahead of the train and announce that the cars will follow them in an hour or two, providing they can be kept on the track long enough. Sometimes a locomotive gets stalled on some one of the several gentle hills along the line. The trainmen thereupon quietly wait until tho other engine appears. Then the two engines draw the engine up the hill. Notwithstanding tho oddities which exist in the management cf this little railroad, it hauls large quantities of freight and is making money for its stockholders.