AN AMERICAN PAST TRAIN.

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 67, 19 March 1910, Page 15

AN AMERICAN PAST TRAIN.

HOW IT "HIPS" THROUGH IN THE MOBNTNO. "The Twentieth Century, Limited," recently came to smash while travelling at top speed, and this is how the train is described characteristically bj a writer in the "New York Tribune." Perhaps, under the circumstances, the disaster, which was due to a broken rail, is not surprising: No, yon hare never seen it. At least, the chances are a thousand to one that you have never seen It. Tet it la one of the twentieth century wonders. When grizzled, shaggy-headed railroad men, grown old in the service, look up to heaven and seem to reach into the air after an expression to tell yon of their awe at a railway train's speed, you may be sure that the train must go lite a flash, of lightning. No, it isn't likely that you ever saw the Twentieth century Limited rip through a place the size of Utica at four o'clock In the morning. And If you have seen It crash by, you Just caught a. glimpse of It, saw red lire hiss from, -wheels, HEARD A ROAR, AND THEN SAW NOTHING BUT DAUKNTSSS. With a sigh of relief the flagman at the crossing will Bay to you: "That was the Twentieth Century, Limited." Yes, the Twentieth . Century, Limited, hurls itself through a city the size of Utlca iwith brakes set hard enough, to spit a thousand angry sparks from the twelvewheeled Pullmans; but that brake-setting business is only a formality. The train couldn't be stopped within a quarter of a mile. Long before this annihilator of time and distance throws Itself across the city, the railroad men prepare for it. Its passing Is the Incident of the night. The heart beats a little faster, a tighter grip is seized upon the duty of the hour, the signals are inspected twice — yes, and more than twice; the crossing gates are dropped to the ground, and then — they iwalt.

Everyone looks to the west, for like young Loehtuvar, this train comes out of the west. She's in the block, as the signal light reveals. And then, 'way down the yard.a headlight, just a dot, appears. But it ffrows, grows big, with astonishing rapidity. It swells big, round, and high, and then it darts by. Fire eats nt the locomomotive wheels, and In the black of night the long, dark monster, riding on streamers of fire, leaps past and out of Bight.

NO "WONDEB JMCEN GASP and say. "Good heavens! She jumps here like a streak of lightning."

But the Twentieth Century is a popular train. People ride upon it who are in a hurry. There is not room enough for all the hurrying people on the one train, so it is run in two sections. Hence, when the one section has passed, the railroad folk prepare for the coining of tlie next section, just as speedy, just as awful. It may come in ten minutes, or in fifteen minutes, but the railroad peopte know when to look : out. And when it has gone they are relieved. — "New York Tribune." (