Laughter and Tears on the Footplate

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 207, 2 September 1939, Page 3 (Supplement)

Laughter and Tears on the Footplate

ByEric Lowe

OLD 808 doesn't drive on the railway now: he retired some years ago. But he likes to yarn about the days when he was a member of the "loco, branch." Some of his tales are humorous; others are of a very different kind. "I remember one night during my fireman days," he said. "I was raking out thj ashpan, my last job before signing off, when, among the ashes, I raked out a human arm. Sort of gives you a turn, anything like that. "A search, of the line by lamplight showed that we had run over a man not far from the engine sheds. In the geneial scatteration of limbs one arm had been tossed in through the open door of the ashpan, which is underneath an engine low down near the track. Till I found the arm we never knew we had hit anybody. Headlights then were not as good as they are now, and an eightyton loco doesn't give much indication of such a happening, especially if the track is a bit rough, anyhow." ♦ * * ♦ But all his reminiscences are not as macabre as that. "There was a comical affair concerning two friends of mine. These two, Harry and Joe, were driver and fireman at the time 011 a night goods arr ving in town in the small hours of the morning. For miles their run lay through farm lands where in the season long rows of bagged-up potatoes and stacks of threshed wheat stood close beside the line.

"Things were a bit more free and easy in those days years ago than they are now and sometimes on a dark night Harry and Joe would pull up, hop over the fence and come back with a bag of spuds for the missus or a sack of wheat for the fowls. " Six Will Be Enough " "One night, late, Harry and Joe had pulled into a siding waiting for a special to pass 011 the main line. Nearby was a fowlhouse, with the usual wire netting run, belonging to a big farm. It was close 011 Christmas and they reckoned that a bit of poultry would come in handy at home. The guard, another hard doer, seconded the motion and offered to watch things while they were away. "A few minutes later Harry and Joe were inside the wire netting enclosure. The fowlhouse door was closed. Further along the wall at the ground level was the customary small opening, just big enough to allow the fowls to pass in and out. "Now, we don't want no noise over this, .Toe," said Harry. "You slip 111, close the door after you, shoo them off their perches, gentle like,' and chase th.;:n through that there hole. I'll crack them with tiiis stick as they come through. Won't be 110 squawkin' then. I can't miss "em, eornin' through that little hole.

Six will be enough, a pair each for you and me and the guard. In you go, and remember, don't sing out and don't make no noise." The fireman stepped inside and carefully closed the door behind him. But now arose a difficulty the crafty Harrv liad not foreseen. The interior of the fowlhouse was in total darkness. Joe could not see bis hand before his face. A few cautious steps brought his head in painful contact with a rafter. "111 have to chance striking a light." he muttered. But a search of pocket after pocket failed to produce a single match. In that total blackness he could not find even the door. The one luminous spot in the fowlhouse was where faint moonlight showed under the little hole in the wall. The fowls were beginning to stir uneasily and Joe was Tettin" de>perate. 0 "Hang it, I'll have to get a match off Harry,-' muttered the fireman, and. dropping on his knees beside the hole, he unthinkingly poked his head through. Joe never asked for that match. He didn't get the chance. The night goods was almost in town before he asked for anything, and then his request was for information as to where he was, and what had blistering well happened. For the rest of the journey the conversation seems to have revolved round the question of the degree of resemblance between a Black Orpington and a blackhaired firemen's head, when either is suddenly poked out of a little hole in -1 fowl-house 011 a dark night. The discussion seems to have teen of a regrettably acrimonious nature, but, as Harry said to me afterwards, "He knew I was waitin' outside, on the kee-vee, so to speak, with a spoke out of a cart wheel in my hand. Who would have thought he was goin' to poke his own flamin' head out?"

f The remainder of the run for H&rrv, after lugging the fireman back to the engine, must have been pretty hectic, dri\ ing, firing, and doing everything himself and in between whiles pouring pannikins of cold water over the unfortunate Joe's face. Accident "Have I ever been in a big accident? Xo. The worst thing that ever happened to me was when we ran over a little girl, a railwayman's child. She was alive when w e got her out from under the wheels, but she only lived a few minutes. Her mother got there before she died. When the doctor arrived and took charge we had to carry on with our job. The service does" not stop because of accidents, even fatal one.-. But after I got the throttle opened up again, 1 and mv fireman, big Mick, leaned against opposite sides of the cab and all the way to the next stop we howled like kids. I will never forget Micks choking sobs and the big tears streaming down liis grime-streaked face. I was not much better myself. That's a detail that did not come out at the inquest. Such details never do. But that » the way it gets a man—when it s a kiddy."' ♦ »