RAILWAY SUPERSTITIONS

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXV, Issue LXV, 15 November 1913, Page 7

RAILWAY SUPERSTITIONS

It is asserted that while a large percentage of railway employees still indulge in the luxury of a pet superstition, the old-time railroader was as * 'superstitious as a South Sea Islander, *nd as full of whims as an old house--wife." Men, it is stated, did not care to run over the road unless a horse-shoe -was fastened to some part of the woodwork of the locomotive or, caboose. There is as well authenticated case of .a breakman who became demented be<!ause"he failed to find a freight car bearIng a certain lucky number. One driver used to_tell how, when working a night train, at a lonely spot the wraith of an old track-walker killed there "appeared on the track as natural as life, with his maul over his shoulder, and, after keeping ahead of the train, which was making a good sixty miles an hour, "had disappeared in the bushes." Another driver who was 7 not superstitious afterwards thought he saw a similar appearance at nearly the same point, but upon investigation found that the dancing shadow on the track was made by a wet maple leaf that had become flattened against the headlight glass !. Working on his engine alone one dark night, a driver was startled to hear thejocomotive bell begin to toll in a ve/y deliberate and nerve-racking munner; but, being of a sceptical turn of mind, ' lie discovered a, young cleaner at the other end of the line, the remaining end being fastened to the clapper of the .bell. A fireman, inclined to be superstitious, | was nearly frightened out of his wits in this way. One of the train men fastened a bell cord to the movable seat upon ■which the fireman was sitting. When the locomotiveVas passing a spot where an engineer had been killed the cord was ■pulled, causing the fireman to fall off His seat. For some time'after he believed that the dead driver was in some way connected with the occurrence. An «lderly Irish cleaner was sent to. "fire ■up", an old engine that was said to be haunted, and a young fireman overheard . -the foreman giviug the order. The fireman crawled into the fire-box, and when the cleaner threw in a stick of wood the -fireman threw it out. The old man was .startled, but when he saw the second stick come out, apparently without . hands, he "toot to the woods." Thus another "mystery" was added to the growing collection.—The Railway Maga--zine. • _^