MADMAN STOPS EXPRESS

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 2715, 24 June 1925, Page 9

MADMAN STOPS EXPRESS

TAMPERED WITH THE SIGNALS. The driver of an express mail train from Edinburgh to London, which passes through Shap, Westmorland about 2 o’clock in the morning, noticed, when approaching Shap, that the distant signal was against him. He caused his engine to whistle to draw the signalman’s notice, and then stopped his train. The signalman’s attention had been directed to the signals, which he found were being tampered with, and were being moved up and down. Almost immediately a man came' into the signal cabin. Ho was evidently mentally deranged, and at once asked the signalman: ‘How much will it cost to stop a train? It Is fun to do so.” The signalman engaged the man in conversation, and told him that ha was just going to stop a train. The signalman, in fact, stopped the next train for Carlisle, and the man, who was placed on it, was met at Carlisle by the railway police, and afterwards handed over to the care of his father.