AN ANXIOUS FATHER.
The advantage of an acquaintance with railway mechanism was shown on the Sydney express one day this week. M> Nicholls, the stationmaster at Richmond was returning with his wife and family from his annual holiday. After leaving Seymour he took a seat in the smoking compartment, leaving Mrs Nicholls with a boy three years old and an infant in the ladies' compartment. The boy leant against the door, which opened, and he fell out on the line. Nearly frantic, Mrs Nicholls gave the alarm, and Mr Nicholls quickly determined at all hazards to stop the train. As a practical railway man, he at once turned to the coupling of the Westinghouse brake. The guard in charge was unable to manipulate the tap and release the compressed air, so Mr Nicholls scrambled between the platforms of the two carriages, and, with the vibration of the train swinging him to and fro, he gradually raised the connection, and easing it, released the air. As the brakes gripped the wheels and brought the train to a standstill, the crowding passengers who had gathered on the two platforms raised a loud cheer, and the noise of the coupling connecting the engine with the foremost carriage snapping in half was drowned. A gang of plate-layers were working near the spot, which was three and a-half miles past Kilmore, and, as the train proceeded to Melbourne with another coupling, Mr and Mrs Nicholls and their baby started back to Kilmore on a trolly. As they came in sight "of the station, Mr Watt, the stationmaster, and his wife were seen signalling that the child was safe, though injured. When he fell from the train the little" boy received several nasty cuts and bruises, but he was not rendered insensible, and, sittiug on the rail of the down line, he was proceeding to brush the dirt from his clothes when the woman in charge of the gate near the spot saw him. " I've lost my mamma,'*' the little fellow said in explanation as the woman drew near. The boy's most severe wound is a cut on the back of the head, but the injuries are not considered serious.
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Bibliographic details
Otago Witness, Issue 2325, 22 September 1898, Page 11
Word Count
364AN ANXIOUS FATHER. Otago Witness, Issue 2325, 22 September 1898, Page 11
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