CURE FOR INSOMNIA

Taranaki Daily News, 11 September 1935, Page 11

CURE FOR INSOMNIA

COTTAGE BESIDE RAILWAY. BUSY COUNTING OF TRAINS. I have given up counting sheep as a cure for insomnia. Instead I have moved into the country’where I can count the trains, writes Frank Longworth in the Daily Mail. The cottage I chose was near, to a main line junction, where my friends prophesied' that I should be kept awake all night by shunting operations, the whistle of engines and the clatter of milk rans. I was expected to return to town a nervous lyreck in a few weeks’ time. They were wrong. The change has worked miracles.. J | After making friends with the stationmaster I obtained a copy of his working schedule, showing not only the passenger trains, but also the times at. which the mail, newspaper and goods .trains passed. The first night I heard the 11.10 north express dash through the station with a Idud shriek, also the slow lumbering of the 11.30 goods, and the rattle of the up mail, at 11.50. The second night I again heard the 11.10 and began to count the minutes until the goods train would follow. The next train I heard, however, was the 6.15, the'first passenger train of the day. The others had presumably been running normally throughout the night, but not one of them had disturbed my slumbers. ’ ' Very occasionally I awake in the middle of the night and hear the whistle of an express. It might be the 2.20 newspaper train, or the 3.30.mai1, but I cannot'decide until the next train comes along. If it were the former it will be followed in ten minutes by a heavy twoengined goods, ■ but ’if the latter -I' shall have to wait 15 minutes before another mail train hurries through. Never yet have I been able to keep my eyes open long enough to decide the question. No .attempt to remain awake: by imagining' the route of the train or by paiiiting mental pictures of the passengers has any effect The effort merely. induces sleep. • Yes. I like my railway cottage,, and personally I am quite annoyed at the silence orders just issued by the companies. The absence of whistles, and the rubber-tired trucks will, I am sure, bring on that horrible insomnia again.'