Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/131

 A GHOST TRAIN ILLUSION

HEN the Rio Grande Western was a narrow-gauge road it was very crooked. Even in the Utah desert there were many curves among the sand hills that have been piled up during the last few thousand years. A locomotive—one of a type known as "sewing machines," because all their machinery was in sight—was trying to make a spur for the general manager's special, against which she had a time order. The time was growing alarmingly short, and the driver of the light engine knew that the man on the special, with the G. M. behind him, would be crowding the limit. These "sewing machines" were famous riders. The springs were so light and so perfectly adjusted, that one of these locomotives would ride as easily to the engineer as a Pullman car does to a