Page:Fagan (1908) Confessions of a railroad signalman.djvu/28

14 half an hour in order to get that signature; you are the first operator who ever picked me up in this way. Why, they do this thing right along up the road. If the dispatcher was making a meeting point it would be different, but it’s done every day in the case of a work train or a gravel train.” “That may be very true,” I replied, “but you can’t do it here; the engineman himself must sign the order.” Now this man was actually telling the truth, and in a very short time I had the proofs in my possession.

Railroad men who read these lines must remember that in those days I was simply collecting evidence in a fair and honorable way, for my own private purposes, that would enable me to assign some kind of reason or cause for the lamentable loss of life on American railroads. I found the railroad business wherever I went to be bristling with reasons, and the more I looked into the matter the greater became my astonishment.

It cannot be claimed that my illustrations apply to only one or two railroads, for an examination into these accidents, regardless of locality, will reveal the fact that almost without exception they have resulted from the disregard of rules that are practically similar in nature and intent on all railroads.

In those days, and to a great extent at the pre-