Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 2).pdf/159

 and brakemen to ride in the caboose car and not in the coach. On the day of the accident, plaintiff and the others were working about 500 or 600 feet from and north of the point where the train would stop. When the train whistled the men started in a run to reach the point where it would stop. Plaintiff seems to have been in front. He crossed the track to the south side in front of the engine, and passed back until he reached the front steps of the caboose car, where he climbed upon the platform. Access to the train was from the ground on either side. About the same time others of the workmen were getting on the front platform of the caboose from the north side. Plaintiff tried the door in the front end of the car, and found it locked. It does not appear that he made any effort to leave the front platform and get aboard at the rear of the car. The train started almost immediately. One of the section men who went to the rear of the caboose testifies that the train was moving when he got on. There are two parallel tracks from the round house to the depot. This train came in on the south track, but before reaching the depot it was thrown through a switch on the north track. When the train started there were so many of the section hands on the platform that plaintiff was crowded down until he sat upon the second step, with his feet resting on the lower step. As the train was thrown onto the switch he arose to his feet, he says, to enable him to hold on better. As the train passed from the switch onto the north track a sudden lurch of the car threw plaintiff to the south until his head passed the line of the outside of the car, and was struck by the target on the switch stand at that point. When struck, plaintiff was not looking to the east in the direction the train was running, but was looking to the southwest. The train was running at more than double the speed allowed by the rules of the defendant company inside the Fargo yard limits. The switch stand by which plaintiff was injured was about seven feet high, and was located four feet from the track. The target at the top extended nine inches in each direction. When the stand was erect this target would be within eight inches of a passing train. The switch stand was bent, throwing the top still nearer the train, and it had been known to come in contact with pass-