WORKING THE POINTS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2039, 26 March 1907, Page 4

WORKING THE POINTS.

At a certain time in lifo nil healthy hoys arts filhstl with tho passion to become ongino-drivors, lint who over hoard of a boy who wanted to ho a signalman? Tho fact is that tho •signalman is an “nnapplandod prodigy”—the phrase is used by a writer in the “Pall Mall Gazette,” on the

work in tho big signal-boxes in England . “lie performs in a necessary privacy, tho kind of feat which blindfolded chess players like Mr. Blackbourne, and lightning calculators like Jacques lunudi perform in public; and if they carry it to a higher pitch of ingenuity without his safeguards their achievements are loss impressive.” Tho work of tho signalman in a big English station is marvellous. In eight hours he may have to move points more than 1000 times, signals more than 1000 times ,nnd to send nearly 2100 hell messages. His mind must ever have a clear picture ol main line, relief line, branch lines, cross-overs and sidings, and he must know every train as it rushes by. A code of several hundred exact regulations governs all ho does. He has

to know the complicated system of the loeking-l'ramo which works the signals, as tho lingers of his hand. Now compared with the modern loek-irg-frame, the best ot safe-locks is simplicity itself. When a signal is set for a train to pass, every other signal and point which would admit

another train to that line, is locked fast. The unlocking of each lever is done by moving first a different series of the other lovers, ill somo cases there are as many as ninety or a hundred levers, and the signalman keeps in his head the locking and unlocking formulae for all. But ho spends fifteen years in signal-boxes before he attains the knowledge, and is considered fit to bo trusted with tho levers at an important station. Now and

again emergencies test him. Somo months ago in London a goods train mistook tho signals and was wrecked so as to block the lino used by passenger trains. This occurred out of sight of tho signal-box, two hundred yards away, but tho signalman heard tho roar, and guessing what it was, instantly threw up a signal in the

face of tho passenger train. It was touch and go. Tho driver had only a few yards in which to see tho signal, but he stopped. And what does tho signalman get for this? His employment is .regular, lie works in a warm and weather-proof box, and lie Ins free clothing, the privilege of travelling free on his holidays, 35s a week in the most important boxes, an annual bonus for avoiding mistakes, and a pension at sixty.