A TRAIN STOPPED BY THE PLANET VENUS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1161, 28 September 1882, Page 2

A TRAIN STOPPED BY THE PLANET VENUS.

An American engine-driver tells an amusing story of a scare that happened on the transcontinental railway line one evening. He was on the engine when he saw a bright light as from the head-lamp of an engine right in front of him, and some distance off. He knew no train should be on the line where the light was, and it seemed to him that as the light was a single one, he was going to be run into. He sounded the whisles, and made for a siding that was between him and the light, and got on to it before any collision occurred. When his train stopped on the siding the passengers and guards got round him and congratulated him and each other on their escape, and much hank-shak-ing went on. There was the ominous headlight right in front, but, after carefully observing it, some of the passengers noticed that it did not appear to move nearer. Then one of them unpacked a nightglass he had in his portmanteau, and brought it to bear on the light. Next he laughed. He handed the glass to another, who looked at the light and also laughed. And one by one the passengers took the glass and surveyed the light, and as they did so they were switched on to the army of laughters. At last the enginedriver got the glass, and he did not laugh. He felt mad, for he found he had shunted on to the siding to allow the planet Venus—which was low down on the horizon and right ahead to go by. The “Ballarat Courier ” tells this story apropos of the construction, locally, of a powerful “headlight” to one of the American engines now being turned out by the Phoenix Foundry for the Government.