A FEAT OF MEMORY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3080, 30 December 1908, Page 4

A FEAT OF MEMORY.

It will probably be a long time before the introduction of the indicating clock is necessary in New Zealand railway stations. In the great stations elsewhere, these clocks are most useful. They do not go, but simply point to the time at which trains for various places start, it being the duty of certain men to move on the hands from time to time. Of course a great deal of responsibility rests with the men who look after the clocks. Those at the Central

Station in Melbourne are attended to by two men, one of whom goes on at six in the morning and comes off at two in the afternoon, and the other works from two till midnight. When a train leaves a platform and a clock has to be altered, these men consult no time-table. They carrj it all in their heads. In the middle ot a political argument or some remarks on the missing of trains, they take a long pole, swing the hands of the clock round to in dicate the time at which the next train goes, change the name of the place of destination, and go on with their conversation as if th'ey were working at a small country station, in stead of at the busiest in Victoria. Now there are ten platforms at this station, with trains running from each of them, and altogether nearly 700 trains leave the station in the eighteen hours. That these two men should remember perfectly the times of these trains is astonishing to anybody else, but the most natural thing in the world to them. They neither stuJy the tima-table deeply during their hours of leisure, nor learn it off by heart.