RAILROAD SUPERSTITIONS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 5, Issue 1444, 31 July 1883, Page 2

RAILROAD SUPERSTITIONS.

" Yes, I read that article on stage people and their superstitions," said an Erie conductor, " and I must confess that we railroad men as a class are equally superstitious. lam not speaking about that superstition that clings to one after an accident, but of that possessed by regular railroad men. I' know a conductor who wears a long face the whole trip if the first ticket he should take up would be that of a colored man. ' He has never . had a serious accident, but is always: afraid of one when such an occurrence happens. I have known him to carry it to such an extent that if a colored man should happen to be his first passenger he would sit down and not gather up the tickets until the next station was reached. A horseshoe is a railroad man's universal insignia of safety. You will scarcely find a freight train on any of the roads without a horseshoe in the caboose. Brakciaen sometimes carry a whole one in their pockets. Engineers are scarcely evor without one in their cab, If anything happens to delay a train on the first four or five miles of its trip, an engineer is always superstitious of bad luck all the way through. I have known one of them to enter a way telegraph. office for orders, and anticipate an answer to ' lay OYei' 1 just because it was his' off* night. Some engineers got to believing that certain portions of the road aro against them, and no matter how nicely their train glides over it, they are apprehensive of danger, or of being late.

"Conductors are tainted with the disease, but not so seriously. If the first pasteboard handed to aceitainono I know when he starts on a trip should be a pass, he is certain that he will have bad luck during the whole run. Brakemen do not show the symptoms so plainly, because they have less to do with the management of the train, but even they do not escape it. Should a brake-head fly off, an evil omen is conveyed to the mind of some of the craft, r A train of thirteen cars often them the blues. I have known one t<K miss a trip because the train he was to run with Jiad that number of cars."— Bradford Star.