The perfection of the air brake removed one great source of danger that menaced the crews of freight trains. There still remained another almost as great, particularly in the matter of maiming its victims, when not actually killing them. This was the old method of coupling freight cars as practiced in America. There were few old-time trainmen, indeed, who could show a complete set of full length digits, the buffers of the old-fashioned couplings being responsible for the lost and shortened members. The freight brakeman has to make scores of couplings on every trip. And he literally took his life in his hands upon each and every occasion of making a coupling by the old method. This old form of couplings consisted of two buffers--one on each car--joined together by an iron link about fifteen inches long, a movable pin inserted at either end holding the link in place and thus joining the cars. When a coupling was to be made the brakeman raised the pin in the buffer of the stationary car and tilted it at an angle in the pin-hole at the top of the buffer so that, while it remained raised, the jar of the striking buffers at the moment of coupling caused it to fall into place and complete the coupling. The link was left hanging in the moving car which was being shunted in to be coupled; but in this position the projecting end was so low that it would miss the hole in the opposite buffer, and thus fail to make the coupling, unless raised and inserted just at the moment before the buffers came together. This raising and inserting of the link was the dangerous part of making a coupling. It could only be done by the brakeman while standing between the cars. And he must raise the link, insert it, and remove his hand in a fraction of a second if the car was moving at a fair rate of speed, otherwise his fingers or hand would be caught between the buffers and crushed. And a crushed hand or arm meant subsequent amputation, for the force of the collision between the buffers crushed the bones beyond repair. There was a way in which the coupling could be made whereby the hand was not endangered. This was by using a stick for raising and guiding the link into the buffer. Some railroads at first furnished sticks for this purpose. But no brakeman would stoop to use them. Had he done so he would have been hooted and jeered off the road by his train mates. And so his pride made him risk his limbs and his life, and fostered the recklessness of the old-time brakeman.