The man's words, all the more impressive for their rugged simplicity, brought to my mind again the thought of danger, for in spite of the wonderful system by which these flying trains are run, in spite of the elaborate precautions taken and the many eyes forever watching to see that they are carried out, it is impossible to go through such an experience as mine without realizing that there is danger in these desperate dashes. Suppose something goes wrong on the track ahead while the train is making sixty or seventy miles an hour. Suppose, as the whirling caravan rounds a curve or plunges through a tunnel, another whirling caravan is seen blocking the path. Then what? Would there be time to stop? Could the engineer, with all his skill and bravery, prevent disaster? With the old trains running forty miles an hour, seven hundred and sixty feet of track was necessary to bring the locomotive and six cars to a dead stop from full speed. No one has ever made the experiment with the Chicago flyer or the Empire State express, but unquestionably it would take at least a thousand feet of track to stop either of them, and many things can happen in a thousand feet. There are never more than a thousand feet, and very often only a few hundred, between the three sets of signals, with their red, green, and yellow bars, which are shown at each station of the block system all along the route. As there are a hundred of these stations between New York and Albany, that gives three hundred sets of signals to be instantly recognized and obeyed on this relay alone, and a man had better die than make a mistake. Now there are two difficulties with these signals; in the first place, some of them are so close together that no human power could stop the train in the space between them; and in the second place, going at such a speed, it is almost impossible to distinguish the green signals against the background of foliage. Already it has been found necessary to substitute yellow signals for green ones in a number of cases. While we were talking, a trainman drew a dead chicken from between two bars of the cowcatcher, where its head was wedged. It had been struck so suddenly that the feathers were scarcely rumpled, and the lucky finder evidently proposed to have broiled poulet for dinner. I had noticed the poor fowl on the way up, scurrying along in front of the engine, and pitied its stupidity in refusing to leave the track, as it might perfectly well have done. Buchanan told me that they often catch chickens in this way, and find them excellent eating. Then he went on to describe the sensations of running over animals and men.