But all these wrecking-bosses have nerve and ability. They could not hold their jobs without both. They know when equipment--cars that might be made as good as new in the shops--must be burned like driftwood, and when the burning of a wreck would be criminal waste. That requires judgment--judgment to determine whether it is cheaper to burn than to lose valuable time; to delay traffic on a main-line division or to let the traffic on a less important side-line division wait for a little longer time. Judgment is part of a wrecking-boss's equipment. His superintendent knows that; and when the super grows nervous and gets down to the wreck himself, although he knows that he is ranking officer in charge of the work he shows good judgment, on his own part, in letting the wrecking-boss give all orders. That makes for skill, it makes for speed. If the wrecking-boss is not doing good work the superintendent can fire him to-morrow, or (what is far more usual) find him an easier berth somewhere on the division. There are times when the work-train must be summoned, when laborers by the dozen must get to work to build new track. A wash-out may require a half-mile of track to be laid in a night, and the railroad can do it. A young man wrote a very able story for _The Saturday Evening Post_ a few months ago, in which he told how an emergency track was laid across a highway bridge and a test fast-freight put through on schedule. That feat was but one of the many ordinary tasks that come in the lifetime of every operating man. Clearing a wreck may be a tedious business. There is a deep sink on the parade-ground of the Military Academy at West Point that is a monument to the nastiest railroad wreck from the point of view of time, that the Eastern railroaders have ever known. Just under that parade-ground the West Shore Railroad passes through a long tunnel. On an October night more than twenty years ago, the Chicago & St. Louis Express of that railroad was slowly poking through that bore, when a portion of the roof of the tunnel collapsed. It buried itself between the rear part of the baggage-car and the forward part of the express-car and the train came to an abrupt stop. Engineer William Morse saw in an instant the damage that had been done. He cut loose from that penned baggage-car and made record speed up the line to Cornwall, the nearest station. From there he a sent a wire post-haste to the despatcher up at Kingston, then the headquarters of the line. "Train caught by collapse of West Point tunnel," that despatch read in part. "Only engineer and fireman escaped." They began to get their hospital train ready at Kingston, notified Newburg to get all the doctors in sight and hurry them on a special to West Point. The chief despatcher went through the worst quarter of an hour of his life. He began to call Weehawken, the southern terminal of the line. Weehawken wires were all busy, and he could not cut in there.