Lots of things have changed since then, but a signal [Illustration] to go ahead is still the “highball” because railroaders still use many of the old words. Firemen and brakemen now have machinery that does many of the things they used to do, but they keep their old names. And one thing hasn’t changed at all: People still love trains. The men who work on the huge powerful engines would rather work there than almost anywhere else. That’s how Sam feels about it. [Illustration: HIGHBALL MEANS TO GO FAST, BECAUSE IN THE OLD DAYS WHITE BALL, RUN TO TOP OF CROSSBAR MEANT “CLEAR TRACK” BLACK BALL, RUN HALF-WAY UP MEANT “STOP”] When Sam reports for work, his big steam locomotive is all ready. Men have oiled it and checked it. The fire is roaring in the firebox. In the old days, a fireman spent most of his time shoveling coal. The faster the train went, the more steam it needed and the faster the fireman had to work with his banjo. Sam knows how to use a shovel if he needs to, but that’s not his main job. His locomotive has a machine called an automatic stoker which feeds coal into the firebox. Sam just checks up on the fire. He looks at dials and gauges in the locomotive cab, and they tell him what he wants to know. There is enough steam. Everything is ship-shape. Sam and the engineer and a brakeman work at the front of the train, so they are called the head-end crew. Another brakeman and the freight conductor work in the caboose--the last car on the train. In between the caboose and the locomotive are sixty cars of important freight that has to be delivered fast. A fast freight is called a hotshot or redball. A slow one is a drag. Sam and the engineer are ready to go. Far down the track the conductor raises his arm and gives the highball signal. He is ready, too. Now the engineer pulls the throttle lever. The long train snakes out of the freight yards onto the main line, and pretty soon they are “batting the stack off her”--which means making fast time. [Illustration] [Illustration] Sam, on the left side of the cab, watches the track ahead. The engineer sits on the right, keeping a sharp lookout. When they come to a curve, Sam looks back along the train to make sure everything is all right. After a while they see a little town up ahead, and beside the track stands a signal they have been expecting. It looks like a round plate, with places for nine lights in it. But only three of the lights are ever flashed at once. At the top of the page you will see what each set of lights means. This time three green go-ahead lights are showing. “Clear signal,” Sam calls to the engineer. “Green eye it is,” the engineer replies. All through the trip he and Sam will call the signals back and forth to each other, just to make sure there is no mistake. The engineer gives one long blast on his whistle to tell the station agent in the little town that the train is coming.