Sometimes dogs get so fond of trains that they spend their whole lives
riding with friendly engineers or baggagemen. Cooks and waiters in the
diner save scraps for them to eat.
The most famous traveller of all was a Scotch terrier named Owney.
During his long life he covered more than 150,000 miles, riding in
Railway Post Office cars. The men put tags on his collar showing where
he had been. Finally he collected so many tags that he had to have a
harness to hold them. When he died, the Post Office Department had him
stuffed and put in its museum.
NARROW GAUGE TRAINS
[Illustration]
When your grandmother was a little girl, fast trains ran from coast to
coast and slower ones climbed to towns high in the mountains.
Super-highways for automobiles and trucks were something that only a few
people even imagined then. So--if freight and passengers were going very
far, they had to travel by train. Mountains gave the railroads a lot of
trouble, because it was hard to dig wide roadbeds along the steep,
rocky hillsides or to push them through tunnels in solid stone.
[Illustration]
One answer to the problem was to make the tracks not so wide and the
tunnels not so high and the trains not so big! These railroads were
called narrow gauge. (Gauge means the distance between the tracks.) The
trains looked like toys, but they carried on their jobs perfectly well.
A narrow-gauge engine and cars could whip easily around sharp curves,
hugging the side of the cliff. The pint-sized locomotives pulled heavy
loads. Elegant ladies and gentlemen used to travel in the tiny cars
which were just as fancy as the big streamliners are now--maybe even
fancier.
When good highways and huge trailer trucks came along, most of the
narrow gauge railroads stopped running. A truck and trailer cost a lot
less to operate than even a toy-like locomotive and freight cars. But in
a few places you can still see the little giants at work. For instance,
there is the Edaville Railroad which runs through the cranberry bogs in
Massachusetts.
[Illustration]
The narrow gauge Edaville trains haul boxes into the bogs where pickers
fill them with berries. Then the loaded cars take the berries out to a
cleaning and sorting shed for shipment to canneries and stores.
On many trips the Edaville trains carry passengers, too, for people love
to ride behind the old-time engines. The man who owns the railroad lets
everyone travel free, but if you want a souvenir ticket, you can buy it
for a nickel!
[Illustration]
ALONG THE TRACKS
The section crews are the men who lay new railroad tracks and keep the
old ones repaired. Railroaders call them gandy dancers, and the boss of
the crew is the king snipe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account