Word: trainman
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...book's best piece is about railroading - how to set a freight car's brake and then, perilously, slip blocks of wood under the wheels; the arrogant, slow-motion skill of well-paid oldtimers in clean overalls; the trainman's contempt for the placid, nonrolling civilian world. The author's stream-of-consciousness gibberish is fairly effective as he tells of being summoned at 4:30 a.m. to catch an early run ("I wake up ... in the mouth of the night and there everything knows that I have no mother, and no sister, and no father...
...conductor let him build a tiny laboratory in a corner of the baggage car, and Tom fiddled with test tubes, chemicals and batteries. One morning, his arms full of newspapers, Tom tried to swing on to the departing train. He would have fallen under the wheels if a trainman had not hauled him aboard by the ears. Something "snapped" in the boy's head, and his deafness may have started at that moment. Years later, Edison wrote: "I haven't heard a bird sing since I was twelve years...
...Haven-reported one New Haven trainman to the R.L.E.A.: "[On one train] the water was almost over the laces on my shoes, leaking all over the coach, all running down through the coaches." Reported another: "Cars are allowed to go into service dirty, without water for the public. Passenger trains are normally operated ten to 30 minutes late." Reported a New Haven station agent: "We find now that we board up station windows rather than replace glass. We disregard broken planks in platforms, as there are no planks available for repairs...
Where Was the Fireman? Some of the commuters were as lucky as Land. One arm and one foot broken. Trainman Joe McDonald struggled to the door of the first coach and, in a welter of lifeless bodies, floated up to sunlight. Lloyd Nelson, 33. of Little Silver, N.J.. a survivor of the Pennsylvania Railroad wreck at Woodbridge, N.J. in 1951 (84 dead), had got a window open before his coach splashed into the bay. From the dangling car some passengers crawled hand over hand up the luggage racks to take rescuing ropes and hands. But Snuffy Stirnweiss died...
...striped denim uniform of a subway trainman appeared in the Mayor's office of the City of New York early last Tuesday morning, before the regular business hours. Theodore Loos, president of the Motorman's Benevolent Association, announced that the men on the IND were going to stage a wildcat strike at 5 a.m. the next morning...