A Circle of red light gleaming out of the darkness like a drop of ghost's blood—or a bright, green eye, as of “a little yellow god.” These are the two signs that the enginedriver, peering round the hood of his rocking cabin, watches for keenly as his long train whirls on over the miles of iron track that run along the skirts of night.

Is it the green orb showing? Then onward it is, with a little less steam, a little less tension. The end of the home run is in sight for the driver, with the mouthwatering prospect of a bacon-and-eggs supper, a pipe of peace and a peep at the youngsters in bed. Back in the carriages the passengers yawn and prepare their luggage. All is well.

But is it the red light showing? Shut off steam, put on the brakes, slow down to a stop. What's wrong? Well, whatever has happened, the green light will show up soon, as if the little god has suddenly devoured the owner of the red eye, and is sitting up on the signal-post there, winking. No danger so long as the train stays still. That bright red eye is a word of command. The stationary engine belches steam like an angry dragon, but there is a greater power in its path, and it must stay still. A passenger who stops a train without good reason does so at risk of a heavy penalty, but that red light is exempt. It is the first and the last word.

Silent Sentinels.

Signals, those two lights; spread in profusion along the railway lines of New Zealand, detailed to guard the approaches to each and every station in the country, efficient, silent, conscientious, unsleeping sentries whose challenge may not be denied, whose “pass, friend” is never given without real assurance. Simple in themselves, they are but the marionettes that respond to the strings of a guiding power; they are the outward symbols of that cool, watchful police department of the railways.

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Those signals never work haphazardly, they are never confused, uncertain or at fault. The lives and property that depend upon their proper functioning are too valuable to be left to chance. That is why the signal system of the New Zealand railways is—“Perfect.”

The signalman said it for me, as I sat in his elevated cabin at Thorndon Station and watched him at work.

“But there is a philosopher who says that nothing in life is perfect,” I observed.

“A philosopher? Well, I'll bet he wasn't a railway signalman, or he wouldn't have said it.”

An Unfailing Sniper.

Thirty-six tall, shining levers stood up out of the floor like a row of rifles. The cabin might almost have been a sniping nest. Out there through the glass windows, dotted over the black, murky crisscrossed railway yard, with its coal-holes and its no-man's-land, were the signal-posts—fourteen of them. All of them within sight, just in case something goes wrong. Not that it will. That philosopher we mentioned, you know, didn't know much about railways —–

Now, watch. Down comes one of those block levers to set the points as the signalman pulls on it, then a blue to lock them, then a red, and—down comes the arm of that far signal, as if struck by a fatal shot. Now down with a couple of those black levers for the points, and a blue one for the lock bars, or a blue-and-black lever to work points and lock bars in one operation.

The way is clear, the road is set. Come on, you big puffing iron monster—you're a tank for which your unfailing sniper has cleared the way. Come on proudly with a roll of iron and a burst of steam.

Great shooting (if you will pardon the fantasy). Mysterious shooting. Every time the signalman pulls down a red lever he picks off one of those fourteen signal arms as clean as a whistle. And, far away, the points and the lock-bars on the railway lines jump to his distant command. Like the pieces of a cardboard puzzle being moved miraculously into place.

“Yes, but what about the element of human error?” I asked, without any tact whatever. “What if you pull down the wrong lever?”

The signalman smiled.

“That is just what you can't do Watch.”

Checkmate.

“Checkmate,” I murmured.

“You see, that particular lever doesn't belong to the set I'm using now,” explained my companion. “It automatically checks me if I make a mistake. Locking system below this cabin. No lever will work except in its own set. Sort of trades unionism, you see. Anyway, that eliminates the element of human error.”

“Fine. But,” I pursued, relentlessly, “what if you have a train stationary at the Thorndon dock, and, forgetting that fact, you carefully set the track and allow an incoming train to come in on top of the other?” “Under the automatic system that is impossible,” was the reply, “because as long as a train is on a main line like that, the line is automatically locked against the entry of another train. Electrification. Until the one train is clear, the signal remains at danger, and I couldn't move the signal to ‘safety’ if I tried.”

The signalman, between explanations and demonstrations, was continually pulling his levers backward and forward. He put a netted cloth over the shining ends to get a grip, and each time pressed on an electric button release with his foot. The noise gave me time to think out new points of attack. I had thought at first that I might be criminally diverting the signalman's attention at such a busy time, but now I was comforted by the reflection that he couldn't go wrong, anyway. However, I turned to the maintenance man who had come in and divided my questions between the two.

“Now, what if an incoming train is set on a wrong track?” “Quite safe. One would never be able to switch a train on to that line unless it was clear.”

“But what is to prevent a train coming along a converging line from the shunting yard and colliding with a train on the main line?”

“The manner in which the points are arranged would not allow it. The setting of a main line automatically closes up converging lines. Points are dependent on others.

The Elusive Loophole.

“But you have a lot of lines in this yard. Could not a head-on collision occur?”

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“No. Again the points are so arranged that trains travelling in different directions on the one line would be carried to safety on different lines upon reaching the points.”

I saw my chance and leapt to it like a tiger.

“That is all very well for double tracks, Mr. Signalman, but what about a Single track?”

My companion did not blink an eyelid. For a moment I pitied him. Then I pitied myself, because he said: “The automatic system divides the railway line into sections of quarters of a mile. That system serves the Hutt. Upon a train entering a section it automatically places the signals at both ends of the section at danger. That holds up a train that may be waiting at either end to come on, thus preventing collision in the front or at the back. Opposing trains then cross on a loop line at the end of the section at which they meet.”

I felt I was playing a game of draughts and was losing all my men. However, I perceived what I thought was a loophole.

“That is a safeguard which applies only to the electrified railway,” I said. “The Palmerston North line is not electrified. How about the danger of collision on that?”

“Ah, there we operate on the tablet system.”

I had an idea of what he meant. Tablets were those composition discs that engine-drivers exchanged with signalmen at stations, not unlike the pleasant swopping of cigarette cards. It had always appeared to me to be a happy and aimless pastime, bound up with the curious legend I had heard that no driver would travel without his disc. I was to learn why.

The Conjurer's Box.

The signalman showed me a tablet machine against the wall. He pressed on one brass button, which he said rang a bell in the railway office at Ngaio, away up in the hills. In code he asked permission to issue a tablet from his own machine for an outward-bound train. Had there been a train between Ngaio and Thorndon he would have had to wait. But there was none, so the Ngaio man, page 40 unseen, pressed his switch and pushed in a slot on his machine, allowing the Thorndon signalman to open a slot in turn in his own machine and extract the required tablet.

He tied it to its carrier, set the inter-locked starting signal and handed the tablet to the driver of the train as it passed by the cabin. Not until that tablet arrived at Ngaio could another tablet be extracted from the electric machine at either station, and so no other train could travel until the one was clear.

And if that system failed ? There were two provisions—authorisation by a set of five telegrams instead of a tablet, or the appointment of a railway man to act as a pilot. (“Any more questions?”)

The maintenance man showed me on a chart the manner in which certain points on the tracks locked others, thus reducing danger to vanishing point. The chart gave one a brain storm to look at, leave alone work out.

I gave it up. I had done my best to find a loophole, but had failed. There seemed to be no possibility of accident unless an engine-driver mistook the green and red lights, or the arms, of the signals. That left a small enough chance of error.

I left the signalman in his cabin working the levers incessantly, protected against error, provided with an alternative to everything, setting tracks for 180 odd trains a day, eating his lunch with one hand, still fascinated by his job after years at the game.

That philosopher who said nothing was perfect—well, I would just like him to visit that signal box for half-an-hour.

Small Appropriation Brings Big Returns.

How £200 spent on advertising brought additional revenue at the rate of £7,000 a year was told in a recent issue of the L.N.E.R. Magazine. The advertisements were inserted to make known some improved services on a section of the London and North-Eastern Railway, and resulted in an average monthly increase of 33,426 passengers and £596 revenue. In commenting on this result the writer said: “The knowledge of this cheaper travel could only have been gained by perusal of L.N.E.R. advertisements.”

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