MAIN LINE

As told to Robert E. Mahaffay, these are an old timer's reminscences of working on the railroad which began in 1894 when at the age of fifteen he became a night telegrapher for the Southern Pacific in the Sierra Nevada. From rough and tumble times and towns, incidents of white slavery and vigilante victimization, he follows through the years with episodes of train robberies, wrecks and derailments, the Wobblies as they overran the trains, robberies, blizzard and snow blockades. In his career from telegrapher to dispatcher to superintendent, he also reviews his contacts with conductors, brakemen, etc. If mellow, this is also a mild backward look largely for those who still hear that whistle calling.