N&W in 1910--At station

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Bluefield Daily Telegraph
January 28, 1910

COMBINATION OF FUNNY INCIDENTS AT STATION
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Gates Needed to Keep People From Killing Themselves Whether They Want to or Not
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    Yesterday afternoon train No. 2 met with a combination of funny incidents while at the local station.  To begin with it was marked up twenty-five minutes late, but arrived in the station about ten minutes ahead of the marked up time.  A quick shift was made and the train was ready to leave just before 12:55.  Several passengers who had left the train for neighboring restaurants and other refreshing places did not arrive until the train was pulling out of the station.  One of the men who was late caught the rear handle on the Pullman while another grabbed on and held, endangering his life.  If it had not been for brakeman Lusk, who pulled him loose from his hold, throwing him to the pavement, and in that way saving him from falling underneath.  The man had no sooner been pulled loose than a woman stepped off the front step of the Pullman, waving a letter and what appeared to be a pocket book, shouting that her husband was getting left.  She jumped off in the usual woman's way, that is backwards, and for a wonder kept her footing.  When she saw that she had jumped from a moving train she became excited and rushed back to get on, with everyone shouting and expecting to see her fall underneath the train. As soon as she got near the handle of the car the conductor, who had had his attention called to both ends of his car at the same time, grabbed her in his arms and literally lifted her on the car in spite of the fact that she weighed about 175 pounds.  Meanwhile the brakeman who had jumped on the back of the train pulled the signal cord and the train stopped.  As there were no other passengers in sight and as no one had been hurt, the train went on its way to Roanoke.  Only one lesson can be drawn from the story and that is that Bluefield needs at the local station some gates to keep the American people from killing themselves whether they want to or not.
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Gordon Hamilton
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