funny R.R. stories

[NW Mailing List]

To Harry Bundy and all other interested parties.

The following story was told to your writer at a high school reunion by the
late Bob Peak.  Bob was the son of Clarence Peak who in the 1950s was the
section maintenance foremen for the Glade Spring section. The Peak family
lived in the company house across three pairs of railroad tracks and
a narrow street away from the old, quaint Glade Spring depot.

Crossing the tracks and passing left of the house was Grace Street.  Up
that street lived (Bill?) Craighead. He oversaw the maintenance of signals;
telephone, telegraph and electric wires along the railroad.

Each of the gentlemen would periodically board their motor
cars at different times and putter to the east to Chilhowie, to Saltville
along the Salt Branch, and to the west to a point unknown to your writer.

One morning Mr. Craighead mounted his motorcar and headed towards
Chilhowie.  Later, Mr. Peak somehow missed the fact that Mr. Craighead had
headed to Chilhowie. He fired up his motor car and headed to Chilhowie
also, studying the tracks intently, watching for broken and missing parts.

By the time Mr. Peak was traveling through the bucolic scenery enjoyed so
much by Harry Bundy, Mr. Craighead was coasting through the area of Snapp's
Siding on his return to Glade Spring.  Then on a curve of shorter radius
and less sight distance, the two, one looking up, the other looking down,
collided.

Storyteller Bob did not report that either motor car or their operators
suffered any physical damage.  Instead he went on to tell of the
psychological effects the accidental had on the two men. Their pride in
their work was bruised.  How would the accident report look in their work
records? Which one would be assigned blame for the accident?

Bob said,  "I believe Janet and I fixed the emotional scars left over by
the accident when we married."

Janet was Mr. Craighead's beautiful daughter.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist6.pair.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20190828/fdf67ffb/attachment.html>