On the subject of headlights and their less than
formal usage, I offer you the following verses from a poem entitled "The Song of the
Headlight" from Railway Age 1887
I guide the train
o?er level plain
A swiftly nearing
star,
And I bend and swerve where the mountains curve
My iron-bound path
to bear:
Up their rocky steeps the fleet flame leaps,
Or I flash in their
depths below.
Till the mosses that dress each dim recess
And the nodding
ferns I show:
I spring to illume the frowning gloom
Of precipices
gray
And waters smile from the deep defile
In my momentary
day.
Still on and on
till the night is gone
I follow the
vibrant rails,
Till the east is red, and overhead
The star of morning
pales:
As foes may fear the soldier?s spear,
But comrades have
no dread,
The lances of light I hurled at the night
Pierce not where
sunbeams spread,
So I cease my rays
when the heavens ablaze
Proclaims the
darkness fled.
Which goes to prove that not all railway employees were
uncouth!!!
Rupert Gamlen
Auckland NZ