Page:Brunswick 100 Years of Memories.pdf/59

The wildcat whistle was also used as a fire

alarm within the Brunswick area. One long and one short indicated a fire in the First Ward (New York Hill to Gum Spring Hollow); one long and two short signified the Second Ward (Gum Spring to Maple A venue); and one long and three short denoted the Third Ward (all of the town west of Maple Avenue). One long and four shorts indicated the fire was outof-town, while the signal for a fire on the railroad was three longs and one short. Designation of the wards in the fire alarm probably went back to the earlier days when the reel houses in various parts of town were the primary line of defense against fires. While the shop whistle was always a good means for employees and residents alike to keep track of time, there was also another type of whistle offering that information - the locomotive whistle. After living with all these whistles for years, many people could tell time by the comings and goings of passenger trains. Yard engines had their own sounds and freight trains always stopped in Brunswick, so there was no confusing them with an express passenger train which would roar through town with its whistle screaming, or a through passenger train which made a station stop here. If you were working in the garden or fishing on the river in the afternoon and heard a westbound train come to a stop, blow in his flag, and start up, you would know that No. 9 had just left for Chicago and could figure it was just a few minutes after 2:00 PM. Or, a little later, if you heard a speeding eastbound limited whistling for the Brunswick crossings, you could be pretty sure it was around 3:30 PM as No. 8 headed to Washington. This same procedure could be followed throughout the 24 hours of the day. Those familiar with the train schedules, and that was just about everyone in town, could tell time fairly accurately by the passenger trains. People in Brunswick always knew "what time it was."

a beautiful gown!" for a young lady's junior prom. (Mother had just returned from a train trip to Frederick or Hagerstown or Baltimore or Washington.) Sixty years later, a sister recalls her anxiety when her inquisitive brother became caught with his neck between the iron railing and the stone station at Hagerstown. The B&O crews and other workers were always helpful in emergencies because they were innately good and because they knew these travelers as families of their co-workers. In this case, the boy was extricated by being walked several feet away from where he was imprisoned; the round iron rail at this point was a bit farther away from the wall, so his head slipped below the pipe and he was freed! Such "loyal" customers traveled with free annual railroad passes, if they were wives of railroad men. Trip passes were granted by request for minor children. Housewives, teachers and students made ample use of the trains from Brunswick to Frederick and Hagerstown. Before the public high school system was firmly entrenched, students went to the town of their choice for high schooling. Later schedules sometimes worked out for college students.Enroute to Frederick, shoppers and teenagers boarded and disembarked at Brunswick, Point of Rocks, Doubs, Adamstown, Buckeystown, Lime Kiln, Frederick Junction and Frederick. In the other direction, passengers would be accommodated at Knoxville, Weverton, Gapland, Trego, Rohrersville, Keedysville, Security Junction and Hagerstown. Before automobilemania, teachers commuted to work at many of the one-room schools throughout the area. Rose Copeland Barton traveled to Lime Kiln at one time, for example, and Catherine Reed taught at Point of Rocks. She met her future husband, Eugene Bowers, Sr., through her commute. He was ticket agent at the Brunswick station. The steam locomotives used to deliver Brunswick young people- free of charge, and on special trains to various events. Many people remember participating during the 1920'sin Apple Blossom Parades in Winchester, Va., the first week-end in May. The train was always full. Mothers would spend weeks in advance at the elementary school making costumes for the children. Brunswick always won top prizes, thanks to the originality and creativity of the teachers and mothers. A four or five-car train carried several hundred passengers to a baseball game in Washington in 1927 - all for free! Before buses brought students from Washington County to our schools, many came by train from

W-BRH

SOME RAILROAD STORIES AND RECOLLECTIONS When gasoline was thirteen cents a gallon but most families did not own a car, the major employer of Brunswick's men provided railroad transportation to places most of today's Brunswickians wouldn't suspect. Mothers returning from Frederick or Hagerstown were greeted with Where are the fig newtons?" (or other special treats from .the endless choices in the" big" city stores). Better still, What

60