Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 December 1895 — The Engineer Was Color Blind. [ARTICLE]

The Engineer Was Color Blind.

A story is told of the late Railroad Commissioner Stevens, on the occasion of the rear-end collision at West Somerville three or four years ago. The engineer of the following train was careless, and ran by two red lights without a stop. At the hearing the engineer testified regarding the lights, and said they were set at white. After the other commissioner had asked the witness all the questions they could think of, Mr. Stevens quietly requested William, the office boy, to take a “Baby Pathfinder” railway guide, and hang it on the ventilator outside the window, but in full view of the witness, and when his turn came to examine him, he merely asked the engineer what color the little book appeared to him. The engineer squinted at the book, which was some twenty feet away, and then said, in a rather uncertain tone, that it was sort of brownish. This was all that Mr. Stevens had to say to the witness, but the cause of the accident was pretty conclusively proved to have been due to color blindness of the engineer, for, as everybody knows, all the “Baby Pathfinders” are bright red.