Salt Lake Tribune | 1916-05-19 | Page 7 | Mr. Woodpecker is in Bad for Delaying Train

Mr. Woodpecker Is in Bad for i Delaying Train Apparently Meek and Harmless Bird Causes 20-Minute Loss. THE lowly woodpecker, meek and harmless as he may seem, is now registered among the trouble trou-ble makers. IJis bad repute may not be nation-wide, but it exists along the line of the Union Pacific. Probably he had no intention of creating a disturbance dis-turbance when he established hi m.eif among the undesirables, but affvthing that upsets train schedules to the extent ex-tent of more than a quarter of an hour is not easily overlooked in railroad circles. . Just a week ago this morning passenger pas-senger train N"o. 1 8 on the Oregon-Washington Oregon-Washington Eailroad & Navigation company com-pany came into Huntington twenty minutes late. The delay was assigned to flagging through one of the automatic auto-matic block districts. The signal repairman re-pairman was immediately started out to locate the trouble. He found a neat little hole in one of the signal boxes, drilled by some woodpecker in a playful mood. The hole, ot course, wouldn't have caused the trouble, but Mr. Woodpecker Wood-pecker didn't quit playing soon eirough and kept pecking away until he pecked one of the small wires in two, broke the electric block circuit and set all blocks controlled from that box at stop. When a woodpecker causes a flagman to walk a mile or two down the ties of a dusty railroad track he has started something in the way of trouble, even though the delay to trains mav be overlooked.