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Excerpt from Massachusetts Reports, Vol. 128: Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, November 1879-June 1880
Richard Welsh testified as follows: I am employed by the Eastern Railroad Company as ¿agman at another crossing, about eight hundred feet away from the plaintiff at the time he was struck. I saw the locomotive and oil cars go by me. Cannot state whether there was any brakeman on the oil train or not. There is a switch there, and the engine comes down one way and the man throws the switch to let the cars go the other. I was watching for this train to come down there, and knew they were going to make a ¿ying switch. I saw the man at the switch to switch in the oil tanks. I saw the switch thrown and the engine pass, and saw the cars coming on the other track. They passed me. When I saw the engine I did not see the cars behind it. I knew it was going to make a ¿ying switch at the. Time. I was looking out for my own crossing at the time, without thinking an accident would happen. I knew the cars were coming behind the engine. The switch is about three hundred feet from Sara toga Street. Did not see the cars when I saw the engine coming. I knew they were coming. The witness in answer to the ques tion whether there was any signal for a ¿ying switch, and, if so, what it was, answered: Well, that is only a signal the men have among themselves. He will whistle for the switch; he will make one whistle for a locomotive or train, and two whistles for a ¿ying switch, and the switchman understands that and will go by it. I know it as well as the switchman. T5.11 ¿agmen and everybody knows when a ¿ying switch is com ing. I did not hear the signal that day. Whether it was given or not I do not know. I do not recollect hearing any signal given for the switch that day; whether it was given or not I do not know.
Frank E. Pray testified that a person standing upon the west or northwest side of the track, near the track where it crosses Saratoga Street, could see up the track nearly seven hundred feet, towards Revere; that it was nearly a straight line.
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