That winter had begun with a blizzard that lasted long enough that the snow blocked part of the railroad so the trains were not running. The morning after the storm had ceased the sun came out, shining bright. Having only one man, Ed put him to cleaning the switches, crossings and depot platform, and he decided he would walk over one end of the section, a distance of about four miles. When he had gone about halfway to the end he noticed the sky began to thicken up again with clouds, and as he neared the end of the section another blinding blizzard came in from the north. He turned and started walking towards home. He only walked a short distance when he stumbled over the rail. Getting up, he started walking again, only to trip over the rail again and fall into the snow. Thinking he might step over the rail and walk away from the track, and the danger of getting lost as some of the right of way was not fenced, his only thought was to stay between the rails. With no trains running, he started out on his hands and knees, crawling towards home with one hand on the rail. At times he would have to stop and rest, then continue crawling. Later he could tell that night was coming on by the darkness. He was getting cold and tired, and his progress was getting slower, but he kept moving on. Then his knee hit another rail, and he knew it was the switch, and he then had to watch for a crossing at the end of the depot platform. Soon he was at the crossing and knew the direction of the section house from there, but continued to crawl towards the house. Then he saw a dim light through the flurry of snow. Standing up, he walked to the door. Opening the door, he said all the people in town were there, and they looked at him as if they had seen a ghost, as they thought for sure he had been lost in the blizzard. I asked him if his hands or feet had frozen. He said, “No, but I wore the knees out of a brand new pair of overalls.”

One Saturday in late fall I was alone and had been cleaning dirt from under switch points. When I came in for lunch I found the passenger train had broken a fourteen-inch piece of the ball of the rail at a joint in a crossing. There were no trains until late afternoon. After lunch I put out flags and changed the broken rail. For an hour or more I hunted for that piece of broken rail but never did find it. It must have wedged someway under the train. World War II had ended, and Vic Farrar, who was in the military service, came back to work. Vic was a fisherman, too, and we were on the creek almost every evening. Many of the fish we caught ran two or three pounds. Vic is retired now and still holds the big fish record for Spring Creek, a nineteen-pound Lock Laven or Brown Trout.