Train Jokes

The traveler was indignant at the slow speed of the train. He appealed to the conductor:

"Can't you go any faster than this?"

"Yes," was the serene reply, "but I have to stay aboard."

"Can I get a steak here and catch the one o'clock train?"

"It depends on your teeth, sir."

What does a husband do who misses a train by which he promised his wife to return?

Catches it when he gets home.

It was on a passenger train. The conductor in passing through observed a man with a cigar in his mouth. "Hey, you can't smoke in here," he bawled out.

"I'm not smoking," quietly replied the passenger.

"Well, you've got a cigar in your face," shot back the conductor.

"Suppose I have," continued the other good-naturedly. "I've got feet in my shoes and I'm not walking."

What is better than presence of mind in a railway accident?

Absence of body.

The traveler wrote an indignant letter to the officials of the railroad company, giving full details as to why he had sat up in the smoking-room all night, instead of sleeping in his berth. He received in reply a letter from the company, which was so courteous and logical that he was greatly soothed. His mood changed for the worse, however, when he happened to glance at his own letter, which had been enclosed through error. On the margin was jotted in pencil:

"Send this guy the bed-bug letter."

In the smoking compartment of a Pullman, there were six men smoking and reading. All of a sudden a door banged and the conductor's voice cried:

"All tickets, please!"

Then one of the men in the compartment leaped to his feet, scanned the faces of the others and said, slowly and impressively:

"Gentlemen, I trust to your honor."

And he dived under the seat and remained there in a small, silent knot till the conductor was safely gone.

"What good," asked the angry would-be passenger, "are the figures set down in these railway timetables?"

"Why," patiently explained the genial agent, "if it weren't for them figures we'd have no way of findin' out how late the train is."

"Say, young man," asked an old lady at the ticket office, "what time does the next train pull in here and how long does it stay?"

"From two to two to two-two," was the curt reply.

"Well, I declare! Be you the whistle?"

He: My train goes in fifteen minutes. Can you not give me one ray of hope before I leave you forever?

She: Er—that clock is half an hour fast.

The newly married pair quarreled seriously, so that the wife in a passion finally declared:

"I'm going home to my mother!"

The husband maintained his calm in the face of this calamity, and drew out his pocketbook.

"Here," he said, counting out some bills, "is the money for your railroad fare."

The wife took it, and counted it in her turn. Then she faced her husband scornfully:

"But that isn't enough for a return ticket."

It was on a little branch railway in a southern state that the New England woman ventured to refer to the high rates.

"It seems to me five cents a mile is extortion," she said, with frankness, to her southern cousin.

"It's a big lot of money to pay if you think of it by the mile," said the southerner, in her soft drawl; "but you just think how cheap it is by the hour, Cousin Annie—only about thirty-five cents."

Little Willie: Papa, why does the railway company have those cases with the ax and saw in every car?

Father: I presume they are put in to use in case anyone wants to open a window.

A small boy who had recently passed his fifth birthday was riding in a suburban car with his mother, when they were asked the customary question, "How old is the boy?" After being told the correct age, which did not require a fare, the conductor passed on to the next person.

The boy sat quite still as if pondering over some question, and then, concluding that full information had not been given, called loudly to the conductor, then at the other end of the car: "And mother's thirty-one!"

Conductor (to passenger of Pullman): Excuse me, sir. Is this lady your wife?

Passenger: I don't know. It depends upon what State we are passing through.

"I left my money at home," said the lady on the train to the conductor. "You will have to trust me. I am one of the directors' wives."

"I am sorry, madam," replied the conductor. "I can't do that, even if you were the director's only wife."

A lady rushed excitedly into the hardware department.

"Give me a mousetrap!" she exclaimed. "Quickly, please, because I want to catch a train."

Tourist: I suppose I can't get a train for three hours?

Station agent: Oh, yes; your train leaves in five minutes.

Tourist: Ah! That's a great wait off my mind.

Conductor: Do you mind if I put your bag out of the way, sir? People coming in are falling over it.

Traveler: You leave it where it is. If nobody falls over it I shall forget it's there.

Every seat was occupied, when a group of women got in. The conductor noticed a man who he thought was asleep.

"Wake up!" shouted the conductor.

"I wasn't asleep," said the passenger.

"Not asleep! Then what did you have your eyes closed for?"

"It was because of the crowded condition of the car," explained the passenger. "I hate to see the women standing."

A conductor and a brakeman on a Montana railroad differ as to the proper pronunciation of the name Eurelia. Passengers are often startled upon arrival at his station to hear the conductor yell:

"You're a liar! You're a liar!"

And then from the brakeman at the other end of the car:

"You really are! You really are!"

The new guard was not familiar with a certain railway run in Wales. Came to a station which rejoiced in the name Llanfairfechanpwllgogerych. For a few minutes he stood looking at the signboard in mute helplessness. Then pointing to the board, and waving his other arm toward the carriages, he called, "If there's anybody there for here, this is it!"

"Don't be so long-winded in your reports as you have been in the past," said the manager of the "Wild West" railway to his overseer. "Just report the condition of the track as you find it, and don't put in a lot of needless words that ain't to the point. Write a business letter, not a love letter."

A few days later the railway line was badly flooded, and the overseer wrote his report to the manager in one line: "Sir: Where the railway was the river is. Yours faithfully."

The man about to take a train was worried by the station clocks. There was twenty minutes' difference between the one in the office and the one in the waiting room. Finally, he questioned a porter. That worthy made a careful survey of the two clocks, and shook his head doubtfully. Then, he brightened suddenly, and said:

"It don't make a single mite of difference about the clocks. The train goes at four-ten, no matter what."

"Well! we've missed that confounded train. What time will the next one be here?"

"If the engine doesn't break down, and the track doesn't spread, and they don't run into any cows, and the up-freight isn't behind time, and the swing bridge isn't open, it ought to be here in about two hours."

"I see you carrying home a new kind of breakfast food," remarked the first commuter.

"Yes," said the second commuter, "I was missing too many trains. The old brand required three seconds to prepare. You can fix this new brand in a second and a half."

"Conductor!" shouted a passenger on the back-country train.

"That was my station, sir! Why didn't you stop?"

"We don't stop there any longer," said the conductor. "You see, the engineer is mad with the station agent!"

"I'm nearly starved. Just got in from a three-hour trip on the New York Central."

"But couldn't you get anything to eat on the train?"

"Nope! It was a 'fast' train."

Gr-rr-r-h! The train drew up with a mighty crash and shock between stations.

"Is it an accident? What happened?" inquired a worried-looking individual of the conductor.

"Someone pulled the bell-cord!" shouted the conductor. "The express knocked our last car off the track! Take us four hours before the track is clear!"

"Great Scott! Four hours! I am supposed to be married today!" groaned the passenger.

The conductor, a bigoted bachelor, raised his eyebrows suspiciously.

"Look here!" he demanded. "I suppose you ain't the chap that pulled the cord?"

"Stop, look, listen!"

The reflective man stopped to read the railroad warning.

"Those three words illustrate the whole scheme of life," said he.

"How?"

"You see a pretty girl; you stop; you look; after you marry her, and for the rest of your life, you listen."

Private Nelson got his leave, and made what he conceived to be the best use of his holiday by getting married.

On the journey back at the station he gave the gateman his marriage certificate in mistake for his return railway ticket.

The official studied it carefully, and then said:

"Yes, my boy, you've got a ticket for a long journey, but not on this road."

Lazy Mike: I have a new position with the railroad company.

Weary Rhodes: What are you gonna do?

Lazy Mike: You know the fellow that goes alongside the train and taps the axles to see if everything's all right? Well, I help him listen.

Traveler (on an English train): Shall I have time to get a drink?

Guard: Yes, sir.

Traveler: Can you give me a guarantee that the train won't start?

Guard: Yes, I'll take one with you!

Belated traveler (surprised by a bull when taking a shortcut to the station): By Jove! I believe I shall catch that train after all.

First Commuter: Do you have to take such an early train as this?

Second Commuter: No. But I find the earlier the train the less everybody cares to talk.

Riggs: Where did you get that black eye?

Jiggs: Told the conductor I was traveling on my face, and he punched the ticket.

"His father is the meanest man I ever knew. He never buys any coal. He lives near a railroad and makes faces at the engineer."

A soldier was waiting for the Muddleton train, the only one of the day. After he had waited for an unreasonable time the porter hove in sight.

"How long will I have to wait," the soldier asked, "for that bally train?"

"How long have you got?" asked the porter, with apparent irrelevance.

"Fourteen days."

"Well," said the porter, "you'd better walk."

Railway clerk: Another accident on the road today, sir.

Manager: Indeed? What now?

Clerk: Man dislocated his neck trying to read our new timetable.

There is living in Illinois a solemn man who is often funny without meaning to be. At the time of his wedding, he lived in a town some distance from the home of the bride. The wedding was to be at her house. On the eventful day the solemn man started for the station, but on the way met the village grocer, who talked so entertainingly that the bridegroom missed his train.

Naturally he was in a "state." Something must be done, and done quickly. So he sent the following telegram:

"Don't marry till I come.—Henry."

"What kind of a plant is the Virginia creeper?"

"It isn't a plant; it's a railroad."

"Is he respectable?"

"Eminently so. He's never been indicted for anything less than stealing a railroad."

What is the most awkward time for a train to start?

12:50, as it's ten to one if you catch it.

What is the difference between an engine-driver and a schoolmaster?

One minds the train, the other trains the mind.

What is the difference between the punctual arrival of a train and a collision?

One is quite an accident, the other isn't!

The American in the first-class carriage of an English train insisted on smoking. An angry Englishman protested, and when about to appeal to the guard the American got ahead of him with the remark: "Guard, I think you will find that that gentleman is traveling with a third-class ticket on him."

It proved to be true, and the sputtering Britisher was put out.

A spectator of the incident asked the American how he knew about the ticket.

"Well," explained the composed stranger, "it was sticking out of his pocket and I noticed that it was the same color as mine."