Pine Bluff Daily Graphic

Guarding the Trans-Siberian Railroad.
The Trans-Siberian railroad is very closely guarded, the management feeling personally responsible for the people they carry on their trains. The road is divided into sections of one verst, or five-eighths of a mile. In a neat little log house, usually in a garden, live the guard and his people. The average family is a wife and five tow-headed children. The houses were built by the company and evidently with a view to meeting the demands of increasing families. The guard or a member of his family must patrol his section night and day. He steps to the side of the track as the train approaches and after it has passed steps back into the middle of the track, holds a small green flag in the air, at night a lantern, and stands like a statue until the train has entered the next section. Several guards do duty in the heavy curves and frequently they are only a few hundred feet apart. Much of the track patrolling is done by women, who have proved fully as reliable as the men. The women are nearly always barefooted, and as they stand on the track holding the flag aloft, a Siberian breeze toying with their short skirts they are fine subjects for a sculptor after a unique model.