Humorous manuscript poem by Robert B. Johnson titled 'Ye lay of Ye Station Master', gently satirising the world of railway locomotive at the height of the golden age of steam.

2pp., 16mo. 41 closely and neatly written lines, arranged in six six-line stanzas and a five-line chorus. At foot of second page: 'Robt. B. Johnson. London Mar 1877'. A splendid skit, apparently unpublished, and fully deserving to be so. The first stanza reads: 'I'm a simple Station Master | Whose ideas don't travel faster | Than the luggage trains that crawl my station thro' | But there's one thing that I fix | In my mind & there it sticks | That's - my duty to the Company to do.' He complains that 'A smash upon the line | It makes me weep & pine', and 'Of a smash down by the Level Crossing Gates'. He boasts 'I've put blind men at the points', and 'My signalmen I pay | Just thirteen pence a day'. The poem concludes, with modern resonance, 'If, in spite of my decision | There should be a big Collision | Why - no one was in any way to blame'. The chorus goes: 'Then shout boys shout & be deceitful | Open all the points & let her through | If in spite of my decision | There should be a big collision | Still - my duty to the Company I'll do.' From the Papers of Sir Francis and Lady Evans, the former being a director of the International Sleeping Car Company and, in his early days on the establishment of a railway in Brasil (see his letter from Brasil, inventory #13140).