Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 March 1884 — HIS LAST TRIP. [ARTICLE]

HIS LAST TRIP.

Aa Engineer's Thrilling Story. “Ik> you know why I gave up my loeomotive? Well, I’ll tell you. About ten. years ago I was promoted from a freight to a passonger, and I was as proud of my new machine as a boy with his first pair of copper-toed boots. I tell you old 125 was a daisy. Well, I had been running her for some eighteen months when I had the experience that made me throw up my job. The bare remembrance of that night nearly makes my hair stand on end. It was a cold, dreary night in November, with the wind blowing a regular gale and the fog so thick that I couldn’t see more than thirty feet ahead of the pilot to save my life. I had left St. Louis with an unusually big load of passengers, including a distinguished party of gentlemen on their" way to Washington. I believe my train was the fastest one running East at that time. My timecard called for at least forty miles an hour. Well, sir, just before I started something happened that would make many an engineer abandon his trip, but I didn’t want to seem cowardly and went ahead. What was it? Why, after I get my orders from the train dispatcher’s office, and was on my way to my machine, somebody inside called me back. My fireman was near me and said: *For God’s sake, Jim, don’t go. You know something awful will happen —it always does when a man goes back after getting his orders.* Well, I hesitated a moment, and then I thought to myself: ‘That’s all nonsense —I’m not superstitious.’ The fellow only wanted to give me some trival message, and half an hour later I was rocking on my sea in the cab, dashing through Illinois at a terrific rate and keeping my eyes fixed on the two bright lines of rail in front of me, until they seemed like flashes of lightning darting into my brain. As I said before, I could see only a short distance ahead on account of the fog, but I knew any obscuration of those bright lines, any deviation from their straight course meant terrible danger, if not death, to my precious load of human lives. So I sat there with my hand on the throttle, and every nerve and muscle strained to its utmost tension. “I forgot to say that we were nearly an hour late leaving St. Louis, and I had orders to make up this lost time. Finally we struck a piece of road which I knew extended in a straight line for over ten milds. I felt relieved when

we struck this part of the road, and turning to the fireman I shouted: ‘ Good track ahead, Tom; I’m going to let her out.’ He nodded back at me and I pulled open the valve. I could feel the engine tremble with a new motion as she leaped forward like a hounded deer, and in another second it seemed as if we were not even touching the rails. About half way down this stretch of straight road there was a station and a piece of side-track for switch-off freight cars. There was always from three to a dozen cars standing there. As we approached this point I thought of the siding, and could not help saying to myself, ‘ What if that switch should be misplaced I’ The words were hardly formulated in my mind when suddenly the two bright lines in front of me diverged, and for a moment looked like four. ‘ Great God!’ I cried, ‘the switch is open.’ There was a sudden swerve of the engine to the left and a loud creaking noise, and in desperation I reversed the lever, shut the throttle, and waited with closed eyes and suspended breath the shock which I felt was coming. You cannot conceive the supreme agony of that awful moment. It was too much for me or any other man to stand. The last thing I remembered was seeing the sparks fly back from the driving-wheels as -the locomotive thundered on to destruction. The next instant I fell senseless on the floor of the cab. ” “And you escaped?” asked the reporter, anxiously. “Escaped! Well, I should say so. There wasn’t a freight car on the siding, and the reason the switch had been changed was because a section gang was repairing the main track and had arranged it so that the siding could be used until they finished the job. The result was that we dashed along the side-track and were soon on the main line again, and when I came to the fireman was hanging on to the throttle, which he had pulled out to the last notch again, and there he sat laughing at me. Well, I tell you it was no laughing matter for me. My hair didn’t turn gray, but it was the worst scare I ever had in my life, and I wouldn’t go thrpugh it again for a fortune. You can just bet that when I finished that run I handed in my resignation, and I’ve never steered an engine since.— St. Louis Globe-Demo-crat.