Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 January 1914 — STOPPED WILD ENGINE [ARTICLE]

STOPPED WILD ENGINE

BRAVE ACT OF STATION AGENT TOLD IN MAGAZINE. • His Own Life Not Thought of, D. A. Allen Boarded Runaway-Locomo-tive and Averted Disastrous and Costly Wreck.

Cheek, in the Wide World, while Agent and Operator D. A. Allen, station agent for the I. M. & S. railway at Amity, Ark., was waiting for a north-bound through freight train to pass his station just before closing up .the place for the night, the train dispatcher at Feriday, La., began frantically calling his station. When Mr. Allen answered he was told, for heaven’s sake, to stop in some way a “wild” (runaway) engine coming south. It had just a few minutes be? fore got away from those in charge of it, and was now coming south “wide open” at a terrific rate of speed, with no one on it. On receiving this alarming information, Operator Allen immediately dropped his signal board and at once ran to the north switch to his sidetrack and threw it so as to direct the runaway into this track, where Btood a' string of loaded coal cars, if by chance the “wild” engine arrived first or he was unable to stop it in any other way. He then induced two men he happened to find —Messrs. A. J. Johnson and Alf. Widner —to assist him in quickly throwing a hand car on the track. While they were doing this they hoard the freight train about a mile and a half off, coming to what seemed certain destruction, as the “wild” engine could also be heard in the distance, with the reports of the exhausts so close together that they made almost one continuous Bound — conclusive proof that it was still working steam and coming at a high rate of speed. With only the thought of saving lives In their minds, and with a full sense of their duty before them, these three men clambered on the car and began a veritable race agalnßt death to meet the “wild” engine and, if possible, stop it in Borne way before it crashed Into the oncoming freight, the creW of which .were entirely ignorant of the terrible menace so rapidly approaching them. The handcar was run north at the utmost speed the three men could produce until the Runaway engine came in sight through the darkness. There were no lights of any kind on it, and in the hurry of getting away none of the men on r the hand car had secured ewen a lantern, so that everything had to be done in the dark. Directly they sighted the engine looming vaguely through the gloom, the hand car was quickly thrown from the rails, and had hardly reached the ground when the runaway was upon them. Dashing alongside, Mr. Allen made a snatch at what he took, in the darkness, to be the grab iron on the back of the tender. It was then discovered, how’ever, that the engine was backing up—running tender first. What Allen took for a handhold proved to be a loose hose lying on the woodwork surrounding the tank platform, and thiß hose gave way, throwing Mr. Allen Just outside the rails, the massive wheels barely missing him a* the tender thundered *n. Realizing that the lives of those

on the freight train, now drawing near, were at stake, and regardless of the risk to himself, Allen recovered his balance and caught the pilot as it passed him. Running like k monkey along the footboard of the swaying engine he reached the throttle, shut off steam, reversed the engine and started it back north ahead of the freight train, the engineer of which had in the meantime noticed the board and had begun to «low down. But for the timely stopping of the “wild” engine, however, nothing could have, prevented. a disaatrous ,collision, which would, no doubt, have cost the engineer and fireman of the freight train their lives, if not those of the whole train crew, in addition ta several thousand dollars’ worth of property.