Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 January 1902 — Anticipating the Wreck. [ARTICLE]

Anticipating the Wreck.

"One of the strangest experiences in my long career,” said an old train dispatcher, “happened when I was working on a single track mountain division, which had on it a very heavy

grade for many mtles. We ran trains down this grade very cautiously, for it was almost impossible to stop one descending when it once had acquired a good speed. One night I had the passenger train Just starting up this grade, with a freight at the top, ready to come down. - Through a grave mistake, not my own, the freight was allowed to leave the summit and started on its course down the hill. The pbad being single track, and there being no signal towers in between at which I could intercept either train, a collision was inevitable. Accordingly I at once ordered out tw'o wrecking trains and a corps of surgeons, which were soon on the road. That was a queer situation. There wero two w'reck trains going to a wreck which had not yet occurred and a number of doctors going to bind up wounds which had not yet been received. And there were the two doomed trains speeding toward destruction, and I, in my office, 100 miles away, nervously tense, almost straining to hear the crash as they met far out on the mountain. The wreck was a fearful one, but that is only a common railroad story. The incidents preceding it were what were remarkable.”