Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 July 1889 — JIM FOOTE’S GREAT RACE. [ARTICLE]

JIM FOOTE’S GREAT RACE.

H© Put His Train in Ahead. Though It Took Nerve to Do It. Denver News. Jim Foote's name among engineers occupies aoont the same position as McLaughlin’s does among jockeys. The people along the line of the New York CentraHiold their breath even now in retrospect when they think of the way in which he used to come tearing down the tracks on his old iron horse, making sixty-five to seventy miles an hour, with 300 scared passengers hanging on their seats and expecting every moment to be dashed into perdition. Those were the old days when the W est Shore and the Central were willing to decorate their engineers with the Order of the Garter, or grant them a week’s pay for beating each other by a second or two down the race coarse which ends at Schenectady. At this point the close of the race was rendered additionally exciting by the fact that the Central passes under the bridge which car lies the West Shore over its track, and as the under engine plunges oat o* sight into the darkness, the other screaming over its head, the exit made a moment too slow lost the race. The engineers on the West Shore always stood a little in awe of Jim. He was the patriarch of the region and a man who handled his engine with all the skill that an Arab handles hie horse. They weren’t to be beaten out by » reputation, however, and old 110 used to have some pretty hard scramble* notwithstanding the fact that -limy hand was at the throttle. One day Jim’s train started on the ten-mile stretch down, nip and tuck with the West Shore train, with an engineer named Rantzler on the engine. They came down at a fearful gait. Jim did his very best, for he had heard that this very engineer had made a boast that he would mb it into the invincible Central man. The passengers JBEeither train bad eaught the spirit of the thing and' leaned dangerously far out of the windows, yelling defiance at each other and shrieking like demons when the one engine or the other gained the slightest advantage. They were coming down the homestretch, and Jim, for once in hiß life, was losing ground. He kept his eyes steadily and despairingly on the other train, which was gaining with dreadful certainty upon him, They, were about three hundred yards from the bridge, when what was the disgusted engineer’s amazement to see a head which he recognized *as Bupt, Dayton’s of his own road, reach far out of the window in the opposite train and yell like a lost soul: “Jim, — you, if you let this blasted stick i ithe-mud clean you out I’ll discharge you.” Jim knew he would. He wasn’t so rattled by the unexpected turn of affairs but he remembered the superintendent never went back on his word, however rashly given. He gave a great groan and played his last card. The engine quivered like a leaf with the terrible head of steam, gave a dash forward like a tiger on its prey, and as it came out with a dart from the black hole under the bridge it was a length ahead, and the passengers shook hands with [tears in their eyes. The superintendentwalked over and in the presence of the jubilant crowd, took off the watch which he was wearing and presented it to Jim amid delighted cheers. Rantzler was discharged,