Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 August 1870 — A Brave Act. [ARTICLE]

A Brave Act.

Chamber's Journal tells the following incident of nerve on the part of an English locomotive driver: An engine left standing at a station was “thrown out of gear,” as it is called—that is, its machinery was so purposely deranged that it could not move in either direction; but from its haying been imperfectly done, it at last got underway, very slowly at first; but the regulator being jerked open, it soon attained a terrible speed, which was all the more alarming as it had started on the down line, and was running toward London.- The effect of this, of course, would bethat it must,[sooner or later, run headlong into the first down train, and there seemed no possibility of averting a more awful accident than had ever yet taken place. A ballast-driver, however (one who has charge of the train of earth trucks which convey the material for making the lofty parts of new lines, and also remove the soil from cuttings), saw the engine running without a driver, and, with wonderful nerve, left his siding, and at frill speed dashed after the flying locomotive This was desperately hazardous, for, hifl they encountered a train, he would not only have been killed, but, by the presence of his engine, would have rendered the inevitable accident more fearful—the reader of course understands that he, too, was running "up” on the “down” line. However, he caught the runaway, and leaping from his own engine on to the tender, he reversed both engines and ran back to the station—some six miles—as awiftly as he could, arriving there safely, just in advance of a passenger train.