Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 November 1874 — Exciting Chase for a Runaway Locomotive. [ARTICLE]

Exciting Chase for a Runaway Locomotive.

A collision occurred on the Hudson River Railroad, three miles from Greenbush, a few days ago, which, fortunately, was not attended with fatal results, but terminated in a remarkable locomotive race. A freight engine engaged in filling her tanks was run into by an engine used for hauling a gravel-train, and badly damaged. The force of the collision was so great as to throw open the valve of the gravel-train engine, which immediately started down on the up track with no one on board, its engineer and fireman having jumped off just before the engines met. Another engine immediately took the down track in order to give warning to the approaching New York train. The race was very exciting, the pursuing engine rushing along on its mission of life at over a mile a minute, finally passing the running engine, stopping the up train at Castleton and turning the switch so'as to throw the runaway off the track a short distance above Castleton. However, the runaway engine ran off the track, thus avertingall danger. Had not the New York train been providentially delayed at Rhinbeck by a broken cylinder it is probable that it would have collided with the fugitive and a terrible calamity must inevitably have occurred.