Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1877 — CHASED BY A TRAIN ON FIRE. [ARTICLE]

CHASED BY A TRAIN ON FIRE.

“I'm been down the bank roorr’n once, an‘ bad a tow bed smash-ups in the twenty year Ibrcnrn a locomotive, but the oioaeat call 1 ever bed was the time I waa chased from MayvUle to Brocton Junction by an oil-train all afire. I k'n almost feel my hair turn white now when I think o’ He was one of the oldest engineers on the Lake Shore Road, and was riding me on his engine from Brocton to Dunkirk. M I was on Buffalo, Oorry & Erie Bond then. It was in 1809—August the 17th. The bit o’ track twixt Mayvilleand Broctcn is about the crookedest an’ steepeat stretch there Is In the country. It’s ten mile from one place to t'other, but the twists tn toe road makes it fourteen. The grade's ’boot eiirhty foot t' to' thile. The road *s so crooked that it's a Handin' Joke 'mong to’ boys that they dasn’t put morc’n ten cars in a train er th’ engine’ll butt to’ caboose, certain. The road runs down into the Pennsylvania oi. country, an' heaps o' petroleum is run over it. That night, 'bout nine o’clock, 1 was gettin’ ready t* leave th’ summit with a box car, six oil cars and two passenger cars. Th’ latter was full. Tit’ box car had two valuable trottin’ horses in it. I got the sig nal from th’ conductor to go ahead, and started her up. Wa was under tol’blc head wav when I see flames bust out’n one o’ the oil cars. I whistled down brakes. The passenger car was cut loose an’ the brakes put on. We cut the -engine and box car off from the burnin’ cars, an’ thinkin’ the brakemen’d stop them, I pulled on slowly down the hill. But pretty soon I see I was in a fix. The oil cars wasn't stopped, an’ they came a tcarin’ down the grade after vis, an’ ’fore I could give my engine speed ’nough to git out’n the way, kerboom they came ’ginst the box car, smashih' in one end, an’ knockin’ th’ horses an' their keepers flat on th’ floor. It’s a mighty wonder th’ shock didn’t knock th’ engine off th’ track, an’ it did give her ’n awful husselin’; but she settled down t’ her work, ’s it she know’d wc was bound to have a race for life. Mercy, how them flames roared! Every infernal car was afire now, an’ th’ heat. was ter’blc. I could hear them bosses fairly scream with terror. Both th’ keepera dumb up t’ th’ cud o’ th’ car nex’t’ to’ engine. I could see by th’ back-light of the furnace that their faces was’s white as chalk, an’they hollered t’me: 'For heaven’s sake, give her more steam!’ They didn’t know't I had her pulled wide open, an’ was tcarin’ down that eightyroot grade at nearly eighty mile an hour. We shot ’round them curves like a streak o’ lightnin’, and every time we’d strike one’t seemed’t we mus’ go over. When the oil cars struck us, we made a gap of about ten fool between them and us, an* we couldn't increase it, to save our souls. “ Poor Jimmy Keenan was my fireman. He crazed for ’bout a minute, when the burnin’ cars hit us an’ kep’ so close in our wake. He tried to jump off, but I grabbed him and held him till he cum to himself, and he stuck to the old gal like a man. Jimmy got killed iu pickin’ a young one off the track ahead of an express" train. near Cony, a year or two afterw’d. He saved the young one, though. “It was a dark night, an’though I felt •t toe chances was we’d never get to Brocton alive, I couldn’t help but be struck with th’ scene. Here was us a thunderin' along faster’n any epgine ever went in this country afore or since, through woods an* on th’ edge o’ high rocks, expectin’ every minute to be hurled off toe track au’ be carried home to our wives crushed an’ mangled out o’ all knowin’ of us. The hoeses Was stampin’ about in the box car, neighin’ in a way that sounds in my ears yit when I git a thinkin' o’ this. The 'keepers told me afterw’ds that they crouched down ir. a fur corner of the car, almos’ sweltered with heat, expectin’ a grand crash every second, an’ in danger o’ bein’ trampled to death by th’ horses. Through th’ broken end o’ th’ car they could see th’ blazin’ oil tanks a roarin’ down after us, an’t seemed t’them, they said, ’s if they was gainin’ on us every second. Oh, Heavens! wbat a sight them oil cars was. Thousan’s an’ thousan’s o’ gallons of oil, with all th’ combusti blest parts of it still in it, a burnin’ all at once, an’ ruskin’ ■down the mountain like a tremenjis meteor, on a night’s dark ’s pitch! The blaze was more’n sixty foot high, an’ lit op th’ crooked road an’ th’ woods an’ mountains for miles around. The whole heavens was illuminated, an' from Brocton they said the sight o’ this great blaze tearin’ along like a demon, now hid for a second by a cut or a piece of woods, an’ then lcapin’ out ag'in an’ jumpin' up (’wards the sky like'a huge fountain o’ fire—why, they said ’twas jes’ grand an’ gorgeous. The light was so great’t the boys see us a swoopin’ along ahead o’ toe mass o’ flyin’ flames, 'n they know'd what war up. They knowed there was a race for life agoin' on down that mountain. an' they know'd the chances was again the ones what was chased. “O’ couise, the whole thing commenced ’n was over in a good deal less time ’n I’ve been a tellin’ of it. When I see the lights o| Brocton Junction, it struck me all of a’sudden’t the Cincinnati express on th’ Shore Road must be ’bout due there from th’ West. I looked at my watch. ’T only lacked ore second of th’ express train’s time at Brocton. We’d been thinkin’ all along that to save ’raelves th’ switch at the’ junction must be opened’t let us in on th’ Shore track, where the road was level, and wc could git away from th’ burnin’ cars. Th’ switch, ot course, was closed, ’n now, even if th’ switchman opened it on my signal, there was th’ danger o’ crashin’ * into th’ express. *T* add V this fearful situation, I see a freight train from th’ east pulling like th’ dickens to git inter th’ switch a’ Brocton out o’ th’ way o’ th’ due express.. ‘“Good Heavens!’ says'l, ‘Jimmy, * what’ll we do ?’ “ This all took place in about five seconds. ‘“Holler f’rth switch!’ says Jimmy. * That’s our only chance!’ “So I whistled for ’em to open the switch. Heavens what a shriek that engine give! Beemed ’s if’t knew our chances was slim, an’ its whistle was jes’ one yell o’ agony ? *“ ‘ S’pose they won’t open the switch, Jimmy • said 1. Hot as ’twas, I could feel th’ cold sweat stao’ out on my forehead, and o.ize out all over me. I know I was as pale as a sheet, for I could feel it. Jimmy’d been married jes’ a week afore, an’ I know'd how much he thought of that little woman o’ his’n. I had a wife’n seven children. It was a kinder an ole tiling with me, but there wasn't no spot to me like that little home o’ mine an’ its contents “ ‘lf they don’t tarn th’ switch, Jack,’ say Jimmy— 4 good-bye!’ “Hestock out his band. I know'd what be meant. I ketched hold ’a his band, and we bid each other g6od-by! N all the time we was sWeepm’ like the wind toward the station, with toe blazin’ tanks only ten feet behind me. *N,thank God! they did torn the switch, an’ we

•hot in on th’ Shore track, tore by toe depot like a rocket, an' on thro’ the town an’ on up the road. We know’d then that the express had been warned of our approach. Wc soon outstripped the burnin’ cars, they loeln’ the momentum of the grade. Wc slowed our brave old gal up by degrees an' stopped within a hundred yards o' th* express that lay on the track, waitin' for the upshot o’ the race. Jimmy ’n me got off, but th’ nex’ we know’d. we didn't know nothin'. We fainted dead away, and a hen wc come to, was l>o(h of us home, safe and round, but ter’bly shook up. now I tell you. “The two hots keepers was both unconscious in the box car. If they’d a know'd llie other dangers we was in aside from too burnin’ cars dose me if 1 don’t think Ihe'd 'a died. The bosses was badly cut up, and so unstrung that I guess they never got over’t. After all, our escape from the collision with the Shore express had been more luck than management. The express was a minute late. The engineer see tne blaze o’ the oi) cars tearin’ down the mountains, and he know’ll what th’ matter was't once. But he didn't cal'clate that we was tearin’ down with any such fearful speed, an’ he thought we could git to the depot ’n out o’ the way 'fore he reached ft. He got within a mile o’ the station ’n sec he couldn't make’t, an’ stopped, an’ backed away to give us room. If he’d a' been on time—well, it aint 'tall likely I’d be a tellin’ you o’ this—'n ther'd a Itecn more widders ’n orphins in the country to-day than there is. By bull-headed luck the engineer of the up. freight train made his sidin’ in time t’ git out’n our wav. “The oil cars was left to burn up, o' course. They burned three hours, and the express had to lay off ’till they got through. The luckiest part o’ the whole tiling was the brakemcn at the summit havin’ sense enough to cut off the passenger care an’ stop ’em. b’pose they’d a stayed with the oil car! They’d a been on "fire in less than a minute, and as they tore down that hill at lightning speed, hundreds of human beings’d ’a been roasted in that quarter ’f a mile o’ fire. “ I’ve been a good while a tellin' you about tins circ’instance, but now long ■fi’you s’pose it was happenin’* Well, from Uie time we left MayvUle summit to the time Jimmy ’n me fainted b’yond Brocton, was jes’ Teven minutes ’n twenty seconds? I hail the time we started, and one o’ the boys looked at his watch when we dropped- 'We had run over fifteen miles.” “ It seems strange to me,” I ventured to remark, ** thatyou didn’t jump from your engine as you might have done at the start.” “ What! leave my engine! I’d as soon think o’ desertin' my wife in trouble as t’ quit my engine when there’s difficulty ahead of her! I ain’t no brag, but ’fever they find o’.d Jack’s engine down the bank ’r smashed to smithereens, they’ll find old Jack, ’r a piece of him, not far ’way from her.” —IF. Y. Sun. «