Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 February 1878 — Thrilling Railroad Experience. [ARTICLE]

Thrilling Railroad Experience.

Every one tn any way conversant with the construction of the Dunkirk, Warren & Pittsburgh Railroad knows how rapid is the descent from Laona into Fredonia. The fact that the greatest care has always been observed in running trains over this particular part of the roW is well known to the engineers and brakemen, and they are very liable to be “on deck” and busy when they strike this dangerous locality. Last Saturday evening, about eleven o’clock, an accident happened at the place we have above described which came very near ending in death and destruction. The night was intensely cold, and when the regular freight train pulled out of Cassadaga all the brakemen but one were in the caboose warming up, preparatory to standing guard over the long train of twentynine cars when the heavy grade was reached. Just after leaving the station the train broke in two, the last five cars being left behind, the balance with only one brakeman keeping on unaware of the accident.

The top of the hill was reached and the descent began. The engineer, finding himself impelled along at a terrible rate, reversed his engine, though he says he expected to see the cylinder heads blown out and his locomotive a wreck —and whistled for brakes. The care were covered with ice and snow, and the solitary brakeman took his life in his hand when, in the darkness, and the train thundering along the rate of about a mile a minute down a grade that increased the speed every second, he sprang from one car to another and set every brake on the. whole twentythree cars. The run from the top of the hill to Fredonia was made in an incredibly short space of tinje, and by the bravery of the brakeman, the quick discovery of the impending danger by tli(6 engineer, and the good work of the locomotive and every brake, the train was kept from a plunge into the Dunkirk Depot and total annihilation. The distress and anxiety of the conductor and brakeman in the caboose as to the whereabouts of their charge and friends was very great, until a dispatch from Fredonia finally relieved all fears, and that which ill-luck had severed for a while man’s ingenuity soon brought together again. —Jamestown (N. ¥.) Democrat.