The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1881-04-14
Riding ON an Axle and in . Fire-b0x
a Of Locomotive.

I had chat with one Of the first fire.
men of the Ohio and Mississippi Road,
which commenced running through from
Cincinnati to St. Louis as the Great
Broad gauge Railroad in 1857, and he is
now one Of the most windy engineers l
ever came in contact with. For conve-
nience l will call him Tom and his en-
gineer, in those days Of yore, Alb. Tom
related many dangerous adventures of
his railroad life during the past twenty
four years but while learning to be an
engineer, under Alb, and after becoming
q master mechanic, he was firing for Alb
on the old No. engine, and Alb, seeing
he was about to eclipse him as an en-
gineer, became jealous, and sought
opportunity to get shut Of him lest he
might become his greatest rival in a time
when jobs were scarce on great
thoroughfare like the Ohio and Missis-
sippi
Sure enough, in the month Of October,
1859, going West with heavy freight
train Of thirty cars, they stopped to wood
and water at Green Spring, fourteen
miles west of Mitchell, when Alb told him
to take the monkey-wrench, go under
the front car, and tighten the bolts to
the brakes, and he had not been there
three minutes when Alb pulled the throt-
tie wide open and started the train at the
rate of thirty miles per hour, leaving
Tom in the most thrilling and perilous
condition imaginable.
On the impulse of the moment Tom
says he threw himself on balance across
the axle of the trucks, and travelled in
that position to Shoals, a distance of
eight or ten miles, without sustaining
any injury except to his trousers, which
were rent asunder, and the perplexity Of
mind incident to his 'perilous condition.
But from that moment he determined to
get even with Alb, which he told him
should come to pass in the course of
human events, whether school kept or
not.
A few days passed when ball was
announced at Seymour, and all railroad
men on the Middle Division wereinvited,
and Alb delighted in dancing, and on
that evening was in O q great hurry to
get through on time. When they got to
Brownstown one of the fiues was leaking,
greatly retarding the steam. Alb being
about half drunk and powerful anxious
to get to the ball, Tom said he hauled all
the fire out of the fire- box and told Alb
to crawl in and repair the fiue, which he
did as soon as it cooled down.
At that moment Tom looked up at the
steam -guage and said he found ninety
six pounds of steam, when he closed the
door on Alb and pulled the throttle, max
ing ten miles run to Seymour in twenty
five minutes and forty seconds by the
watch, and on opening the door Of the
fire-box Alb crawled out, looking like q
signed owl, and the first word Alb said
was, if that would offset the ride he gave
him on the axle he was willing to treat
and call it even. .
Since that time Tom declares no better
friends than he and Alb ever pulled a
throttle or heaved shovel Of coal on the
Ohio and Mississippi road. He furthur
| states on honor that this Is no snake
or fish story, and if the Superintendent
were alive, or Alb either, he could prove
every word Of it true; and it caused his
promotion as an engineer some years in
advance of his expectations. Hitchell
| (Ind) Correspondence Cincinnati En-
! QAirer.