The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-04-18
A RACE WITH FIRE.

coasts of Spain.
RACE WIT FIRE.
The Story of a Fearful Railroad Ride Related
by a Dying Engineer.
Dunkirk IN. Y.) Sp ecial.
II don't expect to live much longer, and after
l am dead l want you to put in the papers the
story of that ride had from Prospect to Brocton
in 1863"
The speaker was Duff Brown, an old locomo-
tive engineer, who was lying at his home in
Portland, this country, dying with consumption.
This was several months ago. On the 7th inst.
he died. He was nearly sixty years old, and one
OF the oldest engineers in the United States.
His history of the awful ride is this:
I'm 1869 l was running a train on the Buffalo,
Cory & Erie Railroad. The track from Pros
pect or Mayville Summit, to Brocton Junction is
so crooked that, while the distance is actually
only ten miles, the curves make it by rail four
teen. The grade for the whole distance is over
seventy feet to the mile. About 9 o'clock on the
night of Aug. IL, 1869, we reached the summit
with a train of two passenger-cars, six oil-cars,
and a box-car The latter contained two valua-
BILE ~trotting horses and their keepers with themg
on their way, | believe, to Chicago. There wera
fifty or sixty passengers in the two cars. l got
the signal from the conductor to start and pulled
out. We had got under considerable Roadway,
when, looking back, l saw an oil-car in the middle
of tie train was on fire. l reversed the engine
and whistled for brakes. The conductor and
brakemen jumped Off. They uncoupled the pas
senger-cars and set the brakes on them and
brought them to a stop. Surprising that the
brakes on the burning oil-carS would also be put
on, / called to a brakeman on the boxcar to
draw the coupling pin between that car and the
head oil-tank, backing so that he could do it, in
tending to run far enough to save the box-car
and the locomotive. AS ran down the hill after
the pin had been drawn, what was my horror to
see that the burning cars were following me at a
speed that was rapidly increasing. The men
had not succeeded in putting on the brakes. /
saw that the only thing that could be done was
to run for it to Brocton, and the chances were
that we would never reach there at the speed
which we would be obliged to make around those
sharp, reverse curves where we had never run
over twenty miles an hour. When l saw the
flaming cars-for the whole six were on fire by
this time-plunging after me, and only a few
feet away, | pulled the throttle open. The oil
cars caught me, though, before 1 got away.
They came with full force against the rear of the
boxcar, smashing in one end and knocking the
horses and their keepers fat on the floor. The
heat was almost uncomfortable, and to do my best
L couldn't put more than thirty feet between the
pursuing fire and ourselves. BY the light from
the furnace, as the fireman opened the door to pile
in the coal, l caught sight of the face of one of
the horsemen, he having crawled up to the
grated opening in the end. 1t was as pale as
death, and he begged me for Gods sake to give
her more steam. was giving her then all the
steam she could carry, and the grade itself was
sufficient to carry US down at the rate of fifty
miles an hour. We went so fast that the engine
refused to pump. Every time we struck one of
those curves the old girl would run on almost
one set of wheels, and why in the world she did
not topple over is something / never could un-
derstand. She seemed to know that it was a
race of life or death, and worked as if she were
alive. The night was dark, and the road ran
through woods, deep rock cuts, and along high
embellishments. We were laundering along at
lightning speed, and only a few PAGES behind US
that fiery demon in full pursuit. There were
fifty thousand gallons of oil in those tanks, at
least. and it was all in flames, making a flying
avalanche of 500 feet long. The flames leaped
into the air nearly 100 feet. The roar was like
that OF some great cataract. Nowsand then q
tank would explode with a noise like a cannon,
when a volume of flame and pitchy smoke would
rise high above the body of flame and showers of
burning oil would be scattered about in the
woods. The whole country vas lighted up for
! miles around. Well it wasn't long, going at the
rate we made, before the lights of Brocton came
in sight down the valley. The relief 1 felt when
these came in view was short lived, for | remem-
bered that train No. s on the Lake Shore would
be at the junction about the same time we would
reach it. No. s was the Cincinnati express. Our
only hope all along the race had been that the
switehman at the junction would think
far enough to open the switch there
connecting the cross-cut track with the
Lake Shore track, and let US run in
on the latter, where the grade would be against
us, if anything, and where we would soon get
out of the way of the oil cars. The switch would
be closed now for the express, and our last hope
was gone unless the express was late or some one
had sense enough to flag the express. While we
were thinking of this we saw the train tearing
along toward the junction. Could we reach the
junction, get the switch, and the switch be set
back for the express before the latter got there?
If not, there would be an inevitable crash, in
which not only we, but scores of others, would
be crushed to death. All this conjecturing did
not occupy two seconds, but in these two seconds
l lived years. Good Godp l said to my fireman,
what are we to do2' The fireman promptly re-
plied-and he was a brave little fellow-that I
should whistle for the switch and take the
chances. | did so. That whistle was one pro-
longed yell of agony. It was a shrek that
seemed to tell us that our brave old engine knew
our danger and had its fears. Neither the
fireman nor myself spoke another word. Thanks
be to God, the engineer ON the express train,
seeing US tearing down that mountain with an
eighth of a mile of fire in close pursuit of US,
knew in a moment that only one thing could
save Us. He whistled for brakes, and got his
train on a standstill not more than ten feet from
the switch. The switchmann now answered our
signal, and we shot on the Shore track and
whizzed on by the depot and through the place
like a rocket. The burning cars followed US, of
course, but their race was run. They had no
propelling power now, and in three hours there
was nothing left of them but smoking ruins.
my fireman and I were so weak when we
brought our locomotive to q stop that we could
not get out of our cab. The two horsemen were
unconscious in the box-car. The horses were
ruined. And how long do you think we were
making that sixteen miles? We ran two miles
up the Lake Shore track. just twelvs minutes
from the summit to the spot where we stopped.
A plump eighty miles an hour, not counting the
time lost getting under Roadway and stopping
beyond Brocton."
Darling Billy Sugar.
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