Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1886-08-19
A RIDE ON THE PILOT.
An Adventure, and "What It
Felt Like"


a short account of one that came to me
in the course of railway service in Min
nesota a few years ago.
A party of us had special train one
day, consisting of an engine, baggage
car and coach just enough to balance
well-in order to do some work along
the line between St. Paul and La
Crosse. Late in the afternoon we re-
ported our readiness to go in, and got
orders from the train dispatcher to
"hy'' to La Crosse, some seventy-fve
miles distant
Now, / had more than once ridden
on the pilot, or ''cow-catcher, of a
locomotive, but my experience had
been at pretty slow pace. On this aft
ernoon we would 60 down the bank of
the Mississippi a-humming, and | sug-
gested to the assistant superintendent
that we two 90 out on the pilot and see
what it meant to be pushed through
the air ahead of a railway train at fifty
or sixty miles an hour.
We took a cushion from the coach,
spread it on the narrow iron platform
at the top of the cow-catcher, cried out
'All right to the engineer, and were
off. The sensation is somewhat start
ling at first The grumbling and
throes of the steam and hot smoke-cur-
rents imprisoned in the great machine
behind you are heard in dull signs and
chugs, and felt in muf1led jars and
tremblings, "not loud, but deep"
There is no rolling, lurching, and leap
ing like that felt in the cab of the To-
comotive, high above the driving
wheels, nor the bouncing and jarring
of the cars. The whole forward part
of the engine rests only on two Cor
four) small guide wheels, and the pilot
is ahead of even them, so that you are
sitting out on the end of spring board,
as it were, and feel only an elastic
swaying, sensible, in curiously exact
way, however, to every impulse or
checking of speed.
Overhead hangs the headlight Ian
tern, supported upon brackets, and
hiding all behind it. There is nothing
only leave your place by climbing
back over the foot-board which runs
nearly on top of the boiler from the
cab windows to the smoke-stack-a
feat by no means easy to do at stand
still, unless you are agile.
In two minutes from the time we
left the station we had picked up a
terrific pace. Our huge carrier would
dive into cuts and dart out of them,
leap culverts and narrow streams
seemingly without touching the
bridges, and, where the track was
level and straight, seemed to slide
rather than roll along, for we could
feel no jar of wheels. and heard little
of the noise left behind as fast as it
was evoked. The breeze of our swift
progress cleaving the air out there in
front almost shut our eyes, and quite
closed our mouths. Stations whisked
by as though bewitched. Leaning
toward curves, we would glide around
them as if on skates, and when LONG
descending grade sloped away ahead
and we went down it with the steam
shut off, yet with steadily growing
swiftness, could only recall the sen.
sation of being the front man on 9
Montreal toboggan,
Well, twenty miles or so of this ex
citing flight had been reeled out behinc
us, and we had had hint of the posi-
BILE danger against which the COW
catcher is provided, in lodging an ami
NAL that had lain down in the road a
a crossing, and whose carcass we haC
no desire to receive in our faces at can
non-ball rate, when a long stretch O
open country was reached, and the en-
gineer let out the last notch-pulle,
the throttle wide open. Then our irol
horse settled down to racing Just a
fast as his limbs could carry him; tina
is, as fast as the wheels could be mad
to go around-tifty, perhaps sixty
miles an hour.
The superintendent and l glanced 8
one another and smiled; we couldn
talk. Then we turned our eyes ahea
Just as the locomotive bent to a curry
around slight ridge, beyond which
''hlr' spanned bit of lowland; an
there, in the middle of the high banl
not hundred yards in advance, W
saw a hand-car loaded with workme
slowly pumping their way homewarr
What is hundred yards at tiff
miles al hourP Four seconds of trave
a dozen tickings of a watch. An
when this morsel of time had fashe
out. what then? Perhaps a splintere
wreck of train and hand-car, passel
gers and workmen together at the DO
tom of the bank; perhaps only
smashed engine-head and two dead an
battered men under the hand-ca
which might be seooped up without d
railing the train
The engineer saw II as soon as W
and n scream of alarm burst from Il
whistle. while his quick hand reverse
he lever and set the steam brake