The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1892-12-19

rallr ding
stories are sure to follow. / have lis
tened for hours TO good yarns there.
One day in the San Francisco round
house of the Southern Pacific company
mention was made of recent accident
which had been caused by the break
ing apart of freight train. This served
as reminder to the engineer from
Arizona. Taking a seat on the side-rod
of locomotive he began:
81 think the liveliest ride and the
worst scare ever had was while was
running out of Los Angeles to Yuma in
the spring of 80. The company was
building the road across Arizona then
and we were hauling material to the
front.
''We left Los Angeles one afternoon
with twenty six CARS and a caboose.
We went out a double-header, with
two ten-w heel engines. / was running
ll2 in advance, and Billy Stewartson,
with the 19s, was coupled in behind me-
Next to the engines were some long
bridge timbers, exten ded over three
fat cars, from which the brake stats
had to be taken. Then there were six
thirteen cars of steel rails, twenty tons
to the car. These cars were all flats,
of course Then came four box cars
loaded with giant powder, to be used in
some heavy work at the front
Its a stiff pull most of the way from
Los Angeles to Cotton, and from there
TO San Gorgonio it's an up grade of
hundred and twenty feet to the mile.
They gave us third engine from Col
ton 20 the top of the hill: and it was all
the three ten-wheelers could do TO take
that train up there.
"We stopped at San Gorgonio and cut
out the helper engine; and then when
every body was ready we started down
the hill.
From San Gorgonio it is nearly all
down-grade to lndio, sixty miles, and
for the first thirty miles the grade runs
from one hundred and twenty-five feet
to seventy feet to the mile.
1--WE had half-Spanish boy called
Kid Vallejo braking ahead. He was
good one--as smart as a steel trap. The
middle brakeman was rather light and
the hind man was big, thick-headed
brute, who had no 'savvy,' and never
would know anything. The conductor
was a slow, ca sy-going chap
There weren't any air-brakcs on
freight trains then; nothing but hand
brakes But we had air-brakes on the
tenders and a steamb brake on the loco
motive drivers.
"It was about half-past nine on a
bright moonlight night when we start
ed down the grade. About a mile out
felt the train jerk, and then we shot
ahead lively. As looked back, Billy
footed off brakes, and began to work
steam. I saw the two brakemen
swinging their lights and signaling to
go ahead
1T was SO light that I could see that
the caboose and the four cars of pow
der had broken off, and were about ten
car-lengths behind the rest Of the train.
The chuckle-he AIDED hind brakeman
had slapped up the caboose brake and
snapped the train apart, and we were
running down that grade in two pieces.
If ever that loose rear section struck
the forward one the concussion would
be sure TO explode the giant powder,
and then there would be an explosion
that would shake the earth, and send
the whole of US TO kingdom come.
I'VE pulled out TO get away from it,
and whistled and whistled for the ca
boose man to get out on the box cars
and set some brakes; but he didn't
show up and in less than n mile we
were running fifty miles an hour, to
keep out of the way of the rear section,
and increasing rapidly every second.
II realized at once that we had got
10 check up soon or the train would
get away with us and land eve,y body
and everything down in the canyon, a
thousand feet below. But what chance
were we going TO get 10 check upp
"Just then wa saw light come mp
on the box cars and knew that the
caboose brakeman had got ont at last
Then we felt sure that he would stop
that section and the thing for us to do
was to stop ourselves, set my tender
and driving brakes aud started the
sand running, and Billy did the same
with his engine.
setting up an those powerful brakes
at once on the forward end just acted
like humping post~ The slack
came up against the >Ngines with
bang. and shifted the ~ rails ahead
N that thcv iammed every brake on
whose ioveth v good business ioveth