Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1896-06-19
LOCAL..
AN ATTEMPT TO HOLD UP A TRAIN
FOlLED.

Just a little before l O'Clock Friday
morning the westbound express train over
the Chesapeake 4 Ohio railway which pass
ed through Staunton at 7:O5 the evening
before, met with rather unusual expert
ence for that line. A small gang of thieves
or train robbers made an effort to hold up
the train for the supposed purpose of rifilng
the mail OF express car, or both, but the
employees of the company were too shreWd
to permit such a thing to be done.
When the train pulled out from Kanaw-
ha Falls, W. Va, an unknown white man
crept over the tender of the engine and COW
cred with pistols both the engineer and fire
man, commanding the former to uncouple
the locomotive from the cars. This the
engineer pretended he would do. He went
to the rear of the engine, but, instead OF
uncoupling it, he shut off the air valve.
blocking the wheels so that the engine and
the cars could not be separated. In the
meantime. while the robber was watching
the supposed uncoupling process, the fire
man slipped away, rushing down the line
of the train, giving the alarm to the crew,
and waking up the passengers. In few
minutes the thieves realized that they
would soon be in close quarters, and took to
the woods Three men were seen running
off from the train.
MI. Frank Watt of Lynchburg, who was
on the train ON his way to Cincinnati,
writes to the News of that city:
1--WE were on train No. / of the Chesa-
peake & Ohio railroad, which was held up
by train robbers last night near Cotton
Hill, and you can imagine what great time
there was. I had left the young ladies
whom had accompanied from Lynchburg,
and had gone into the smoking room. where
1 had about dozed off to sleep, when [ was
rudely awakened by some ones pulling me
and saying that train robbers were aboard.
And indeed we had been held up. For a
time things on board were very exciting,
and people were endeavoring to hide their
money. One OF the young ladies from the
Randolph Macon Woman's College, when
the porter called out that the train robbers
were near at hand and advised them to con-
ceal their valuables, begged the porter not
to let the robbers get her roses. These roses
were given her, suppose, by a Lynchburg
gentleman. I he only pistol that could be
raised on the train was an old army pistol,
and the owner of it got out of his berth
AND hOurished it round. l was afraid he
would shoot some of the passengers. He
proposed when the robbers left the express
car for me to stand at the door and when
the robbers came in to throw up my hands,
and when they were going through my
pockets he would shoot them. But wasn't
stuck on the proposal and so didn't ac-
cept.
(. sit seems that two of the robbers got up
on the tender at Hinton, and climbed up
over the engine and made the engineer stop.
the train. They tried to cut loose the ex-
press car and to make the engineer pull it
off and leave the rest of the train. They
were, however, unsuccessful. The engineer
told them that before he could move the
engine they would have to fix the brakes.
and as they turned away, he jumped from
the engine. The fireman got to the sleeper
and gave the alarm. The robbers tried then
to get into the express car, but were fright
ened off before they had succeeded. Only
three masked men were seen, although
others coul have been concealed near at
hand, but you may be sure that 1 didn't
care to investigate the truth of the matter.
For the time being it was very exciting
experience, as we did not know what would
happen, and were afraid the robbers would
get the train started and would not be able.
to stop it.'