The St. Johns herald., 1896-07-11
CRAZY ON TIE CAB.
An Experience Which Shows What Ii
 May Be to Be a Fireman.

Speaking of experiences" remarked an old engineer to q Washington Star reporter, have 1 your permission to narrate a little one that happened to me during my first year on an engine?"
 Not only my permission" responded the generous reporter, but my impera- tive command and an invitation to take something while you are about it.'
 The preliminary being satisfactorily arranged the engineer proceeded with his story.
 Tt was twenty-five years ago." ne said, 'and I was a fireman on a road in New York State. The engineer I fired for was, or rather had been, one of the best on the road, but he had been turned over and steamed under a locomotive boiler in a wreck and after that he was given less important train. Not so much because he was any the less good as an engineer, but because officials have an idea that it takes a mans nerve away when a seri- ous accident happens to him. We had a run of about seventy-fve miles, eaci way, and on Sundays in summer we carried excursions.
 We had never had any trouble, but for a month before the experience r am telling my engineer had been in bad temper 4ld acted as ugly as the mischief. l reported the matter to the division superintendent and he told me to stick it out for a month or so longer, as they proposed to relieve the old man and put him at work in the shops. Two Sundays after that we were returning in the evening about o'clock behind time, owing to delays occasiOned by waShOuts causing us to run slow and cautious. We had twenty miles to go, and it was over the worst part of the road, and I was watching out of the cab, when all at once the engineer gave a shout and made a grab at me. His eyes were blazing, and I could see iii a second that he was either drunk or crazy.
 How got away from him I don't know, for he did his best to throw me off the cab, but got away and climbed up on the wood piled up on the tender. He didn't follow, but turned at once to the throttle and threw it wide open knew what that meant with six coaches full of people behind us and a bad track, and the first thing I did was to try to knock him out with a stick of wood. missed my throw and he came after me with a heavy iron bar, and went over the rear of the tender on to the platform of the car next to us. By this time we were fairly jumping over the track, and I was so rattled that [ didn't know what to do.
 Tn a second, though, I gathered n.y. self and uncoupled the train from the locomotive, which was not so hard to do, as we were on a down grade, and the engine was bouncing so that the coupling pin swung loose at intervals. Then l slapped on the brake there ana went through the train as fast as 1 could, telling brakemen and conductor to slow up, and do it quick. Our part of the train being stopped we got out to see where the engine had gone, but we could see nothing. Putting a man with a light on the track a mile behind us to stop the next rain, the conductor and 1 went ahead to find what had be- come of the runaway.
 Two miles away, or two minutes at the rate he was going, we found the en- zine in the ditch and the engineer buried under it. The engine had struck a soft place and spread the rails-any- body knows what that means, and think what the result would have been to q train load of passengers going after that engine at sixty miles an hour. It almost made my hair gray to think about it, and when the people on the train heard the story, they made up a purse for me that almost made it curl, and I concluded that it was an ill wind indeed which blew no good"