Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1896-08-27

The Thoughts that Flash Through thu
Engine Mans Mind.
A Rochester IN. NJ Democrat and
Chronicle reporter met q switchman
the other day, the pathos OF whose life
vas expressed In the wooden leg which
he used, and as the Empire dashed by
he looked up and said:
Eyes, L like railreading. have been
IN the business all my life. and expect
to spend the rest Of my days over the
rails, but l am quite content to re-
main here In my little cottage and tend
to my tagging rather than have the
position Of the man who holds the
throttle on that big engine which just
whizzed by here. You may think 1t a
snap to sit there and ride over the
country at the rate Of mile minute,
but tell you that man carries load
Of responsibility on bis shoulders
which the average man knows very lit
tie about. know something OF 1t, for
l WAS fireman some years ago on one
of the fast engines, and lost my leg In
an accident between here and Albany.
But IL had come out Of that accident
as sound as you are never should
have been able to hold my nerve for
any more fast trips. That finished me
for that work."
"Then If man has been hurt In a
railroad accident 1t makes him scary
Of that kind Of work, does it," asked
the reporter.
"You bet it does" answered the
switchman with emphasis, "and don't
let any one fool you that 1t don't. The
man who was running that engine the
day was hurt escaped with hardly a
scratch, but he never could keep his
time up the way he did before that,
and finally was put on freight en-
CINE, where the running was great
deal slower.
II shall never forget the way he
looked the afternoon the smash-up oc-
Cured. Just before the crash came
looked at him. We were rounding
curve down by Schenectady. His long
gray hair was flowing in the breeze,
his face set, and his eyes fixed on the
track ahead.
"All at once he jumped to his feet
and reversed the lever and exclaimed
in a startled tone, My God, we are
caughtv 1t was probably not more
than half minute after when / was
lying beneath the engine with my leg
crushed, utterly unconscious of the
fact that a great wreck had occurred,
but every moment and occurrence Of
that half minute is rs wildly i'm.
pressed upon my mind as if it had TAX
en- weeks of time to impress 1t there.
"As he spoke / looked through the
cab window ahead of us, and there,
within twenty rods, was n freight en-
CINE coming straight at us, and there
was no possible chance to escape n
crash. The engineer was doing his
duty. l knew that. He was revers-
ing the lever, applying the brakes,
knew was inevitable, but / had moth
ing TO do, and it seemed as IL every
thing In my life was before me in those
few seconds. felt absolutely sure
was going to die. Strange as it may
seem, the thought did not seem horri-
Bile to me. A whole lot of the slang
sayings, such as, You are learning to
fire here in this world, so as to be pre-
pared for the next and You won't
mind hot job over there and a num-
Der Of those stale things which fire.
man has to take, came into my head,
and even in that awful position it oc-
Cured to me in a sort of humorous
way that I had made good start
here below, or here above, as / might
say. The next moment l was think
ing Of my wife and children, yes, and
of mother, too, who had been dead a
of years. A man always thinks
of his mother at such q time. But /
don't think had particle Of fear Of
death. The last thing that was on my
mind was the question, Who was to
blame for the accident? and that is the
last 1 remember.
when 1 came to my senses was in
q hospital and was minus leg. Since
then have been continually employed
one way and another by the railroad
company, but l never see one Of the
fast trains go by without thinking Of
that wreck. The engineer miraculous
ly escaped with scarcely a bruise, but
1t finished him for that kind of work.
He was always seeing engines ahead
Of him after that, and / have heard
that more than once he had slowed up
his train in order not to collide with an
engine, which have no
doubt was as real to him as ii was OH
the afternoon the wreck speak of oc-
Cured. AS l said before, he was
transferred to freight engine, but
even there he was timid, and finally
left the road altogether.
You can put it down as a pretty
sure thing that when an engineer has
been in an accident once he is minus
a good share Of the nerve which il
takes to make his runs on time to the
tick, and if he isn't on time he has got
to go, sooner or later"