The Monitor-register., 1896-10-09
TRIES THE NERVES.
AN OLD FIREMAN ON THE EFFECT
OF A SERIOUS ACCIDENT.

OF A SERIOUS ACCIDENT.
The Thoughts That Flash Through the
Engineman's Brain Just Before q COL
lision Occurs-A Smash Up Makes q Man
scary Ever Thereafter.
There is something attractive about
railroad life to the man who once en- |
tiers it. The railroad companies rarely
give up a reliable, faithful man. He
may become manned and unfit for the
most remunerative positions and be
forced to accept some humber place
with a smaller salary attached to it,
but it is III unwritten law with most Of
the great railroad companies that the
man who is injured in their service |
shall be placed in some position where |
he may obtain his livelihood.
Thus it may happen that when you
fall in conversation with the man who
occupies a humble s%witchhouse or a
1agman's shanty you are talking with
one who has had his share of excitement !
and been through experiences that
would make the hair of the average man
stand upon end. A reporter met a
switchman the other day the pathos of
whose life was expressed in the wooden
leg which he used. and as the Empire
dashed by he looked up and said:
eyes, I like railroading. I 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 remain here
in nv littla nntta no onI fond 10 WV &C.,
ging rather than have the position of
the man who holds the throttle on that
big engine which just whizzed by here.
You may think it a snap to sit there
and ride over the country at the rate of
a mile a minute, but 1 tell you the man
carries "a load Of responsibility on his
shoulders which I would not want on
mine and which the average man knows
very little about. l know something of
it, for I was fireman some years ago on
II of the fast engines and lost my leg
in an accident between here and AL
bany. But if 1 had come out of that &C.
cident as sound as you are I never
should have been able to hold my nerve
for any more fast trips. That finished
me for that work"
"Then if a man has been hurt in a
railroad accident it 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 it doesn't. The
man who was running that engine the
day I 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 a freight engine,
where the running was a great deal
slower.
81 shall never forget the way he look
ed the afternoon the smash up occurred.
Just before the crash came 1 looked at
him. We were rounding a curve down
by Schenectady. His long gray hair
was flowing in the breeze, his face was
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
caughtP 1t was probably not more than
half a minute after when I was lying
| DClOho1 OlIO CASluO W1b1 LILY lCS CIuou-
ed, utterly unconscious of the fact that
a great wreck had occurred, but every
movement and occurrence Of that half
minute is as wildly impressed upon my
mind as if it had taken weeks of time
to impress it there.
"As he spoke I looked through the
cab window ahead of us, and there,
within 20 rods, was a freight engine
coming straight at us, and there was no
possible chance to escape a crash. The
engineer was doing his duty. I knew
that. He was reversing the lever, apply
ing the brakes and doing his best to
avert what he knew was inevitable, but
/ had nothing to do, and it seemed as if
everything in my life was before me in
those few seconds. / felt absolutely sure
l was going to die. Strange as it may
seem, the thought did not seem horrible
to me. A whole lot of the slang say
ings, such as, You are learning to fire
here in this world Sc as to be prepared
| for the ue8t, and You won't mind a
| hot job over there, and a number of
/ those stale things which a fireman has
to take, came into my head, and aver
in that awful position it occurred to me
in a humorous sort of way that I had
made a good start here below, OR here
above, as I might say. The next mo-
ment ! was thinking of my wife and
c~hildren-yes. and Of mother, too, who
had been dead a number of years. A
man always thinks of his mother at such
u time. But L don't think 1 had a par
ticle 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 I remember.
when / came to my senses, I was
in a hospital and was minus a leg.
Since then l have been constantly en- |
ployed Il way and another by the rail |
road company, but | never see one of
the fast trains go by without thinking
of that wreck. The engineer miraculous |
ly escaped with scarcely a bruise, but it
finished him for that kind of work. He
was always seeing engines ahead of him
after that, and I have heard that more 4
than nee he has slowed up his train in
order not to collide with an imaginary |
engine, which / have no doubt was as |
real to him as it was on the afternoon |
the wreck l speak of occurred. As said
before, he was transferred to a 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 All engineer has
been in an accident once he is minus a |
good share of the nerve which it takes |
to make his runs on time to the tick,
and if he isn't on time he has got to 60 4
sooner or later. Rochester Democrat
and Chronicle.