The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1896-09-16
TRIES THE NERVES.
AN OLD FIREMAN ON THE EFFECT
OF A SERIOUS ACCIDENT.

The Thoughts That Flash Through the
Engineman's Brain 5ust Before Col
IIsion Occurs-A Smash Up Makes 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 reliahl9N faithful man. He
may become mafIied and unfit for the
most remunerative positions and be
forced to accept some humber place
with smaller salary attached to it,
but it is an 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 humble switchhouse or o
hagmans shanty you are talking with
ono 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 o
switchman the other day tho 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, like railroading l have been
in the business all my life and expect to
spend the rest of my days over the rails,
but am quite content to remain here
| in my little cottage and tend to my flag
| cling rather than have the position Of
| the man who holds tho throttle ON that
big engine which just whizzed by here
You may think it u snap to sit there
| and ride over the country ut tho rate of
d mile minute but tell you the man
carries u load Of responsibility on his
shoulders which j would not want on
| mine and which the average man knows
very little about. know something of
| it, for was fireman some years ago on
one of tho fast engines and lost my leg
| in an accident between here and AL
bany. But IL had come out Of that no-
| cident as sound as you are never
should have been able to hold my nerve
for any more fast trips. That finished
mo for that work. p"
"Then if u man has been hurt in q
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, land don't
let any one fool you that it doesn't The
man who was running that engine the
| day l was hurt escaped with hardly
scratch, but he never could keep his
time up the way he did before that and
| finally was put on freight engine.
where the running was great deal
| slower.
| 81 shall never forget the way he look
| ed the afternoon the smash up occurred.
| 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 was
set and his eyes fixed on the track
ahead.
''All at once he jumped to his feet
| and reversed tho lever and exclaimed in
startled tone, My God, we are
oaughtl' 1t was probably not more than
| half minute after when l was lying
beneath the engine with my leg crush
ed, utterly unconscious Of the fact that
great wreck had occurred. but every
l
minute is as wildly impressed upon my
mind rs il it had taken weeks Of time
to impress it there.
"As he spoke / looked through the
cab window ahead Of u.s. and there,
within 30 rods, was % freight engine
coming straight at us. and there was no
| possible chance to escape q crash. The
engineer was doing his duty. knew
that He was reversing the lever, apply
ing the brakes and doing his best to
avert what he knew was inevitable, but
l had nothing to do, and it seemed as IL
| everything in my life was before mo i'll
those few seconds. felt absolutely sure
| / was going to die. Strange as it may
seem. the thought did not seem horrible
to me- A whole lot Of the slang say
inga, such ne, you arc learning to fire
| here in this world so us to be prepared
for the next, and 'You won't mind
| hot job over there, and number of
those stale things which q fireman has
| to take camo into my head, and even
in that awful position 1t occurred to me
| in humorous sort Of way that l had
made good start hero below, or here
uDONtt l. iiilBnb buJs LhC AAtAU AhO-
ment was thinking Of my wife and
children-yes. and of mother. too, who
had been dead number Of years. A
man always thinks of his mother ut such
u time But don't think had par
ticle Of fear of death. The last thing
that was on my mind was the question,
Who was TO blame for the accident2
| And that IL the last remember.
when came to my senses, was
| i'll hospital and was minus leg.
Since then have been constantly en-
ployed one way and another by the rail-
road company, but i never see one Of
the fast trains go by without thinking
| of that wreck. The engineer miraculous
| ly escaped with scarcely bruise, but it
| finished him for that kind of work. He
was always seeing engines ahead of him
after that, and have heard that moro
than once nc has slowed up his train in
order not to collide with an imaginary
| engine, which have no doubt was us
real to him us it was on the afternoon
the wreck speak of occurred AS said
before, he was transferred to freight
engine, but even there he was timid
and finally left the road altogether.
lyon can put 1t down as pretty
sure thing that when an engineer has
been III an accident once he is minus u
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 go
sooner or later. Rochester Democrat
| and Chronicle.
Montreal suffered from fire in 1869,
| 1900 residences and stores being blotted
ont Of existence, the property loss ex-
ceeding So. coo, 900.