Blackfoot news. (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1891-1902, 1898-08-06
RACE WITH A WHIRLWIND.


Remarkable Experience of . Railroad
Train In Nebraska.
Grand Island, Neb., dispatch to the
New Work World says: With steam
snorting from its safety valve a loco
motive tearing along with train Of
passenger cars dashed into the station
OF the Union Pacific railway at this
place on Tuesday afternoon. Strange
TO say, 1t was ahead Of time, and
| thereby hangs the story. The train had
race with a cyclone and nobody
knows how it would have ended had
the Handicapped cloud kept on the
straight course followed by the train.
1t was due TO the storm swerying to
one side that the train was able to stop
mere. Among the passengers who
aiighted from the train TO relieve the
strain on his nervous system was
Thomas Snively. of Columbus, o. He
was Immediately surrounded By citi-
zens who asked him the cause of the
train breaking all records to this point.
sir. Snively said: For almost an hour
we have had race with cyclone, aid
II was the grandest sight ] ever wit
messed. For forty miles we fed ahead,
now gaining little. now losing. II
was neck and neck most of the time.
about twenty-five miles west of Wood
river the sky began to darker sud-
denly, and the attention ~ the pas
sengers was drawn to ~ack funnel
shaped cloud which swept the prairie
land TO the southwest, Its top buried
In an immense cloud. 1t approached
with frightful speed and was coming
our way in diagonal direction from
the side just behind AT the moment
we felt an increase of speed. The en-
/ gineer had taken alarm. The train
seemed to squirt, and we held en- In a
/ spasmodic way. The cloud must have
been less than FIVE miles away when
1t made its appearance felt, and We
/ knew that cyclones have no scheduled
rate of speed like railway trains. 1t
I all depended ON whether this particu-
lar cyclone was hustler or not, and
we soon found that Ii was. II il struck
4 the train we knew that we would be
swept over like a child's toy. There
] "s~H Eahii O4 Nlle II am puN VIC atcS
knew that the engineer was doing his
best. II seemed simply impossible for
us TO go any faster. On the contrary,
the cyclone appeared to have gathered
strength. Fifteen minutes after the
/ funnel started after us il apparently
/ gained three or four miles, and we
/ could feel the disturbance OF the air
caused by the terrific vacuum made by
the storm. The prairie monster was
beating the train, try as hard as we
might to escape. The Wood River sta
ton was just ahead, but it vas desert
ed. The inhabitants had seen the ap-
preaching storm and had fed TO cy-
clone cellars and other points of safety.
I'VE didn't stop. or even slow up. which
Was against railway rules, of course.
but rules didn't hold good with
IA cyclone ready to smash us. What
happened TO the town | don't know,
but ] think 1t escaped by the funnel
shaped cleud going on one side, but
we were still in line. The engineer
must have found way of increasing
speed. for the train fairly jumped. The
funnel seemed to be losing gorund, and
the passengers began to congratulate
each other and say it wasn't such a
shower after all. But we were a little
premature. as 1t began to creep on us
again. Creep isn't the word, how
ever, only relatively, as We kept up our
tremendous speed. The race had been
a long one, and we feared that 1t could
have but one ending, when the cyclone
changed Its course to the south, and
as we neared Grand Island We lost
sight of it altogether" Other passen-
gers gave their experiences. and all
agreed that 1t was the closest race a
train ever had with a cyclone without
being overtaken. While the engineer
had several minutes to wait to allow
the clock to catch up with ais schedule
time, he was overwhelmed by the con-
gratulations of the passengers.