The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1898-02-12
LOOKING FOR LOST CARS
TITS An OCCUPATION FULL OF MANY
INTERESTING EXPERIENCES.

One Car Traced to Pit Where 1t Had Been
Hidden Under the Water for Two Years
Another Appropriated as Residence by
Indians.
{ To those unaquainted with the intri-
cacies of car counting it might seem
easy to keep track of the rolling stock;
but when it is considered that, no mat
ter how small the road owning it, a car
may be sent from the Atlantic to the
Pacific and be handled by fifteen Of
twenty different train crews at all
hours of the day and night. it will be
seen that there is plenty of room for
mistakes. Passenger, express and bag
gage cars are rarely lost track of, but
the freight car department is less for
tunate, and every road of any import
ance has is lost-car agent, who is al
ways on the wing, hunting up stray
cars. His trips often cover thousands
of miles and take him into all sections
of the country, from the busy yards in
the large cities to some out-of-the-way
switch in desolute region, where the
railroad station stands alone.
"WhiIe was lost-car agent for the
Alabama Great Southern" said rail-
road man, 'I had some queer expert
ences. While out on hunt for box car
No. 873 once, telegram reached me at
Aberdeen, Miss, that as soon as my re-
port was turned in regarding its
whereabouts, / was to go to Terre
Haute, Ind, in search of a gondola or
coal car of our line, No. 1871. The lat
ter had been sent to Indianapolis with
load of machinery for the Nordyke
Marmon Machine Company from Tus-
caloosa, Ala, and, having arrived and
4 been unloaded, instead of being sent
home, it had been loaded with car
trucks and sent to Terre Haute via
ssvandalia, they being short. of cars, and
it being the unwritten rule to use any
thing in sight when car must be mad.
From Terre Haute it was sent to
Brazil for a load of coal. 1t was the
plan to load it there and send it on the
way home as far as Indianapolis with
block coal, for which the Brazil mines
are famous the world over. Upon it's
arrival at Brazil the mines were closed,
owing to a strike, and the car was side
tracked on a c. & E. I. spur track,
owned Jointly by the latter road and
the yandalia. Here the car dropped
out of existence, no further trace of it
being obtainable. A car is pretty big
piece of property to lose, yet it seemed
hooks of
the agents and switching crews showed
its arrival, but no trace of its depart
ure. Upon my arrival at Brazil L
carefully inspected every side track
and coal switch in the town. but no
sign of No. 1871 was visible.
" Many other cars of others roads,
built at the same shops, the Birm1ng-
ham, Ala, car works, and OF the same
description as the lost car, were there,
but no A. G. S., 1881. I was about to
give up the hunt there and try some
other nearby town to see 1t 1T might
not have been showed out there for
want of room at Brazil, when l
CHANGED to go down the Chicago ard
Eastern Illinois tracks toward the sta
ton north Of the roundhouse, and a
game Of ball on the common near by
attracted my attention. Being lover
Of the sport I found, upon consulting
my watch, that I had nearly an hour
till the first train. Going over to where
the two clubs were deeply engaged In
hammering the little inoffensive ball,
] sat down on a convenient knoll and
was soon oblivious to all but the game.
"The catcher was the weak point in
one club, and many muffs of his al
lowed the tally of the other side to run
IN. nothing but the backstop prevent
ing the ball from landing in pool of
water near by. The usefulness of the
backstop, which was both high and
heavy, drew my attention to it. 1t
looked strangely familiar, and I drew
closer and soon recognized it to be the
sideboards Of a gondola nailed to up
right posts. This fact interested me
more, and going around to the rear my
astonished vision was greeted with the
sight Of the letters "A. g. s. in white,
but nearly effaced and on the end of
The boards 13,7S1.' In very few min
utes i found that the boards had been
purloined by enthusiastic lovers Of
baseball from an old smashed-up car
near by. Getting my informant to ac-
company me I went to the spot, and
found that from the spur track another
spur had been built at one time to a
nearby coal shaft, now abandoned
and full of water.
"By questioning the track foreman 7
found that the old shaft had caved in
one night, taking with it several rods
of the switch The hole was filled with
water some twenty feet deep, and was
perhaps hundred feet in diameter.
Close inquiry elected the fact that the
track had been filled with cars, though
none had gone down, so it was thought,
when the end sank in the cave-in,
Thinking differently, I got a pump from
the nail and spike mill near by, and,
connecting it with their steam plant,
put it to work at emptying the cave-in,
as such ponds are called. After three
days of steady pumping with a million
gallon Gordon pump the bottom began
to show and soon the drawbar and tim
bers Of a gondola car were visible.
When the water had been sufficiently
lowered it was seen that it was our lost
car No. 1881 though badly broken up
and in terrible plight, from lying in the
mud and water for nearly two years. A
derrick was at once rugged up, the
wrecl<ing car of the Chicago & Eastern
Illinois was called into requisition, and
after much labor the car was brought
to the solid ground again and temper
ary rails soon got it back on the track
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