The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-02-14
UNION STATION.
Trains Stalled and Passen-
gers DELAYED.

Inc situation in and about the Union
station at midnight presented condi
lions and circumstances such as the
Boston and Albany officials have not
faced for many year. The high winds
had blown huge drifts far in under the
covered station, and moving about was
matter Of no little difficulty to the
hurried employees. Out at the end of
the station Yard Master Delaney had
a half hundred men at work, trying to
cut a path through the banks of snow
in order to give the trains stalled in
SIDE chance to make a start. But it
was as useless as it would have been
to attempt to sweep back the waves of
the ocean
A few hundred yards was the limit
reached by the most energetic efforts
of the monster locomotives. and it re-
CURED two of them to do that, though
preceded by one of the monster Russell
plows that have lately been introduced
on the railroads Of the east
The through mail train from New
York, due here at 2.20 o'clock. in the
afternoon, came slowly steaming into
the station at 1.35 o. m, and all fur
Their efforts were abandoned in the mat
ter of preceding to Boston.
The New York limited consolidated
with the Lake Shore limited for Chi
caso, the latter including only a mail
car and a Wagner, the latter train due
to leave at sos and the former at 5.04.
came in at 92S, drawn by two of the
largest locomotives of the road, engine
243. in charge Of Engineer Jim With
am, and engine No. 21S with Cyrus
Richardson at the lever.
They had been stalled for two hours
IL,
were only able to leave that dread
point through the added assistance of
two engines.
Conductor J. II. Davidson of the
Wagner sleeper and Conductor Edward
Patrick of the train state that be-
tween the Newtons and the deep cut
they passed three other trains that
had been stalled.
Conductor Davidson said that never
in all of his experience of railroading
had he passed through such severe
conditions as prevailed at the cut dur
ing the brief time that they were
stalled. The drifts on the right of the
train were piled up almost to a level
with the car windows at times, and
had it not been for the timely arrival
OF assistance sent out from the Union
station, they would not have been able
to leave the cut during the night.
Conductor Patrick when he struck
the first blockade at the cut, sent the
rear end man back to signal trains that
might be following. He estimates that
they were delayed at the cut nearly
three hours. Many of the Worcester
passengers started to walk to the city,
but most of them were forced to give
up the attempt after travelling q few
hundred feet, although some of them
had pluck enough to reach the city.
One passenger in particular attract
ed the attention of everybody by pur-
chasing a bundle of newspapers from
a newsboy, and, with the aid of a few
hundred feet of Irvine, he completely
enveloped himself in them and started
OH, but ten minutes later returned
unroiled the papers and distributed
them among the passengers, with the
remark that no man could live to
travel from the cut to the city in such
a storm
While the train was stalled in the cut
the passengers were given to under
stand that they We're likely to remain
there during the night. Everybody
made preparations for temporary i'm
prisonment. Seats We're converted in
10 berths, card parties were organized
and two vaudeville performers who
We're IN the smoker volunteered to give
an entertainment for the passengers
me show failed to come off, however
until the midnight hour, when thew
We're safely installed under the cover
of the Union depot.
When it became known to the pas
sengers oe both the east and west
bound trains held in the station. shat
they would remain there over night,
everybody made a grand rush for the
lunch counter and the manager stated
to a Spy man that between the hours
OF and u nearly 1000 orders were
served over the counter aside from
me numerous lunches that were sent
10 the train