The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1899-07-12
STRUGGLE ON
AN ENGINE.
N\/\H/\/\%\/\/\/\/l
%e~
How an Engineer on His Back,
Locked with an Enemy, stopped
the Train.

| y ths
INI\N/\N/\/\/u\%I
over in the lounging room for the
tranmen at the terminus OF one Of the
! trunk lines In Jersey City several train.
men We're exchanging stories OF hair
breadth escapes, fastrides and Instances
of presence of mind While waiting to
be summoned to their duties Finally
1t came the turn of small, gray
haired, keen eyed man.
well. yes" he said, taking n chew
of his neighbours tobacco. IL had one
eXcitin trip. 1t was long back In 'SS,
before the comm of these double
| eabbed Mother Hubbard cniines ON
| which, If You want to speak to the fire.
man. you have 10 stop Mt telegraph
station n send him II message or else
slap the air over i'll the Emergency
notch n bring him up TO you whether
| he wants to come or not Never did
like these pesky double deckers. was
doing stunts ON the COZ good old
| mogawl she We're. too. Just out the
shop, where she'd been overhauled N
| had the alrbralies put on her.
II left the other end of the division
on II trip right after pay day n my reg
ular fireman had reported i'll. I'd seen
him the night before n he looked
| rather weak III tired n thought he'd
| been taken Ill. They used 10 have IL
great trick dom TINT after they's got
thnir hoI "a faIl.,,4 I,,.
of Conroy In his place, N we hadn't
got along very far fore | came to the
conclusion TINT he was Il mite under
the weather, too, n he couldn't make
| the old Coz steam nohow. The outcome
| of 1t WIS that we laid down several
times on the trip n barely caught
| the steamer with our export freight
Old Nuthead, the enllne dispatcher he
| made me walk the carpet, n said II
didn't do better'n that he'd drop me
baclS on coal again, | hadn't been run
MIN fast freight very long N ! left him
fcelin rather testy, but | didn't say
anything; bout sGoVGg,s go thought
tnnt durln our lay over In this 4..., -
kinder pound his ear n sleep off the
booze n be all right goln back
1--WE caught train 10 for the return
trip with about Is ears perlshable stun
for Chicago which were rugged up
with the air. which was purity good
string of airbrake cars for those days,
n about - scabs. without air. | was
thinkn what n stop you could make ON
short notice with them, N how you
could turn things over In the caboose.
IlI -
n he was an awful man to swear n
cut up high Iinks II everything didn't
come his way.
1--WE hadn't moved out very far along
the meaders when | saw as how I'd
have to do some tall iigurln to git that
train In on time. Soon's we'd git to II
little grade I'd drop her down notch
or two, II she'd kick up her heels n
lay right down for want Of wind. Con
roy, instead of sleepIn while he was off
duty. had gone out u put on some fin
ishin touches II made II worse.
you can just guess ! was mad clean
through, N thought to myself as how
| would get Mr.. Conroy about 30 days
in which to rest n p'rnps end his little
rallroadln career soon's we got home
again. When we got TO the first wa
term tank, nDout 40 miles out, we had
used up Jest 2 hours n 10 minutes.
The regular runnln time was only !
hour n ID minutes, so you see we'd
lost 80 minutes on 10 miles almost lev
el n with a light train. The outlook
was that we'd never make the heavier
grades on the western end unless Con
roy took brace. While ! was ollln
around Hoffman came runnln up cuss-
IN like one mad n says:
'Blankety blank blank, you, what
the blanks matter widjcrf | wanter
git home I'm time for church Sunday.
Here's message from Jersey which
says as how If yer don't hurry up
theyll take yer off here at the mex
plug n give us n respectable man.
"As this was only about midnight
Tuesday night his speech got my dan
der up, n | told him as how he N Jer-
sey could both go where asbestus cloth
| In IL n boon n the brollln sun never
sets. But | climbed up on the tank, N
maybe | didn't give that fireman n
settin out.
"'You long, lanky blunderbuss,' 1
says, for he was n big codger, much
bigger'n moself, If you don't take n
purity sudden brace n keep the wind
up on this mogawl TIL we get In you
might rs well sit right down here N
send your regrets to the super, cause
I'll report you soon's we cit In, or my
name amt John Stafford
''IIe give me kinder reproachfuI
look n commenced fixln his fire. As |
turned TO put my oil can In the box /
Epled bottle OF whisky. I grabbed
that bottle n turned roun to Conroy.
'Ahap says 80 this Is the cause OF
our gaspln for breath every five min
utes. Is 1t? Well, here she goes N
plugged that bottle over on the track
IA broke 1t into 80 pieces. not without
some regrets as II had n pretty good
tmell, n I'm not dead set against the
fluff myself, but let her 90.
I'VE got started again N walked
AWAY up the hill from the tank as easy
| as Willie Bryan makes II nice, long
/ speech, n ! noticed an Improvement
In the steam gauge right away, n l
commenced to let Ter out at once to
make up for lost time. 1t was purity
/ good, even goin then for about 20 mile,
| then up an incline of about 8 mile n
down the mountainslde IL mile. When
we struck the top OF that II mile hill
! kept her wide open for about n half
mile to give us good start down the
hill n then shut her off n let 'em
buzz.