The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1900-05-23

pull Jnat Tram, except tnaI she was Urea
In my disgust l turned 10 the fireman
without shutting off the throttle, and sad:
Well, he old Jade is played OUT
Knowirg that ii was impossible to
back up and take another run at the hill,
thee was nothing to do but wait and flag
the EXPRESS, ard have them push us in
on. to the siding. The throttle was still
wide open, mind you, all this time. and
the lever was down in the corner l pre-
sumo for one minu the engine was dead
TO the world. This minute seemed to me
like an hour. My disgust and contempt
was nearly ready to break out, when
from the safety valve came pop fol-
lowed by grcan from the engine, and
what do you thuk-that engine picked up
thai train and went on in the sidetrack
at ten-tnile clip"
Two Cars Lost.
"Once," SPOKE up another old timer, 81
was a brakeman on the Old Detroit and
Milwaukee Road, now part of the Grand
Trunk system. | was out on what they
called the night eXpr S. which was COM
bination of freight and passenger. Be-
tween Davisburg and Feneonville the
train broke in twain. 1 went out on the
train, and when the forward part had dis
covered the break and backed down,
went down and made the coupling and
signaled the engineer ahead. In those
days all freight trains carried bell ropei
when l coupled up the rope and got back
to the caboose, it seemed to me that there
was si7ht of sack in the bell rope. |
resled and reeled, but made nothing more
than a casual mention of 1t to the conduc-
tor. whose name was Thomas Rock. At
Fentonville | was given the numbers of
two cars to 'shunt out. / looked the train
over and over, and no such cars were in
the train. l reported the matter to the
conductor.
foA Oh R11n
idiot. He said they We're there when we
left Detroit, for he personally took the
number of the cars of the train, so he
started out bigger than life TO make me
believe. 1 was an idiot. He went the full
/ length of the train one way, but did not
| discover the cars, then walked back to
the engine again and counted the cars.
He was two cars short. None had been
side-tracked since leaving Detroit. The
result was that the matter was report
] ed at the office and the next morning the
| Fentonville accommodation was ordered
TO look out for those stray cars. They
! found them where the train broke in two,
on either side of the track, one fully ten
! feet in the clear and the other down the
| bank upside down.
| Stories like this are common, yet the
majority will not believe them and will
regard this as a pipe story The idea of
| a train breaking in two and two cars
| breaking out and the rest of the train run
ming on without jolt or jar sufficient to
alarm the train crew may be regarded
as fishy but it is history no less"
An Engine EIopes.
Here a third man put in his oar and
said: Say Joe, on the old Western Union
Road or later what was called the Racine
and Mississippi. 1 knew an engine to leave
| the track, go down the bank and the
passengers in the cars looked at the en-
CINE as the balance of the train went
| past. and everybody was innocent of the
| fact that they were riding on an engine
| less train until 1t began to slacken speed.
At another time, on the same road, if
| remember rightly, Frank Black, while
running wild in coming through the sta
| ton of Rock Run on a sharp curve, dis
| covered a freight car standing across the
| track. The wind had blown 1t off from the
| siding each side of the track, the trucks
stood squarely in the clear of the rails.
| Black said he had not time to stop, so he
! opened the throttle, and he and his fire
man got down behind the boiler head and
waited for the crash. 1t came; they split
| the car into splinters, tore the smokestack
| and bell frame from the engine, ripped
! half the jacket off, and made kindling-
wood of the cab, but the engine staid on
| the track. Black had to fix up a smoke
| stack out of boards set down into the
smoke arch around the nozzles, but he
went into Racine with his own steam and
| boasted that he had never been 'towed In
| yet. This story is history, although 1 am
| not personally known to the facts. But
| it is one of the stories that old-timers re-
| late who knew Wisconsin in the days
when Alexander Mitchell and Capt Gilbert
Knapp of Racine were the biggest men
from the railway point of view"
HOOdoOed.
| 'T have known engines that were abso-
| lutely 'hoodooed,' l knew of an engineer
who was eternally in trouble, yet he was
a thoroughly practical man, but he was
| always breaking down or going into the
| ditch. Several time he had narrow es-
| capes from death He went through all
the accidents that engineers can undergo
| throwing off tires, punching out cylin-
| der heads, the blowing out of gauge
| cocks, breal king side rods, and other like
| mishaps. Finally, we laid it to- the en-
| CINE; said she was hoodooed. He was
| given another engine and the same
| i'll luck followed him. One morning.
| standing in the gangway between the cab
| and tank, he threw a tire and broke a
| side rod. The whipping of the rod and
| the jolting of the tireless wheel threw him
| from his engine, and he was severely in
| 1ured He recovered from his injuries,
was given still another engine, and still
his misfortunes pursued him He quit
| the road some twenty yeans ago and went
to the Flint and Pere Marquette in
Michigan, where he has had a continuous
run of prosperity and good luck, never
has even so much as Slipped an eccen-
tric,' to use his own words. since he
| changed roads.
Before the time of the brotherhood of
| Locomotive Engineers, men used to run
| the railroads in their own way, the Off
GERS were absolute dictators, dominating
| the men 90 excessive labor and to the en-
| dangerment of their lives and the COM
| pany's properties. In my personal ex-
perience," said one of the party, II re-
member a hair-breadth escape on the De-
| troit, Toledo division of the Michigan
Southern road. l had just got in with
my train from Goshen on the air line, IL
being the fifth day and night for my
| self and the whole crew on the road
| without sleep, save cat-naps caught ION
| the sidings at meetings points. l was
told that I must be ready to leave in an
| hour for Detroit
IT went 10 old man Hardy. who was
master mechanic and boss of the round
house, and protested. I told him thet 1
|