The Savannah morning news., 1901-11-10

| was eighty-six miles to Buffalo. the
end of the race, and they must be
there by eleven thirty-one 70 win,
which called for an average speed of
! over seventy miles an hour, including
slow downs. No train in the world
had ever approached such an average
| and there own racing average
since leaving Chicago was much be-
! low it. So what hope was there?
There was hope in a tall, sparely
built man named Bill, Turnkey, about
whom nobody knew much except that
he was a good engineer who ran a
rather clumsy ten wheel locomotive
not considered very desirable in
race All the other locomotives had
been eight wheelers. Still. the new
engine had one advantage; she carried
water enough in her tank for the
whole run, and need not slow ND to
refill, as the others had done. She
had another advantage: that she car
ried Turnkey, one of these men who rise
up in sudden emergencies and do
things, whether they are possible or
not 1t was not possible, everybody
vowed. "All right" said Turnkey,
quietly, and then
Within 40 rods of the start he had
his engine going 30 miles an hour, and
he pressed her harder and harder I'M
til II miles out of Erie she struck an
S0-mile pace, and held it as far as
Brockton, when she put forth all her
strength, and did a burst of miles in
31k minutes, one of these miles at the
rate of 92A miles an hour. as the
watches showed. And 1 never want
any more of that in mine." said the
superintendent.
The next town was Dunkirk, where
a local ordinance put a 10-mile on the
speed of trains. Turnkey smiled as they
roared past the station at more than
so. A crowd lined the tracks here,
for the telegraph had carried ahead
the news of a hairraising run, That
crowd was only a blur to staring,
frightened eyes at the carwindows.
The officials were beginning to realize
what kind of an engineer they had
ahead this time. Whisssssl How they
did rum Wahrl Wahr! barked the
little bridges, and were left behind
H-o-o-oi beloved a tunnel. And rip,
whrrr! as they slammed around
double-reverse curve with a vicious
swing that made the bolts rattle in
the last car. Men put their mouths to
other mems ears and tried to say that
perhaps Mr.. Turnkey was getting lit
tie over Jealous. Much good that did
Mr. Turnkey had the bit in his teeth
now and was running the race alone.
An II :06 they swept past Silver Creek
with twenty miles to go and twen-
ty-five minutes to make ii in. Hurrah!
They had made up time enough to save
them!
At 11:20 they passed Lake View.
Twelve miles more, and eleven min
utes." yelled somebody. waving his
hat.
"Toboggan slide all the way" yelled
somebody else. Wen do it easy.
Hooray!"
They passed Athol Springs at 1124
all mad with excitement. They bad
seven minutes left for eight miles, and
were cheering already.
"We'll make it with half minute
to spare" said the only man i'll the
private car who was reasonably cool
He was four seconds out of the way.
for they crossed the line twenty-six
seconds before 11:31, and won the race
by less than half a minute, beating the
whole worlds record in the last relay
by several minutes, the figures stand
ing-Tunkey's figures-S6 miles from
Erie to Buffalo in 20 minutes and As
seconds, or an average speed of 72.91
miles an hour
"Do?" said the official. What did
we do? Why, We we" He paus-
ed helplessly and then added, with
smile: We'll, if you'll excuse the
slang. we didn't do thing to Tun-
keyi"