Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1902-11-08
The Story of a
Runaway
BY JULIEN E. CANTON.

nj o. A, through freight, west-bound,
IN pulled ont of Brockton an hour
behind time. John Jones, an old man,
but new engineer on this road, was at
the throttle. At Nacosa, 200 miles
away, train dispatcher swore mildly
as he made out an order for A TO take
the siding at Smith City for the east
bound express. At Scareville this or
der was delivered to old Jones. The
summit of the divide was only four
miles from Scareville, and from that
point all the way to Barmburg there
was heavy down grade. Three miles
from Scareville Tim Johnson, old
Jones fireman, noticed that 372, AIS
engine, was behaving queerly. How
ever, the grade was heavy, and Johnson
had all he could do to keep a sufficient
amount of steam in the boiler.
''Old Jones don't know how to man
age 372, he growled to himself. Don't
see what they ever took him in for
The engine pounded along without
accident until the TOP of the grade was
reached and the descent begun. Such
great head of steam was no longer re-
quired, and Johnson slammed shut the
door of the fire-boX, tossed aside his
shovel and wiped the sweat from his
face with the sleeve of his jumper. No.
372 was behaving more queerly than
ever. She was jerking and tossing I'M
accountably. Although they were on
the down grade, old Jones had not yet
shut off steam. Johnson glanced out at
the broken landscape, and, as he saw
the telegraph poles whirl by like fence
he Mt ~
Their speed on the down grade was
fully 35 miles an hour. He glanced
back at the rocking, swaying line of
cars, half hidden in the clouds of dust.
A brakeman was crouching-the cars
were swaying so fearfully that he could
not stand erection one of the rear
most cars, signalling wildly. Jones
had paid no attention to his signals.
Johnson knew that something was
wrong. A dread suspicion crossed his
mind. What IL old Jones'had suddenly
gone crazy from the.heat? Such things
had happened. At bound he crossed
the swaying cab to Jones side. The
old engineer was sitting in perfectly
natural position, with one hand on the
reversing lever, and his head craned out
the window of the cab.
"For Gods sake, man, why don't you
shut her off?" Johnson yelled out, but
the sound of his voice was lost in the
roar of the engine.
He grabbed Jones by the shoulder
and started to shake him. The old en-
gineer's grasp on the reversing lever
relaxed and he fell back limp on the
seat of his cab. Johnson gave a little
T.
Jones was dead!
Almost involuntarily, Johnson made
a step backwards. He was weak and
faint. The engine gave another unex-
pected lurch, Johnson threw out his
hands wildly, but in vain, and fell
backwards off the engine. When they
found him three hours afterwards,
they found nothing but an unrecog-
nizable mass of mangled flesh and
broken bones.
After II left Scareville, the conduc-
tor and brakeman remained for time
in the caboose smoking. They were
very much engaged, and did not notice
that anything was wrong until the
train reached the summit of the divide.
Even then they were not alarmed, and
contented themselves with swearing
at the new engineer. Soon, however,
as the speed increased so alarmingly,
and no brakes were thrown on, they
realized that something was seriously
wrong.
One of the brakemen, a fellow by the
name of CarweI, climbed upon the
swaying car, and tried to signal the
engineer, but all il vain. Jones had not