The Minneapolis journal., 1903-12-12
Los Angeles Correspondence
Inter Ocean.

Inter Ocean.
Outside the Southern Pacific roundhouse
In, this city a group of locomotive en-
giheers were sitting and chatting.
Now, there's no use denying that it's
the third call that gets an engineer" said
John Nolan, the oldest engineer in Cali
fornia, as he came out of the roundhouse
Wiping Oil from his hands,. 'I have yet to
know an engineer who doesn't believe
that, and could tell all day long of in
stances to prove the correctness of the
belief
Then, too, there's no use denying that
most engineers can go thru any sort Of
wreck and not get killed until they have
their third call. Take the case Of Bill
Conner up on the Frisco and Sacramento
division last year.
Bill was hauling a six-car train on
which was half a ton of giant powder on
the gondola car A lot of Mexican track
laborers were in a car near the gondola.
No one ever knew how it happened,
but the dynamite ignited. Half the Mexi-
cans We're blown to atoms, and the rest
were mangIed.
THE fireman on the engine with Bill
Conner had been in two wrecks before
He was blown over 100 yards away, and
probably never knew his fate.
THE gondola was shivered to matches.
The rails were bent like hairpins and the
| when the Wrecking car came to clear
things up the tender was lacked up, and
there, beneath a lot of coal, covered with
blood and coal dust and with many broken
bones, was Bill Conner, unconscious and
! apparently breathing his last. The doc
tor said life was a matter of only a few
hours.
THE railroad boys gathered about Bill
as he lay on the grass alongside the track.
He ~regained consciousness, and, getting
his breath, managed to say:
Oh, III come thru all right. This is
only my second CALL
| 'The doctor shook his head, but every
railroad man there knew Bill was right.
| Well it took four months of nursing and
| a heap of pluck on Bills part but he came
out sound and well.
"Bll was transferred to the Portland
division and had the softest and safest
| job in his life. He feared another and
third call So he sought as safe a job as
possible. and at much smaller pay.
Last spring he was drawing No. pas
senger accommodation, just outside of
/ Woodburn, when the connecting rod on
the engineers side Of the locomotive
snapped and the loose end stuck thru the
cab, breaking Bills leg and crushing his
ankle.
ut didn't seem like such a serious ac-
cident for q railroad engineer, but Eli
| said:
| Boys, it's my third call. I'll make a
| powerful effort to get around again. bu
it looks bad to me-
In a month Bill died. Blood poisoning
set IN and al sorts of unusual complica
tions came into the case
Do you remember that case of young
| Fred Fuller, out on the east Ell Paso di
Vislon?" said an engineer at Nolan's ell
DOW. THAT proves the sense of the thret
; times and out belief
"One night down there when the dark
ness was so heavy that you could almos
chop it. and the rain came down in rivers
I'Ffed Fullers engine was taking a heav,
curve out on the Texas plains and drive
wheel fiange broke. The engine jumpe
the track, and Fred had a close shay
from instant death in the wreck
1T was his first CALL and, of course, h
: survived. A few months in the hospits
and he was ready for an en- inc again.
He got light work about the Ell Pas
: yards and on daylight runs About a yea
after the wreck he began taking reguIa
night runs and appeared to be as good a
$ engineer AS he ever was.
"One night it happened that Fred wa
put on the same train that he was o
d when hurt 1t was noticed that he was
/ little nervous but no attention was pai
g to this. The night out turned to be tt
I same kind of one as that on which he we
? hurt-dark and rainy.
# As the train neared the curve whel
n the first accident had occurred the firema
!. noticed Fred slack up his engine, and
q q the same time he began to get paler an
IS paler. AS they rounded the curve whe1
: he had been ditched before Fred uttered
Z Shrek and fell over in a faint. The stra
: was too much for him.
/. 'He was taken Off his engine this tin
for good, of course and was for coup
:, of years doing switch work in the yard
- - As an engineer his first call had RUNE
.r him for life. No amount Of money cou
1t hire him to steer an engine around tn;
e curve again after dark and he was know
to be a man of great nerve too.
Il fired for seven years for old Harve
Post, and he was the most daredevil ms
at a throttle I ever know, until he had h
:, second close call in a railroad wreck
= said a man in the group. Harvey Po
was Coils P. Huntington's favorite el
gineer. He used to run from San Franci
le co to Bakersfield.
Z .1I have never known anyone with
le little fear and so much faith in fate
ed Post He believed that fate ruled ever
a thing in an engineers life, and that,
10 y, what he might, an engineer would not d
,e until his time had come. He was Il
al fastest locomotive runner ever knew
nd POSTS first call came along in the sur
IN la mer of 1881, when he was running t
Los Angeles express out Of Oakland ear
a. In the afternoon Of very hot day. T
ell great speed was easily made
n n. "About two miles south Of the Merce
aS ae station he struck the double track, and
Of little further on a freight train going sou
ty on the opposite track hove in sight runni
rs at good speed. When within 100 feet
- the freight train Post saw a car in t
he middle of the long line Of freight ca
ed leave the rails and strike his track.
sh "1he car struck SO hard that it bound
nS nd back and turned partly over on the sou
on track Posts train shot by the derail
g. car an instant afterward at the rate
It's forty miles an hour The place at whi
by tha oco.dan+ occurred u,as near o,,,I,e
- and steep embankment some fifty fe
high, and had he struck the car a territ
y, wreck would have resulted.
re re Twas on the freman's side Of the loc
az motive, and was too paralyzed at t