Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1905-04-05

Imagine two trains driving into q
station at the same time, and then
two expresses passing each other ex-
actly between the locals, and you will
have some faint idea of the terrible
atmospheric swirl set up between the
flying expresses.
A few years ago party of eight
workmen were all killed in the Now
York Central tunnel that brings
trains to the center of New York
city. The track workers in the Sub.
way had narrow escape from like
fate.
Only few weeks since Charles
Koepke and Il. S. Nicholson we're
fellow-employees in the Subway.
One night in February they we're
together at their task when Nichol-
son, busily employed in some tritiing
repairs, found himself prone on the
track with an express within few
feet of him. He could not save him
self, but Koepke seized him and by
main strength dragged him from
under the flying wheels, which grazed
Nicholson's feet. Both men were
almost overcome by the occurrence,
but resumed their work after few
moments rest.
Such things are part of the
trackman's life, and within an hour
or two the first shock had worn off
and the men were joking over the
escape. Little did they foresee even
the most immediate future. Barely
six hours had elapsed when the men
were again together at One Hundred
and Twenty-second street. This time
Koepke was on the fatal track. With
cry Nicholson sprang to his aid.
His hands touched his jumper when
the train struck Koepke, and tore him
from his grasp. Before Nicholson's
eyes lay the bruised and torn body of
the man who had, less than six hours
ago, saved his life from the same
ever-present danger.
On January 8 Louis Schmidt,
young man of %, was testing the
tracks at Seventy-sixth street. The
south bound express speeding from
Harlem dashed down upon him.
With Henry Taffe, a fellow work
man, he leaped for safety. In the
roar of the Bridge express they did
not hear the other avalanche of de-
struction, and Schmidt was crushed.
Taffe barely escaped, the cars grazing
him as he threw himself back toward
the protecting line of pillars that
separated the expresses.
Just week before Koepke met
his death in the Lenox avenue branch
of the tunnel, Patrick Flynn, an
other trackwalker, dazed by the glare
Of headlights in the gloom and the
rush and racket of trains, made the
fatal misstep and lost his life at
Eighty y-seventh street.
The express ran clear down TO
eventy.second street before it
stopped to find whether he was dead
or alive. The accident was then re-
ported, but Flynn's body lay three
quarters of an hour where it had
been thrown by the train before any
one went to search for him.
Even if prompt aid could have
saved his life, the rules of the Sub
way wouldn't have allowed him to
live. Schedules must be lived up to,
no matter whether the twenty-one
cents an hour man who risks his life
ten hours day wins or loses.
SAVED AND THEN LOST.
The gallant soldier, the gallant
fighter by land or sea, is sure of
praise from the popnlace. But
what of the other mantle man
who tolls in the shadow of the
valley of death ? Underneath the
ground he plods his way, every
sense strung to the final point of
strain, facing for ten hours each day
the dread presence and, oftener than
he cares to think about it, evading