Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-10-14

| building opposite, the young illustrator had
no time to make inquiries just then. though
| later he learned that it came from careless
| repair work on the foundations Later he
| found that the train he was to take for
! Cleveland would not leave by the Baltimore
| and Potomac. but by the Baltimore and
Ohio. It was to be a special, made up OF
two Pullman cars, one for newspaper men
and one for the members of an organization
that was going to the funeral at Cleveland
in body. The special was to travel ahead
of the funeral train so as to give the cor
respondents a chance to see and report the
arrival of the latter.
A Blazing Train.
This train" said the alert man, awas
profusely decorated outside with crepe: a
good deal of time had been spent on the
draping, and it presented really handsome
appearance. But it was to roll into the sta
ton at Cleveland in a woeful state.
In order to get ahead of the funeral
train, which had already left. the special
had to be run at smashing gait, much
faster, indeed, than the rails of the Balti-
more and Ohio, hardly any other rail-
road. were then in shape TO carry. By the
time We were nearing Harper's Ferry the
division superintendent who was sitting
with me in the smoking room of the news
paper Pullman. said were going a sew
enty-f mile-an-hour clip, and l guess We
were
Most of the correspondents were asleep
at the time though it was not late, they
were thoroughly tired out by the hard work
of the three or four days just past, and,
being seasoned veterans, could take their
rest when they needed 1t and could get the
chance. 1. being unused to the situation
could not sleep, and was discussing with
the division superintendent the probability
of accidents on fast specials.
He had just assured me that there was
such proba bility, for the good and suffi-
cient reason, as he said, that specials, being
out of the roads ordinary train routine,
49, fnlNN
regular trains. The words had hardly got
out of his mouth before sparks began to
fly in at the open window, and in moment
a tongue of flame was roaring through the
aperture.
The superintendent sat just where he
got the full benefit of the blaze, and for
brief time he jumped up and down, danced
about and yelled, as If scared half out of
his skin.
Presently, however. his self-possession
reasserted itself; he pulled the bell rope for
the emergency brake, and both fell at
the work of putting out the fire that had
been started in the smoking room. | re-
member that I used my stiff straw hat,
which 1 had recovered in Washington, to
carry water from the cooler in.
The sudden stoppage of the train threw
some of the correspondents out of their
berths, and a highly excited lot they were
for a short time but not half so wrought
up the negroes who lived alongside the
track. What had happened was this:
tLaboring to make the great speed which
was necessary, the engine of the special
threw out a perfect stream of sparks which
of themselves made the train look like
flying torch. Some of these sparks had
caught in the crepe draperies. and almost
instantly. the whole mass of outside deco
rations had taken fire. The negroes had
been watching for the Garfield train and
were tremendously dsmayed when it ar
rived, apparently on fire from end to end.
However they buckled down and helped put
the fire out. Train hands, negroes and pas
sengers combineds the amateur fire brigade
was a pretty respectable one as to num-
bers, and the flames were extinguished in a
surprisingly short time.