Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-01-28

Written for The Star.
This was the way that the word came
of the wreck.
1t was a few minutes past midnight. The
operator at Harpsburg reached under the
grimy table on which his instruments had
been noisly scolding away. pulled therefrom
a dinner pail and leisurely began tnvesti-
eating its contents He was a New Eng
lander by birth. Naturally, the first hing
that he selected for storage beneath his
belt was a generous slice of home made
pumpkin pie.
"U-m-m-m." he said. softly, as he ten
derby lifted the pie out of the pail. His
watering mouth had all but closed on the
first bite. when there suddenly came the
sharp sound of hurrying feet at the west
end of the station platform. In all the ten
years that he had been night operator at
HARRISBURG he had never before been so
rudely disturbed.
Peering out of the bay window, COM
manding a full sweep of the platform IN
either direction, the operator made out the
runner to be man. The next moment, as
he came within reach of the station lamps
rays, the operator saw that the man wore
the railroad uniform. He also saw that the
mans face was drawn and deadly white.
not purpled, as 1t should have been, by his
evident sustained exertion.
The operator sprang to the door and
opened it. sprang back to his key and
opened that The runner staggered in AS
he caught his breath for the first word the
operator was already calling the dispatcher
of the division.
wreck gasped the stranger, hoarsely.
Three miles-down the road. Number 10
He involuntarily wavered toward the chair
drawn up beside the operator Bad Both
tracks-blocked The dispatcher was now
on the wire and receiving the news. Many
killed" And, his duty done, the man col
lapsed into the chair. his head sinking
gently into the operators generous slice or
homemade pie.
1t was not the exertion of running the
three miles that had caused the man to
faint dead away. When the village ooetor
had appeared in response to the operators
insstent halloos, the latter learned that ms
pie had been suuashed all over the table
because the still unconscious man in his
office had run three miles with broken
arm.
Summoning the Railroad Forces
In the meantime this was the way that
the dispatch at division headquarters in
Pomona Immediately set in motion the ma
chinery that a great railroad always en-
ploys to alleviate, as far as human beings
can, the consequences of a railroad wreck
Number TO- was a through passenger.
1t almost invariably left Pomona, the roads
terminal heavily loaded. The dispatcher
turned to the telephone at his elbow. He
first summoned his chief, the superintend-
ent of the division. A few seconds later
he was ordering the boss of the Wrecking
crew to turn out his men at once-a division
wreckng boss is always in constant touch
with his men, who live near by. The round
house was notified to get out a locomotive
for the wrecking train. Ting-a-iing went
the bell near the head of that sleeping
local doctor who is the railroad surgeon for
Pomona. AS he started 10 scramble into
his clothes the Pullman people were told
to rush blankets, sheets and mattresses to
the wrecking train all but ready to start
the dining car department had begun pre-
pairing gallons of stimulating hot coffee,
while r4e local hospital nearest to the rail-
road yards had started supply of lint,
bandages, antiseptics and medicines on its
way to the wrecking train.
As the first of the rescuers were hurrying
to the station the wife of the railroad sur
geon was busy notifying her husbands
fellow practitioners to proceed at once to
the depot after soaring up all the available
Nurse. The superintendent wife was
gagged in similar work So were several
men in the dispatchers office. The dis
patcher, with mental picture of his
tire division before him, was busy issuing
the necessary orders to tie up all trains at
convenient points till the tracks could be
cleared, and to assure a clear track for the
wrecking train all the way to the scene of
the wreck, forty-five miles away.
No wilder night ride ever made than
the one that was experienced, during the
forty-two minutes that it lasted, by the
wreckng crew.
At the Wreck.
Since the wreck three miles distant
from the nearest telegraph station, one of
the first things that the superintendent did
on assuming charge to see to it that
telegraphic communication with the dis
patcher was opened by the side of the
wreck. The surviving trainmen, the unin-
jured passengers and the band of yolun-
teers from Harpsburg had already, under
the direction of the badly bruised but
plucky conductor. been doggedly carrying
on the work of rescue. Indeed. with wreck
age piled all about them, with groans and
shrieks and pleas and curses issuing from
every part of the debris, with fire to COM
bat with only the dim light of lanterns
to work with after the blaze had been
miraculously got under control, they had
accomplished wonders. Ten bodies had been
laid in a row on the embankment short
distance from the wreck. The lone doc
tor from Harpsburg was treating dozen
badly injured victims who had been re-
leased from their perilous prisons and
placed on bedding from the one unframed
Pullman of the train And from the little
stream that trickled at the foot of the
steep embankment braye women were car
rying water in hats-in anything that would
hold the precious HQuid--to the parched
lips of the sufferers.
Under the skilled guidance of the super
intendent, who saw reason for sum-
moning his immediate superior, the work
speedily became scientifically systematic
BY the time the second rescue train arrived
with sufficient doctors, nurses, medicines
and dressings, most of the dead and in
jured had been removed from the wreckage,
the locomotive having been lifted by the
gigantic crane of the wrecking train One
track also had been opened.