Palestine daily herald. [volume] (Palestine, Tex.) 1902-1949, 1907-09-09
FIRE WAS DISCOVERED
ON THE BAY BRIDGE

The guardian angels seemingly how
er over the narrow trestle connecting
Galveston Island with the mainland,
at all times protecting the thousands
of people who travel back and forth
each week. There must be a guardian
angel, for no other agency could be
expected to have caused the success
that the Santa Fe has for years met
in avoiding disasters of a serious ma
ture on the single structure that not
only forms the only outlet from the
city to the mainland, but takes care
of enormous traffic of one of the coun-
try's leading ports.
II cannot be said that the unexpect-
ed happened yesterday when the
bridge caught fire and delayed traffic
for over an hour. What has happened
once can happen again, particularly
when the same conditions exist, and
II is generally admitted that no great
er precautions are now exercised than
have been in the past in preventing
fire. Yesterdays fire, which forum
ately resulted in no loss of life or in
jury, and in but slight damage to the
bridge, is the second one within the
past eighteen months, and proves be-
yond a doubt that commerce and life
are constantly menaced by the single
string of piles and stringers that
poses as a substantial structure.
The Santa Fe train known as The
Seawall Special" a local Sunday train
running between Houston and this
city, and which left Houston at '1:25
p. m, had reached a point about 1000
feet from the drawbridge on the Vir-
ginia Point side when the feed pipe
which supplies the furnace of the en-
CINE with oil broke The oil imme-
diately began pouring into the ash
nan beneath the furnace and ignited
In moments time the pan had be
come full and the burning oil was run
ming onto the ties and stringers of the
trestle. The fire spread very rapidly.
and before IL was extinguished It had
spread itself over two bents of the
structure. The fire was extinguished
with buckets, the water from the bay
being used The fire started about
2:25.
The fact that the second section of
the Galveston. Houston & Henderson
from Houston came m Immediately
behind the Santa Fe train probably
prevented a disaster. When the
feed pipe of the Santa Fe engine part
ed the engine Immediately became
dead" and the fire that had started
DazefI -1.77tf, s.stls 4 kc.s.
move backward or forward, the lives
OF more than two hundred passengers.
for the most part Sunday excursion
lists. were in imminent danger With
the fire eating its way toward the oil
tank in the tender. an explosion would
have set fire to the cars behind
and destroyed the bridge was among
the possibilities. and It is the belief
Of the passengers with whom the
News reporter talked that It was the
Galveston. Houston & Henderson that
saved the day Some ten or fifteen
minutes after the fire started the lat
ter train was on the scene. The
Santa Fe was coupled TO the Calves
ton. Houston & Henderson train and
pulled back to Virginia Point
Despite the fact that the news of
the fire quickly became circulated
among the passengers of the train. no
excitement apparently was displayed.
Had the passengers became panic
stricken It is more than likely that
lives would have been lost. The only
exit from the train was from the rear.
and the rush through an opening Just
large enough for one would undoubt-
eddy have resulted fatally That a
panic did not ensue as a result of the
knowledge Of the fire seems remark
able-Galveston News.