Jamestown Alert

SEVENTY-FIVE MILES AN HOUR.
AN ENGINEER'S STORY.

I had spent the night in a stage, a day in the saddle, a night in the sleeping car, half a day doing business, half a day in bed, and was, after supper, enjoying a cigar and a newspaper, in the reading room of the Redwood house, Fayette, Ind. The newspaper was uninteresting, or else I was rather sleepy—and I guess it was a little of both—so that I soon neglected it, to watch the fantastic curling of the smoke from my fine flavored cigar. I didn't feel much like talking, and felt still less like reading; but I did feel as if I would like exceedingly well to hear a good story.

I had barely come to this conclusion and commenced wishing for some one of my acquaintances to amuse me till the time was up for the train which was to take me to Indianapolis, when I recognized, in the person who sat next to me, a fellow-traveler in the sleeping-car of the night before.

He, too, had laid aside his paper, and was apparently, like me, watching the smoke of his cigar, and wishing for absent friends to keep him company.

He was a very agreeable-looking little man, with a clear, gray eye, light hair, sandy whiskers and smiling mouth. Indeed, he had so much the appearance of the man that I would like to hear tell a story that I thought Dame Fortune had smiled upon me, when he recognized me with a genial: "How d'ye do, stranger?"

I returned his salutation, and asked him some common-place questions about how he had enjoyed the ride we had together.

He said something in reply about the running being too fast for the poor track; and from this the conversation ran upon fast traveling in general for some time. At last I remarked, that sixty miles an hour was the most speedy traveling that I had ever done. Whereupon my friend informed me, with a pleasant but knowing smile, that he had traveled considerably faster than that, and, in fact, faster than he had ever heard of, besides. Of course I was anxious to know where, how, and when he had done it; and, after the modest assurance that he feared his tale would not be interesting, my friend relieved my anxiety by relating the following story:

I am a railroad engineer. Away along in fifty-seven, during the great panic, I was running on the F. & C. R. R. The railroad companies were going under, in all directions. Every day we heard of new failures; and quite often in a quarter where we least expected it. Our road was generally looked upon as one of the most substantial in the nation; nobody seemed to have any fears that it would fail to survive the general smash-up. But yet I did not fully share in the general confidence. Wages were cut down; arrearages collected; and a great many other little matters seemed to indicate to me that the road had got in rather deep water than was agreeable all around. Among other things, the master mechanic had told me in the spring that the company had ordered four first quality Taunton engines for the fall passenger business. The road was put in the very best condition, and other preparations were made, to cut down the time and put trains through quicker than was ever known before, when the new engines should come. Well, there was but one of the engines came.

I said there was but one engine came; but she was, in my opinion, altogether the best ever turned out of the Taunton works: and that is saying as much as can be said in praise of any engine. She was put in my charge immediately, with the understanding that she was mine. It was Saturday when she came out of the shop, and I was to take a special train up to Y—. The train was to carry up the president and several of the other officials of the road, to meet some officers of another road, which crossed ours there, and arrange some important business with them.

I had no trouble at all in making my forty miles an hour going out. The engine handled herself most beautifully. We were just holding up at Y—, when Aldrich, the treasurer, who had come out on the platform to put the brake on; slipped and fell. As we were yet under good headway, he was much injured, and was carried off to the hotel insensible.

According to the president's instructions, I switched off my train, turned my engine, and stood ready to start back to C— at any moment's notice.

Aldrich's presence was of so much importance that the business could not be transacted without him; so all those I had brought out except the president and Aldrich, went back to C— on the three o'clock express train. This was the last regular train which was to pass over the road until the next Monday.

Early in the evening I left the machine in charge of my fireman and went over to an eating house to see if I could not spend the time more pleasantly than on my engine. The hours dragged themselves away slowly. I was playing a game of dominoes with the station agent when in come Roberts, the president, in a state of great excitement.

"Harry,' said he to me. 'I want you to put me down in C— at twelve o'clock."

As it was nearly eleven o'clock then, and the distance was then seventy-five miles, I thought he was joking at first: but when we got outside the door he caught me by the arm and hurried me along so fast that I saw he was in earnest.

"Harry,' said he, 'if you don't set me down in C— by twelve o'clock, I am a ruined man, and this road is a ruined road. Aldrich is dead, but he told me, before he died, that he had embezzled, from time to time, five hundred thousand of our money; and his clerk is to start with it on the twelve o'clock boat, from C— for Canada. If we don't have that money on Monday morning, to make some payments with, the road goes into other hands; and if you put me down in C— at the right time, so that I save the money, you shall have five thousand dollars. Understand it, Harry? Five thousand dollars!'

Of course, I understood it. I saw now the reason why the wages had been cut down; I understood it all, and my blood boiled. I felt that I would save the road if I lived, and told Roberts so.

" 'See that you do it, Harry !' he replied as he climbed up on to the steps of the coach which was coupled to my engine.

I sprang up into the foot board, got the switch-tender to help my fireman, opened the throttle, and just as she commenced moving, looked at my watch—it had just struck eleven o'clock, so that I had the hour to make my seventy-five miles in.

From Y— to C— there were few curves on the road; but there were several heavy grades. I was perfectly acquainted with every rod of it; so that I knew exactly what I had to encounter; and when I saw how the engine moved, I felt very little fear of the result.

The road for the first five miles, was an air-line, and so we flew along with scarcely a perceptible jar. I was so busy, posting myself up, as to the amount of wood and water aboard, etc., that we danced by the first station almost before I was aware of it, having been five minutes out, and having five miles accomplished.

" 'You are losing time!' yelled a voice from the coach. I looked around, and there stood Roberts with his watch in his hand.

I knew very well we would have to increase our speed by some means, if we carried out our plans of reaching C— by midnight, and looked anxiously around to see what I could do to accomplish that purpose. She was blowing off steam fiercely at one hundred and ten pounds; so I turned down the valve to two hundred, for I knew we should need it all to make some of the heavy grades which lay between us and C—.

It was three miles to the next station. With the exception of a few curves the track was as good as the last. As we darted around, what commonly seemed to be a rather long curve, at the station, but which was, at our high speed, short enough, I looked at my watch; and we had done it in two minutes and a half.

" 'Gaining,' I shouted back to Roberts, who was yet standing on the platform of the coach.

" 'Look out for the heavy grades,' he replied, and went inside the car.

The next six miles rose gradually from a level the first, to ten and a half feet grade the last, which lay between us and the next station. My fireman kept her full; and now she began to get hot. The furnace door was red, and the steam raised continually, so that she kept her speed, and passed the station, like a streak of light, in five minutes.

Now came nine miles like the last, over which she kept pace with her time, and passed the station in seven and a half minutes.

Here, for ten miles, we had a twenty-foot grade to encounter; but the worst of it all was, at that place we would be obliged to stop for wood. I was just going to speak to Roberts about it, when I looked around, and saw him filling the tender from the coach with wood, which had been placed there before starting, while he was gone after me.

I believe we would have made this ten miles at the same speed as before, but, through the carelessness of the fireman, the fountain-valve, on the left hand side of the engine, got open and the water rose in the boiler so fast as to run the steam down to one hundred pounds before I discovered where the difficulty lay. At first, Roberts didn't appear to notice the decrease of speed, and kept at work at the wood as if for dear life. But presently he looked up, and seeing that the speed had decreased, he shouted: "Harry, we are stopping!' and then, coming over to where I was, he said: 'Why, here we have been ten minutes on the last ten miles, and I believe we will come to a dead stand if something is not done. The speed is continually slacking! What is the matter?'

I explained the cause. He was apparently satisfied with my explanation, and after having tied down the safety-valve he climbed back over the tender, exhorting me to put her through, for God's sake, or we are all beggars together?'

Just then we passed the next station, having taken nine minutes for eight miles. We were now more than half over the road; but we had lost nearly ten minutes time, and had left only twenty-seven minutes to do thirty-four miles in.

I had shut the water off from both my pumps, a little distance back, when I discovered what was the matter, and she was now making steam finely down a slight grade, from less than one hundred, with which we started over that ten-mile stretch, she had two hundred pounds before we finished it; and, as the gauge indicated no higher than that and the valve was tied down, I could not tell how much over two hundred pounds she carried, but she certainly carried none less the rest of the journey. And well might she carry such an enormous head of steam; for, after passing over that ten miles in eight minutes, there lay ten miles of five-feet up-grade, and fourteen miles of twenty-feet-to-the-mile depression between us and C—, and it is now eleven o'clock and forty-seven minutes. Now the engine was hot in earnest. The furnace door, smoke-arch and chimney, all were red; while she seemed to fly on as if the very evil one himself operated her machinery.

Six minutes carried us over that ten miles: and we darted by the last station that had lain between us and C—. Now we had fourteen miles to go; and my time showed eleven o'clock and fifty-three minutes.

" 'If I live,' said I to myself, 'I will make it,' and we plunged down that twenty-foot grade with all the steam on. Persons who saw the train on that wild run, said that it was so soon after they heard the first sound of her approach when the strange object, which looked as if it were a flame of fire, darted by, and then the sound of its traveling died away in the distance, that they could hardly convince themselves they had really seen anything. It seemed more like the creature of a wild dream than a sober reality.

And now let me tell you, that no engine ever beat the time we made on those fourteen miles. Those great wheels, seven feet in diameter, spun around so swift that you couldn't begin to count the revolutions. The engine barely seemed to touch the track as she flew along; and although the track was as true as it was possible for it to be, she swayed fearfully, and sometimes made such prodigious jolts that it required considerable skill for one to keep his feet. No engine could hold together if crowded to a greater speed.

Well, just as I came to a standstill in the depot at C—, the big clock boomed out twelve, and the steamboat was getting her steam on. Roberts got on board in time and nothing to spare."

"And he saved the money, did he?" I asked, when I saw that my friend had finished his story.

"Yes; he found it hid away in some old boxes, as Aldrich had directed him."

"If you are the passenger for G—.," said a waiter, "the bus is ready."

So I thanked my friend for his story and bade him "good-by."