Careers of Danger and Daring Part 32

"Oh, some idea. Prob'ly forgot where she was. Nice lady. Makes a man sick."

"Tell ye what I think," said Lewis. "I think there's women start across a track to take a chance. If they get hit it's all right, and if they don't it's all right. Same as girls pull leaves off a flower to see if some fellow loves 'em. There was--"

"She didn't do that," put in Bronson.

"I don't say she did, but some might. There was a woman up at Larchmont walked across in front of me the other day. Had a baby, too, in her arms. Now, why should a woman start over four tracks just as I was coming, and walk slow, if she didn't want to take a chance? Mind you, I was on the far side, and she had to cross three tracks before she got to mine. And all the time I had the whistle wide open. Why, a dog would have heard that whistle and got out o' the way."

"Did you--" I began.

"Hit her? I didn't know at the time, it was such a close call. Thought I had, but I found out afterward she got past--by the skin of her teeth.

Bet you she'd had some trouble. Thought she might as well quit the game and take the baby along. Then, mebbe, she was glad when she got across safe."

"Can't tell," reflected Bronson.

"I b'lieve there's such a thing as people getting drawn to a train. I don't mean by the suction, but drawn by the idea of its going so blamed fast and being so strong, especially people sick or down on their luck.

Now, last year I was coming through Rye one morning, and as I struck the bridge after that reverse curve I saw two young fellows running along the No. 3 track away from me. I was on No. 1 track, so they were all right, but as I came up they both swung over to No. 1, and I cut 'em all to bits. Turned out they were a couple of lads that had tramped it down from Boston, goin' to enlist. They were weak and hungry, and I think they just gave up to the train because they couldn't help it."

"Might be," said Bronson.

"Tell ye who was the nerviest man I ever killed," went on Lewis. "Fellow in West Haven. Say, but we were coming that night! Northampton express, ye know, and a down grade over the salt meadows. First thing I knew a man was standing at the side of the track, fairly close, but not where he'd get hit. I thought he was some friend of mine in West Haven trying to make me whistle. But when I got near him, say a hundred feet away, he stepped out between the rails and stood there a few seconds with his arms lifted and a smile on his face--quite a pretty smile. Then, just as I was on him he turned and knelt between the rails. I got the brakes on quick as I could, emergency and everything, but I couldn't stop her in less than a length and a half, and--well, I guess you don't want to know what that engine looked like when I went over her."

"I know," said Bronson, "they scatter something terrible. Say, I've noticed that sort of pleasant look in their faces, too. Once I was waiting on a siding, and a man came up and spoke to me very polite, and wanted to know if I'd please give him a drink of water. I told him the water in my tank was too warm to drink, but I let him have my cup and showed him where there was a spring right near. He thanked me and walked over to it, and I watched him bend down and take two good drinks, then he brought the cup back and thanked me again.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "DRAWN BY THE IDEA OF ITS GOING SO BLAMED FAST AND BEING SO STRONG."]

"'Any train along here soon?' he asked.

"'Which way?' said I.

"'Don't matter which way,' said he.

"'There's an up train due now,' said I; 'she's the one I'm waiting for.'

"'Is she a fast train?' he asked.

"'Fair,' said I; ''bout fifty an hour along here.'

"'That's good,' said he, and I wondered what he meant. He seemed like a nice man.

"Pretty soon along came the up train, and I saw him run down the track to meet her. Then he stopped, faced sideways, and let himself fall square across the rails. Say, I was mighty glad I'd fixed it so he had that drink of water. That was his last drink."

"Queer how they like to be hit by a fast express," reflected Lewis, "when a slow freight would do just as well. Now, that man at West Haven, the one who took it kneeling down, he'd waited around the tracks all day--the section-gang saw him--and he wasn't doing a thing but picking out a train fast enough for him. He'd stand ready for one, but when she'd turn out to be an accommodation or something slow he'd step away.

Didn't propose to shake hands with anything under fifty an hour. Mine was the first one suited him."

"Do you ever think of their faces?" I asked; "ever see them at night--the way they looked when you struck them!"

"No," said Bronson; "can't say I ever do."

Neither did Lewis. And I judge that engine-drivers are not deeply affected by these sad occurrences. Which is fortunate, for few escape them. Indeed, in going about from engine to engine I found the following dialogue repeated over and over again:

"Ever in a collision?"

"No, sir."

"Ever go off the track?"

"No, sir."

"Ever kill anybody?"

"Oh, yes. Why, only last week I struck a--" Then would follow a story of sudden death. And they all spoke in a kindly but matter-of-fact way, as if these swift executions were part of their business. And I have it from a veteran that any engine-driver would sooner hit a man than a hog, for a hog is very apt to wreck the train; a hog is worse than a horse, whereas a man makes no trouble; he simply gets killed.

Near the roaring round-house at Mott Haven is another interesting place--the "Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation Car," which is not a car at all, but a dingy shed built of four cars, and serving as lunch-room, wash-room, reading-room, and sleeping-room for men of the trains. This is a homely refuge spot, where any morning we may meet engineers resting after a hard night's run or making ready to go out again. Let us drop in and join one of the groups.

Here is a man telling about the mad run "Big Arthur" made the other night down from Albany. We get just the tail of the story: "So the superintendent he ripped around about how they were twenty-seven minutes late, and Big Arthur he sat in the cab and never said a word. 'Now,'

says the superintendent, rather sarcastic, 'I suppose you know this is the Empire State Express you're running?' 'Yep,' says Big Arthur. 'Well, do you know what time she's supposed to pull into the Grand Central?'

'Yep,' says Big Arthur again, and that's all he did say; but, holy smoke! how they went! Had those porters on the private car scared green!

A hundred miles an hour some o' the way, and they came in on time to the dot. Oh, you can't beat these new engines with the fire-box over the trailer; but say, wasn't that great when Big Arthur snapped out 'Yep' to the old man?"

I asked if I might see Big Arthur, and one of the engineers said he'd be along pretty soon, and in the meantime he told me about the individuality of locomotives: how one is good-tempered and willing, while another is cranky; how the same locomotive will act differently at different times, just as people have whims, and how some locomotives are fated to ill luck, so that n.o.body wants to drive them.

"Take these ten new engines the company's just put on. They're the finest and strongest made, a whole lot better than the ones we've thought were wonders on the Empire State. They're beauties, and all exactly alike, measurements all the same; but every one of 'em has its own points, good and bad. One will go faster than another with just the same steam. One will pull a heavier load with less coal. And very likely there'll be some kind of a hoodoo on one of 'em. Takes time, though, to find out these things. It's like getting acquainted with a man."

Other men came in now, and the talk changed to accidents. I asked if an engineer plans ahead what he will do in a collision. It seemed reasonable that a man always under such menace would have settled his mind on some prospective action. But they laughed at the idea, and declared that an engineer can no more tell how he will act in an emergency than the ordinary citizen can say what he would do in a fire, or how he would meet a burglar. One engineer would jump, another would stick to his throttle, and the chances of being killed were as good one way as the other.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "CONVICTS HAD REVOLVERS ALL RIGHT THAT TRIP AND DENNY THREW UP HIS HANDS."]

The mention of a burglar led one of the new-comers to tell of William Powell's adventure with some Sing Sing convicts. Powell was the oldest engineer on the New York Central. He died a year ago, and this thing happened back in the seventies. It seems there was a trestle over the track about half a mile below the Sing Sing station, and on this trestle some convicts working in the quarry used to run little cars loaded with stone and dump them into the larger cars underneath. Of course, they worked under the surveillance of well-armed guards.

On one occasion, however, four or five convicts out-witted the guards by dropping from the trestle upon the tender of a moving locomotive, and the first thing the engineer knew he was set upon by a band of desperate men, who covered him and his fireman with revolvers. At the same moment half a dozen shots rang out, and bullets came cras.h.i.+ng through the cab sides from the guards firing at random after the fleeing engine.

Altogether it was quite the reverse of pleasant for William Powell.

"Out you go now, quick!" said the convicts; "we'll run this engine ourselves."

The engine was No. 105, Powell's pride and pet, and he could not bear to have unregenerate hands laid upon her, so he spoke up very politely: "Let me run her for you, gentlemen; I'll go wherever you say."

They agreed to this, and some distance down the line left the engine and departed into the woods.

"And the joke of it was," concluded the narrator, "that the revolvers those convicts had were made of wood painted black, and couldn't shoot any more than the end of a broom! It was a big bluff, but it worked."

"Wasn't any bluff when Denny Ca.s.sin got held up at Sing Sing," said another engineer. "Convicts had revolvers all right that trip, and Denny threw up his hands same as any man would. That was twenty years ago, on old engine 89. It was right at the Sing Sing station, and three of 'em jumped into the cab all of a sudden and told Denny to open her up, and you bet he did. Then they told him to jump, and he jumped; but first he managed to fix her tank-valves so she'd pump herself full of water and stop before she'd gone far. That was Denny's great scheme, and he walked along laughing to think how mad those convicts would be in a few minutes.

"It turned out, though, that Denny spoiled a nice trap they'd laid up at Tarrytown to catch those fellows when they got there. You see, the telegraph operator wired up the line that a runaway locomotive was coming with three escaped convicts on her, and the train despatcher at Tarrytown just set the switch so the locomotive would sail plump over a twelve-foot stone embankment down into the Hudson River. That's what would have happened to those convicts if Denny had left his tank-valves alone, but, of course, 89 got water-logged long before she reached Tarrytown; she just kicked out her cylinder-ends a few miles up the track and stopped. Then the convicts climbed down and skipped away. Two of 'em got caught afterward, but there was one they never caught."

Presently somebody reported that Big Arthur was out in the round-house, getting 2994 ready to take out the Empire State. It was clear enough that Big Arthur was an important figure in the eyes of these begrimed men, and, setting forth across the yards, I came upon him presently, torch in hand, looking over his deep, purring locomotive against the dangers of the run. Another engineer by the fire-box was discussing a theory of some of the boys, that a man can run his locomotive by his sense of time as well as by a watch.

"Denny Ca.s.sin says he'd agree to take the Empire State from Albany to New York and keep her right on the dot all the way, and bring her in on the minute, just by _feeling_. What d' ye think of that?"