A Mile A Minute Down A Mountain Grade

A Mile a Minute Down A Mountain Grade

A mlle a minute down a steep mountain side was made in a life and death race by L. C. Cox, a St. Louis railway clerk, who, with his sister, was visiting a hamlet in the Pennsylvania mountains. His sister was suddenly taken ill in the night with heart failure. and the nearest doctor was at Fort Loudon six miles away.

With the assistance of several companions Mr. Cox procured a band car as the most expeditious way to reach the doctor.

The railway track was crooked and rough. At the start there was a down grade for a short distance, and then there was a steep climb for almost a half mile, after which it was down hill until within a half mile of Fort Loudon.

After pumping the band car over the rise it began to gain headway on the down grade. Soon it was going at frightful speed. Soon a curve appeared before them in the darkness. The rails took on the shape of n huge letter S. It was a reverse curve. They were going at least a mile a minute, and it seemed as if the car would surely jump the track.

The men on the car were jostled against one another and often fell on the handles with force enough to make painful bruises, but at the time they did not feel them.

After what seemed a journey of hours they had rounded the curve and were shooting down a straight piece of track. They felt comparatively safe then, for the lights of Fort Loudon could be seen ahead, and they knew that after another mile they would strike the up grade.

When they arrived at Port Loudon, Lafayette Cox looked at his watch and discovered that instead of the trip having taken at least an hour and a half, as it seemed to him, the journey had been made in just nine and a half minutes. Allowing for the slow progress in going up the hills, railroaders afterward estimated they had made at times considerably more than a mile a minute.

They took the doctor back on the car in time to bring Miss Cox out of her fainting spell.