Trainman's Daring Act

TRAINMAN'S DARING ACT

Coupled Runaway Cars to Engine While Both Were Running at High Speed.

A most peculiar accident happened some time ago on the Missouri Pacific road at Lexington, Mo.

A freight train reached that station about noon, and the train hands went across the way to a lunch stand for something to eat. On returning from luncheon the fireman and one of the brakemen, being a little in advance of the others, discovered that three empty flat cars which for convenience sake had been placed in front of the engine, had disappeared and so far as the eye could reach down the line were not visible.

They knew that the cars must have broken away or had been released from the engine by some mischievous person and sent spinning down the grade as fast as they could go into the face of a passenger train which was due at the next station in a few minutes. So they disconnected the engine from the rest of the train, jumped aboard, pulled wide open the throttle and started on a race for life after those cars.

Three miles below was a curve. On turning this they could see the three flat cars about three miles ahead, bouncing and jumping along, swaying from side to side and making the very best time they could. The fireman, acting as engineer, realized that he must catch those cars in the next five minutes or it was all up with the passenger train, which was coming toward them only a few miles away. He pulled the throttle wide open; the brakeman, acting as fireman, worked like a Trojan, shoveling in the coal, and away the engine sped, and nearer the runaway cars they came.

Looking over and ahead of them, they could see the express just coming into Aullville. As they drew nearer the cars the brakeman climbed out of his cab window, a coupling pin in his hand, making his way along the side of the engine to the pilot In front. Reaching over and grasping the pilot bar with one hand, he raised it and, with a coupling pin in the other, stood ready to make the connection. The fireman at the throttle waited for the signal. He saw a hand come out from the side of the engine, which told him the connection was made. He quickly reversed his lever, and in a few seconds they came to a standstill.