I was braking on the Jonesville branch. The regular engineer was laid off so they called Elmer Williams. We took six coal cars and a baggage car a mile and a half up a five percent grade to the top of a hill. We did our switching, got our loads and then began to head back down the mountain. Elmer had a reputation of going fast and we were going pretty fast on this trip. I really didn't know what to do, but the train just got going faster and faster. The smoke was boiling off the brakes and just out of control.
Now down at the bottom you have to go around a real sharp curve. The fireman was the first one to jump off the train. He got off way at the top. So we're going down that hill and we don't know what to do. If you wait too long to get off, you can't get off. And if you hang on there too long then you got to go around that real sharp curve.
I'm trying to make up my mind and I see the baggage man laying out there in the weeds. He yells up at me, "Get off! There's no air!" So I didn't waster any time. I went down the stirrup and bailed off and tumbled to the ground.
When the rest of the train went by, I saw the conductor
crawling over the coal. I knew he was going to get off. Then he bailed off.
They did derail down there. A hopper leaned over quite a way and it lifted the
flange up and it rocked back and the trucks went off on the inside of the rail.
It didn't come uncoupled, but did tear out a couple of switches and a bunch
of track.
At the hearing, the superintendent, J. T. Cunningham asked us how fast we were going. As it turns out, no one knew how fast. They asked the fireman why he jumped off at the top. He replied, "The regular engineer told me that if we are every going over 10 or 15 miles an hour when we cross this bridge here, you're running away. So you need to bail off."
The superintendent kept asking us how fast we were going. The men replied, "thirty", "thirty-five", "when I got off it was forty." This made Elmer really mad that we were telling the superintendent how fast we were going. Elmer pounded the table and said, "At no time was I going over 10 or 15 miles an hour."
We did get a couple days off because the track was all tore up. After they got the track fixed, we went back up. So we went into the roadhouse and asked the bartender if he was there when the runaway came down the hill. "Yes I was!", he replied. So we asked him how fast the train was going. He said, "It was doing 70 mile an hour when he whistled for the crossing."
They never fired anybody and nobody got hurt. It was a spooky ride.
There was a poor old passenger in the baggage car too. That baggage-man bailed off and the passenger looks out the door and all he can see is guys taking for the weeds. That poor old passenger rode her out. when he got off that train, he caught a bus to town. He never got back on a train.
© 2004 Jim Reekie