CLEARING THE TRACK
Allan did his best to force himself to eat, but the strangeness of
the hour and the excitement of the promised adventure took all
desire for food from him. He managed, however, to drink a cup of
coffee, but his hands were trembling so with excitement he could
scarcely hold the cup. It was a wreck, and a bad one. How terrible
to lose a moment! He was eager to be off. But Jack knew from
experience the value and need of food while it could be obtained, in
view of what might be before them.
“It’ll take ’em some time t’ git’ th’ wreckin’-train ready,” he
said. “Git our waterproofs, Mary.”
But Mary had them waiting, as well as a lot of sandwiches. She had
been through such scenes before.
“There, stuff your pockets full,” she said to Allan. “You’ll want
’em.”
Jack nodded assent, and took his share.
“And now, good-bye, Mary,” said Jack. “No, don’t wake the baby. If
we git back by t’-morrer night, we’ll be lucky. Come on, Allan.”
The snow was still falling heavily as they left the house, and they
made their way with some difficulty to the corner of the yards where
the wrecking-train stood on its spur of siding. A score of
section-men had already gathered, and more were coming up every
minute. Nobody knew anything definite about the wreck—some one had
heard that Bill Miller, the engineer, was hurt. It seemed they were
taking a doctor along, for Allan saw his tall form in the uncertain
light. And the train-master and division superintendent were with
him, talking together in low tones.
Jack began checking off his men as they came up and reported.
An engine backed up and coupled on to the wrecking-train, and the
men slowly clambered aboard. The switch at the end of the siding was
opened.
“How many men have you got, Welsh?” asked Mr. Schofield, the
train-master.
“Thirty-six, so far, sir.”
“All right. We’ll pick up the gangs on Twenty-three and four as we
pass. Go ahead,” he shouted to the engineer. “We’ve got a clear
track to Vinton,” and he followed Allan and Jack up the steps into
the car.
There was a hiss of steam into the cylinders and the train pulled
slowly out upon the main track, the wheels slipping over the rails
at first, but gripping better as the train gathered headway and shot
eastward into the whirling snow. Operators, switchmen,
station-agents, flagmen, all looked out to see it pass. It had only
two cars—one, a long flat car loaded with ties and rails, piled with
ropes and jacks and crowbars. At one end stood the heavy steel
derrick, strong enough to lift even a great mogul of a
freight-engine and swing it clear of the track.
In the other car, which looked very much like an overgrown box-car,
was the powerful donkey-engine which worked the derrick, more tools,
a cooking-stove, and a number of narrow cots. Two oil-lanterns swung
from the roof, half-illuminating the faces of the men, who sat along
the edges of the cots, talking together in low tones.
At Byers, the section-gang from Twenty-three clambered aboard; at
Hamden came the gangs from Twenty-four and Twenty-five. Nearly sixty
men were crowded together in the car; but there was little noise. It
reminded Allan of a funeral.
And it was a funeral. The great railroad, binding East to West, was
lying dead, its back broken, useless, its circulation stopped. The
line was blocked, the track torn up—it was no longer warm, living,
vital. It had been torn asunder. It was a mere useless mass of wood
and steel. These men were hastening to resurrect it, to make it
whole again.
At McArthur the superintendent came aboard with a yellow paper in
his hand,—the conductor’s report of the accident,—and he and the
train-master bent their heads together over it. The men watched them
intently.
“Is it a bad one, sir?” asked Jack at last.
“Bad enough,” answered the superintendent. “It seems that first
Ninety-eight broke in two on the grade just beyond Vinton. Track so
slippery they couldn’t hold, and she ran back into the second
section. They came together in the cut at the foot of the grade, and
fifteen cars loaded with nut coal were wrecked. Miller seems the
only one hurt, but the track’s torn up badly.”
“Nut coal!” said Jack, with a whistle. “We’ve got our work cut out
for us, boys.”
The men nodded—they knew now what to expect. And they fell to
talking together in low tones, telling stories of past wrecks, of
feats of endurance in the breathless battle which always follows
when this leviathan of steel is torn asunder. But the superintendent
had used one word which Allan had not wholly understood, and he took
the first opportunity to ask Jack about it.
“What did Mr. Heywood mean, Jack,” he inquired, “when he said the
train broke in two?”
“That’s so,” and Jack laughed. “It’s your first one—I’d forgot that.
I wish it was mine,” and he forthwith explained just how the
accident had probably happened.
A “break-in-two” occurs usually as a train is topping a heavy grade.
The unusual strain breaks a coupling-pin or pulls out a draw-bar,
and the portion of the train released from the engine goes whirling
back down the grade, carrying death and destruction with it, unless
the crew can set the brakes and get it stopped. Or, on a down-grade,
a coupling-pin jumps out and then the two sections come together
with a crash, unless the engineer sees the danger in time, and runs
away at full speed from the pursuing section. It is only freights
that “break in two,” for passenger couplings are made heavy enough
to withstand any strain; besides, the moment a passenger-train
parts, the air-brakes automatically stop both sections. But to
freight crews there is no danger more menacing than the
“break-in-two,” although, happily, this danger is gradually growing
less and less, with the introduction of air-brakes on freight-cars
as well as passenger.
Freight-trains, when traffic is heavy, are usually run in sections,
with as many cars to each section as an engine can handle. The
sections are run as close together as they can be with safety, and,
in railroad parlance, the first section of Freight-train
Ninety-eight, for instance, is known as “first Ninety-eight”; the
second section as “second Ninety-eight,” and so on.
In this instance, the first section of Train Ninety-eight had broken
in two at the top of a long grade, and fifteen coal-cars, together
with the caboose, had gone hurtling back down the grade, finally
crashing into the front end of the second section, which was
following about a mile behind. The conductor and brakemen, who were
in the caboose, after a vain attempt to stop the runaway cars with
the hand-brakes, had jumped off, and escaped with slight bruises,
but the engineer and fireman of the second section had had no
warning of their danger until the cars swept down upon them out of
the storm. There was no time to jump—it would have been folly to
jump, anyhow, since the high walls of the cut shut them in on either
side; yet the fireman had escaped almost unhurt, only the engineer
being badly injured. The impact of the collision had been terrific,
and, as the telegram from the conductor stated, fifteen cars had
been completely wrecked.
So much the section-men understood from the superintendent’s brief
description, and Jack explained it to Allan, while the others
listened, putting in a word of correction now and then.
On and on sped the wrecking-train through the night. The oil-lamps
flared and flickered, throwing a yellow, feeble light down into the
car, where the men sat crowded together, for the most part silent
now, figuring on the task before them. It was evident that it would
be no easy one, but they had confidence in their officers,—the same
confidence that soldiers have in a general whose ability has been
fully tested,—and they knew that the task would be made as easy as
might be.
The atmosphere of the car grew close to suffocation. Every one,
almost, was smoking, and the lamps soon glowed dimly through the
smoke like the sun upon a foggy day. Outside, the snow still fell,
thickly, softly; their engineer could not see the track twenty feet
ahead; but the superintendent had told him that the way was clear,
so he kept his throttle open and plunged blindly on into the night,
for every moment was valuable now; every nerve must be strained to
the utmost tension until the task of clearing the track had been
accomplished.
So the fireman bent steadily to the work of keeping up steam,
clanging the door of the fire-box back and forth between each
shovelful of coal, in order to keep the draught full strength. The
flames licked out at him each time the door was opened, lighting the
cab with yellow gleams, which danced across the polished metal and
illumined dimly the silent figure of the engineer peering forward
into the storm. The engine rocked and swayed, the wind swirled and
howled about it, and tried to hold it back, but on and on it
plunged, never pausing, never slackening. Any one who was on the
track to-night must look out for himself; but, luckily, the right of
way was clear, crossing after crossing was passed without accident;
the train tore through little hamlets, awakening strange echoes
among the darkened houses, and, as it passed, the operator would run
out to look at it, and, after a single glance, would rush back to
his key, call frantically for “G I,”—the despatcher’s office,—and
tick in the message that the wrecking-train had got that far on its
journey.
Back in the wrecking-car the superintendent had taken out his watch
and sat with it a moment in his hand.
“We’re going a mile a minute,” he remarked to the train-master.
“Higgins is certainly hitting her up.”
The train-master nodded and turned again to the conductor’s report.
He was planning every detail of the battle which must be fought.
Jack glanced at Allan, and smiled.
“You’re wonderin’ how he could tell how fast we’re going, ain’t ye?”
he asked.
“Yes,” said Allan, “I am. How did he tell?”
“By listenin’ t’ th’ click o’ th’ wheels over th’ rails,” answered
Jack. “Each rail’s thirty foot long—that is, there’s a hundred an’
seventy-six to th’ mile. Mister Heywood probably kept tab on them
fer fifteen seconds and counted forty-four clicks, so he knowed we
was goin’ a mile a minute.”
“Here we are,” remarked the train-master, as the wheels clanked over
a switch, and, sure enough, a moment later their speed began to
slacken.
Jack looked down at Allan and grinned again, as he saw the
astonishment written on the boy’s face.
“You’re wonderin’ how Mr. Schofield could tell that, ain’t you?” he
asked. “Why, bless you, he knows this here division like a book. Put
him down on any part of it blindfolded and he’ll tell you right
where he is. He knows every foot of it.”
Perhaps Jack exaggerated unconsciously, but there was no doubt that
Mr. Schofield, like every other good train-master, knew his division
thoroughly—the location of every switch, the length of every siding,
the position of every signal, the capacity of every engine. Nay,
more, he knew the disposition of every conductor and engineer. When
Milliken, for instance, wired in a protest that he couldn’t take
another load, he would smile placidly and repeat his previous
orders; if Rogers made the same complaint, he would wire back
tersely, “All right.” He knew that Milliken was always complaining,
while Rogers never did without cause. He knew his track, his
equipment, and his men—and that is, no doubt, the reason why,
to-day, he is superintendent of one of the most important divisions
of the system.
The wrecking-train slowed and stopped, and the men clambered
painfully to the ground, and went forward to take a look at the task
before them. It was evident in a moment that it was a bigger one
than any had anticipated—so big, indeed, that it seemed to Allan, at
least, that it would be far easier to build a new track around the
place than to try to open the old one. From side to side of the deep
cut, even with the top, the coal was heaped, mixed with splintered
boards and twisted iron that had once been freight-cars. High on the
bank perched the engine, thrown there by the mighty blow that had
been dealt it. On either side were broken and splintered cars, and
the track was torn and twisted in a way that seemed almost beyond
repair. It was a scene of chaos such as the boy had never before
witnessed, and even the old, tried section-men were staggered when
they looked at it. It seemed impossible that anything so puny as
mere human strength could make any impression upon that tangled,
twisted mass.
The doctor hurried away to attend to the injured engineer, who had
been removed to the caboose by the crew of the second section, while
the officers went forward to look over the battle-field. At the end
of three minutes they had prepared their plan of action, and the men
responded with feverish energy. Great cables were run out and
fastened to the shattered frames of the coal-cars, which were
dragged out of the mass of wreckage by the engine, and then hoisted
from the track and thrown to one side out of the way. The
donkey-engine puffed noisily away, while the derrick gripped trucks
and wheels and masses of twisted iron and splintered beams, and
swung them high on the bank beside the road with an ease almost
superhuman. The men went to work with a will, under the supervision
of the officers, dragging out the smaller pieces of wreckage. Hour
after hour they toiled, until, at last, only the coal remained—a
great, shifting, treacherous mass—ton upon ton—fifteen car-loads—a
veritable mountain of coal. And here the derrick could be of no
use—there was only one way to deal with it. It must be shovelled
from the track by hand!
It was a task beside which the labours of Hercules seemed small by
comparison. But no one stopped to think about its enormousness—it
had to be done, and done as quickly as possible. In a few moments,
sixty shovels were attacking the mighty mass, rising and falling
with a dogged persistence which, in the end, must conquer any
obstacle.
Dawn found the men at this trying work. At seven o’clock hot coffee
and sandwiches were served out to them, and they stopped work for
ten minutes to swallow the food. At eight, a cold rain began to
fall, that froze into sleet upon the ground, so that the men could
scarcely stand. Still they laboured doggedly on. Train-master and
superintendent were everywhere, encouraging the men, making certain
that not a blow was wasted, themselves taking a hand now and then,
with pick or shovel. There was no thought of rest; human nature must
be pushed to its utmost limit of endurance—this great leviathan of
steel and oak must be made whole again. All along its two hundred
miles of track, passengers were waiting, fuming, impatient to reach
their destinations; thousands of tons of freight filled the sidings,
waiting the word that would permit it to go forward. Here in the
hills, with scarcely a house in sight, was the wound that stretched
the whole system powerless—that kept business men from their
engagements, wives from husbands, that deranged the plans of
hundreds; ay, more than that, it was keeping food from the hungry,
the ice was melting in refrigerator-cars, peaches and apples were
spoiling in hot crates, cattle were panting with thirst,—all waiting
upon the labours of this little army, which was fighting so
valiantly to set things right.