WITH THE WRECKERS
Jeff knew where track sixteen was and it did not take him long to find
the wrecking train. There it was on a siding with a clear way to the
main track. It was a train of caboose and six flat cars, two of which
were equipped with tremendously powerful, but squatty and flat-looking
derricks. The others were loaded with boxes of tools, and all sorts
of emergency equipment. The train reminded Jeff of an engine or hook
and ladder truck of the city fire department ready to get away at a
moment’s notice.
A warm glow of light came from the cupola and the more or less smudged
windows of the “hack,” as Kelly had called the caboose, and Jeff knew
that the wrecking crew, who lived in the train, in shifts day and
night, week in and week out the whole year through, were inside card
playing or reading or amusing themselves as husky railroad men do while
awaiting word of trouble or a wreck that calls them out to clear the
line.
Jeff stamped his way up the steps of the hack, shoved open the door
and stepped inside. Gathered around a table in the yellow glare of
a big electric light, that hurt Jeff’s eyes momentarily, were the
wreckers, big broad-chested, broad-shouldered, experienced railroad men
who seemed to Jeff the impersonation of courage, resourcefulness and
reliability. They were the men who were responsible for keeping the
line open so that trains could run uninterruptedly no matter how grave
the catastrophe or how serious the damages. And they were good-natured
and hearty men, as was evident from the greeting that the boss of them
all, big Tim Crowley, gave him, when he introduced himself and began to
ask questions about the three-legged calf.
But Jeff had scarcely got well started on his catechizing when the
door of the caboose was flung open and banged closed again and a man
from the dispatcher’s office, still in his shirt sleeves despite the
cold and with his green eye shade on his forehead, burst in upon them.
In his hand he held a piece of flimsy yellow paper, a dispatcher’s
telegraph blank, on which was typed a brief but evidently important
message.
“Tim, No. 89, fast freight out of New City is piled up at Granville
cross-over. Ten cars off the track and some of them smashed to pieces.
Both tracks are blocked. Tracy, the conductor, says it’s a bad mess.
Engine 1107 with Ed Dixon is backing down to pick you up. Cold night
for a wreck, ain’t it? Wish you luck,” and passing the yellow slip to
Tim he slammed his way out and raced back to the dispatcher’s office.
For a moment Jeff did not realize what was happening. But as he heard
the hoarse blasts of an engine not far off and felt the jarring clank
as it backed against the wrecking train and coupled up he understood it
all.
“You best beat it if you don’t want to take a lively ride,” said Tim
with a smile, as the men put their cards away and got up from the table.
“Beat it! What? With a wreck on the line and me on board the wrecking
train ready to roll. Not on your life; that is, of course, if you will
let me go along,” said Jeff, looking eagerly at Tim.
“As a reporter there ain’t no rules against it, I guess,” said Tim,
sliding into his heavy coat. “Go along if you want to. Tumble out, men.”
It took a remarkably short time for the crew, swarming over the train
of flat cars, to get everything ready for the run, and by the time
the engine was coupled on everything was “ship shape,” to quote the
wrecking boss, and the men were back in the hack.
With several deep-toned, almost arrogant blasts big, panting 1107 got
under way and began clanking over frogs and switches, making toward the
tracks of the main line. Jeff crawled up into the cupola of the hack
where Tim and three other husky wreckers sat, looking out above the
flat cars toward the engine ahead.
“You’ll have a ride this night,” said Tim to Jeff, smiling as he spoke.
“Ol’ eleven-o-seven is a speed boy, an’ with Ed Dixon in the cab we’ll
be yanked along somethin’ fierce. Sixty mile an hour won’t be a patch
to what we’ll make. The dispatchers have cleared the track from here to
the wreck. They always do for the wrecking train. Ain’t only one train
that can have the right o’ way over us and that would be a hospital
train with nurses and doctors aboard which they’d send out if this was
a passenger wreck. But t’ track’s clear to-night with everything in
sidings, so ol’ Ed Dixon will burn up the rails.”