An Engineer's Story - 1876

An Engineer's Story told on a Lehigh Valley Locomotive 

Chenango American, Greene, NY, April 13, 1876

Away in the west stretched the bleak Pennsylvania wilderness, uninhabited save by a few good men, the panther, the deer and the bear. The hillside seemed like that of a desert, and the straining, ascending locomotive like a gigantic, wheezy pioneer.

"There's a right down romance or tragedy or whatever you may call it," said the engineer, "attached to this hill.  And I was the hero in it.  And there was a woman in it, though I must tell you that I'm a married man."

"All right.  go ahead with the story."

"One night about four years ago, and just about this month," the engineer continued, "I was coming down this hill with (considering the season) a pretty heavy train.  At Wilkesbarre over in the valley - which you'll soon see - a young lady got aboard of my engine. She wanted a night ride and was put on by the superintendent.  She was a perfect lady, and her mother was in one of the cars back. To tell the honest truth (as I have often said to my wife) I never saw a more beautiful or game to king [this] girl. 

She was very small, dressed in what my wife calls complete taste and her figure was so good and her hands so small and her ways so frank and artless, that I almost wished she was my daughter.  Her face, though, was what I can't give you an idea of.  It was the most beautiful face I ever saw.  It had" proceeded the engineer, warming, "all the intelligence of a woman's and the simplicity of a child's.  And she was so sprightly and loveable altogether, and asked so many questions, that, although I have never had a woman on the engine but once before, I invited her over here to my seat. and explained to her all about how a locomotive is run. I showed her how to manipulate the lever which admits more or less steam to the cylinders; how the reverse lever is worked; how the tests of water and steam are made.  I showed her how to blow the whistle and ring the bell, and explained how the brakes were blown down, how warnings were given on the approach to crossings.  She took it all in and " said the engineer, stretching his arms across the boiler and clutching my sleeve, "it was the best lesson I ever gave. Right up around yonder, about two miles from town, just as I was handling the reverse lever, we struck a stone or something on the track, at 9 o'clock at night  I was bending down at the time (the girl was sitting where you are, on my cushion) and quicker than lightning the lever flew back and struck me in the eye and knocked me - well, I'll be d---d if I knew where.  Anyway, it didn't make much difference for a minute or two, for I was just stunned.  As we were on the down grade, with no need of fuel, the fireman was back in the baggage car, and when I came to, this young girl was holding onto my head and fanning me with her toy of a hat.  It wasn't two seconds before I knew what was to pay.  The engine and the whole train had started down the hill at the rate of sixty miles an hour.  I tried to spring up and reach the lever.  My right arm and side and right leg were numb.  My face and even my tongue were so paralyzed by the blow I had received that I could hardly speak.  I was so desperate that (more to attract the girl's attention to the danger than for anything else).  I grabbed her hat with my left hand and threw it outside of the locomotive, and then managed to beckon her ear down close to my lips and say:

"Train's going too fast. We'll be in hell soon if you don't turn the lever!"

"She said:"Mr. ---, I feel as if I should faint.  Haven't you got some camphor, or--a little whisky?"  And, as sure as you live, she did faint right away there - right down in front of the firebox, right on top of me.  The fireman and conductor came in and took her back to her mother, and the fireman had to run the train to White Haven."