A Mad Engine Driver

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 128, 26 April 1892, Page 4

A Mad Engine Driver

Despatches received at Queenstown from Kansas City, U.S., coQtain particu lars of the narrow escape of over 100 passengers who were travelling on a train over the Oregon short line when the engineer, becoming mad, threw the fireman off the engine, and for a distance of forty-five miles drove the train at the rate of 100 miles an hour. The terrified passengers, net being able to hold their seats, were momentarily expecting to be hurled into eternity, until the conductor and broakesmnn succeeded in felling with a blow the demented engine driver and shut off the steam. One of the passengers states that after the train left Ta* coma nothing unusual occurred until that part of the line which leads along the base of the mountain was reached, where suddenly it was noticed that the train was increasing in speed until it fairly flew iilons the rails. Faster and faster flew the tiain until it bounded from side to side at a fearful rate, and the frightened passengers were thrown about the cars. Several stations were passed at lightning speed. The passengers had now become punic-stricken, and the womeu and children were screaming. The conductor and brakesman had been appealed to, and they said that either the engine driver had gone mad or had lost control of the engine. They crawled carefully along (he tender, and saw that the fireman had disappeared, and from the strange appearance of the engineer, who was bareheaded, decided that he had become insane. Tliey stealthily got behind him and struck him ;i leavy b'owon the head, which felled him to ihe floor. The conductor slim. <>!T :|n- ste.-im and gradually bronchi, in- tii'n to a standstill, Til' driver «;:s sn-iinvl mikl a despatch setu over the n>ad asking for information ivi:!'i':. die missing (irem:in, wh<-. wu> subspqucii !\ discoyrred seriously injured on the -id' ■• Hip rails.