Chased by an Avalanche of Fire.

Thames Star, Volume XVII, Issue 5173, 15 August 1885, Page 1

Chased by an Avalanche of Fire.

Mad Bace Between a Locomotiye and a Blazing Oil Tkain. BuflP Brown, of Portland, JN.Y., one of the oldest locomotive engineers in the United Slates, is dead. On his death bed he told the following story of bis ride.-, from Prospect to Brocton, with the request thßt it be published :— In 1869 I was running a train on the Buffalo, Corry and Erie Railroad. The track from Prospect, or Mayville Summit, to Brocton Junction is so crooked that while the distance is actually only ten miles, the curves make it by rail fourteen. Die grade for the whole distance it over seventy feet to: the mile. About nice o'clock on the night of August 17, 1869, we reached the summit with a train of two passenger cars, six oil cars, and a box car. The latter contained two valuable trotting horses and their keepers, on their way, I believe, to Chicago. There were 56 passengers in the two cars. I got the signal to start from the conductor, and pulled out. We had got under consider* able headway, when, looking back, I saw that an oil car in the middle of the train was on fire. I reversed the engine and whistled for brakes. The conductor and brakesman jumped off, uncoupled the passenger eari, set the brakes on them ft id brought them to a stop. Supposing that the brakes on the burning oil ears would also be put on, I called a brakesman on the box car to draw the coupling pin between that car and the bead oil tank, backing so that be could do it, intending to run far enough to save the box ear and the locomotive. As I ran down the hill after the pin had been withdrawn, what was my horror to see that the burning cars were following me at a speed that was rapidly increasing. Tbe men had cot succeeded in putting on the brakes. I saw that tbe only thing that was to be done was to run for it to Brocton, and the chances were that we would never reach there at the speed which we would be obliged to make around those Bharp, reserve curves where he bad never rnn over 20 miles an hour. When I saw the flaming cars—for tbe whole nix were on fire by this time— plunging after me, and only a few feet away, I polled the throttle open. Tbe oil curs eaaght me though before I got away. They came with full force against the rear of the bex car, smashing in or, c end and knocking the horses and their keener! flat on the floor. The heat was almost unendurable, and to do my best I couldn't put more than thirty feet between the pursuing fire and ourselves. By the light from the furnace, as the fireman opened tbe door to pile in the coal, I caught sight of tbe fsce of one of the horsemen, he having crawled up to the grated opening in the end. It was as pale as death, and he begged me.for God's sake to give the engine more steam. I was giving her then all the steam she could carry, and the grade itself was sufficient to carry us down at the rate of fifty miles an hour. We went so fast that the engine refused to pump. Every time we struck one of those curves tbe old girl would rnn on almost one set of wheels, and why in the world Bhe didn't topple over is something I couldn't understand; She seemed to know that it was a race of life or death, and worked as if she were alive. The night was dark, and the road ran through the woods, deep rock cuts, and along high embankments. There we were thundering along at lightning speed, and only a few paces behind us, that firey demon in full pursuit. There were 50,000 gallons of oil in those tanks; at least, and it was all flame*, making a firing avalanche of 600 feet long. The flames leaped into the air nearly 100 feet. Their roar was like that of some great cataract. Now and then a tank would explode with a noise like a cannon, when a column of flame and pitchy smoke would rise high above the body of flame and showers of burning oil would be scattered about in the woods. The whole country was lighted up for miles around. Well, it wasn't long, going at the rate we made, before the liehts of Brocton came in sight down the mis. The relief I felt was shortlived, for 1 remembered that train No. 8 on the Lake Shore Road would be at the junction about tbe time we would resell it. No. 9 was the Cincinnati express. Our only hope all along the race had been that the switch-.

awn at the junction would think to open . the switch there, connecting the cross-cut track with the Lake Shore track, and let . us run in on the latter, where the grade would be against us, if anything, and where we would soon get out of the way of the oil cars. The switch would be closed now for the express, and our last hope was that the express would be late, or some one bad sense enough to flag it. While we were thinking of this wo saw the train, tearing along towards the. junction. Could we reach the Junction, Set the switch, and the switch be sent aok for the express before the lattter got there? If not there would bo an inevit* «able crash, -in which not only we but score's of others would be crushed to death. "Good God!" I said to my fireman, " What are we to do?" .The!-fire-man promptly replied—and he was a brave little fellow—that I should whistle from the switch and take the chances. I did 30. That whistle was one prolonged yell of agony. It- was a shriek that seemed to tell us that our bra ye old engine knew our danger and had its fears. Neither the fireman nor myself spoke another word. Thanks be to God. The engineer on the express train saw us ' tearing down that mountain within an ■' eighth of a mile ofVfire in close pursuit of us. He whistled for brakes and got his engine at a standstill not ten feet from the switch. The switchman answered our signal, and we shot on the shore track and whizzed on through the depot and through the place like a rocket. The burning cars followed us in, of course, bat their race was run. They had no propelling power now, aDd, after chasing us for a mile, they gave up the pursuit, and in three boure there was nothing left of them but smoking ruins. - My fireman and I were so weak when we brought our locomotive to a stop that we couldn't get out of our cab. The two horsemen were unconscious in the box-car. The horses were ruined. And how long do you think we were in making that sixteen miles ? We ran two miles up the Lake Shore track. Just twelve minutes from the summit to the place where we stopped ! A plump eighty miles an hour, not counting the time lost in getting under way and stopping beyond Brccton.—New York Tribune.