As model railroaders and train enthusiasts, we all should know the story about John Luther Jones, better known as Casey Jones. He is a figure in railroading history that will never be forgotten for his last trip at the throttle of Illinois Central’s “Cannonball” one ill-fated April morning in 1900.
If you don’t know the story, google “Casey Jones” and you’ll easily learn it.
Knowing the story, what do you see Casey Jones as? Is he the Hero some say he is? Or was he a sloppy engineer, and now a disgrace to any engineer?
In my opinion, Casey Jones is the hero he is often portrayed to be. No engineer liked being behind schedule, and so he pushed locomotive 382 to her limits. And knowing that he couldn’t stop her in time, he told Sim Webb to jump, and he remained in the cab, firmly on the whistle and the brake. He saved all of his passengers, but killed himself in the process.
Yes, he was going too fast, yes that put his passengers at risk, but he stayed with the train, and did everything he can to slow it down. He paid the ultimate consequence to make up for his mistake, but did so to save everyone on board, and that makes him a hero in my book.
In that day and age that was the way railroads operated, long, long, long hours with little to no supervision. Engineers were encouraged to make up time when ever possible and the just looked the other way to the rule violations. So yes he is an American Hero.
He is a hero in my book. I did a school project on him and the teacher liked it so much she gave me an 80 out of 60! The funny thing is the project was on role models and heros. It seems to fit this topic perfectly.
No…Casey was anything but a hero…He was called in to the Superintendent’s office several times to give account of his rule infractions to include speed and one or two minor accidents…[:(]
Had Casey been thinking ahead he should have slow for those trains at Vaughn.Why didn’t he stopped when flagged? To many questions needs answer yet today…Sadly the only man that can answer those questions died in the wreck…Hero? Not likely…A overly tired engineer? More then likely after all Casey and Sim had just made a run and was asked to “double out” without sleep.In fact he was NOT even using his own engine nor was the train called the “Cannonball”!!![;)]
I say he was defently a hero! He told Sim to jump, but he reamind on the train doing everything he could to slow the Cannonball down, Casey even reamind on the whistle to warn the other train. Since Casey died to save the lives of many passangers I deffently put him in as a hero!
I don’t know what the particular rules were in 1900, but assuming they were at least similar to those in use now, the goat, if there is indeed a goat, would be the flagman of the train hanging out of the siding. Jones’ train (first class) was late. The inferior train should have been in the clear by his SCHEDULED time at the prior station. The flagman should have had ample time to go back the prescribed distance, set out some torpedos and returned to a proper flagging distance. He seems to have done none of the above.
He was known for violating the rules, he was speeding, he didn’t stop for the flag and he wrecked his train.
Except that we don’t know if he was under the influence or not, how is his story any different from that of the crew that ran a red block at Gunpowder and slammed into the Amtrak train? (That was the incident that fired up the Federal drug testing program.)
What did he do that was heroic? Was it heroic to place the fireman in a position where his only two choices were to jump off an engine moving 40-50 mph or be in a train wreck? How heroic was it to wreck a passenger train? How heroic was it to endanger the lives of 3 other crews?
Nah, he wasn’t a hero. There are lots of other engineers and trainmen that are heroes.
Broke rules or not. Violated company policy or not. Called in the office several times for infractions or not. Ignored flagging or not. He killed himself to save others. A great man/God once said “the greatest gift a man can give is to lay down his life so that others may live.” He’s a hero.
My understanding was that there were torpedos out, but they were so close to the end of the train that Jones would not have been able to stop even at scheduled speed.
Yes, he was a ‘hot dog’. Yes, this is the way that railroads operated then. He was expected to make up time. And, yes, I had this exact conversation with my wife in the car yesterday coming back from Cleveland.
A hero is not someone who puts himself and others in danger and then saves
said people because of his carelessness. A hero would have put the passengers
safety above a schedule. That would be like someone setting fire to a building and
then being called a hero because he saved the people in the building. Dave
How about this. All the facts are identical except:
a.Casey didn’t die.
b.10 of his passengers died with him.
c.10 of his passengers died and he survived
d.Sim died with him
e.Casey survived the crash but shot himself the next day.
Would any of these change the hero/non-hero opinion? It would seem that scenario a would take him out of the hero status - no one dies. Would he have been disciplined for breaking the rules? Scenario b could go either way I’m thinking. He dies, but saves the majority of passengers - hero - or is it he takes a passengers with him, villian who got his just. Scenario c would probably result in him being the scapegoat. Scenario D probably would result in Casey not even being known as there would be no PR. Senario E interests me the most. Exact same result as what actually happened, except he dies at his own hands instead of at the scene. I’m thinking it would be seen as he not being able to live with himself, admits guilt and shoots self to avoid what would come next - in other words - non hero.
I think, and this is just my opinion, that the end result is often times used to determine if someone gets the label “hero.” But shouldn’t it be the motivation that stimulated the action and the action itself? The passengers on the hijacked plane that crashed in PA were heros because they were motivated to save others and took action that they knew could take their lives. Does the result show they did save lives? Yes. Would they have been less heros if the plane had crashed on a school and killed 2000 people? If one person had somehow survived, would he or she be less of a hero than the others?
In that Casey Jones had realized his situation and worked valiently to correct it and thus saved his passengers makes him somewhat of a hero. He could have bailed and blamed things on faulty maintenance of the locomotive, but didn’t. What tarnishes his status is that he was in some part responsible for the situation that
I asked an old MoPac brakeman named “Sailor” his opinion about Casey Jones over 10 years ago. He said Casey “… was a ***ed fool!” for the way he operated his train. He surely didn’t think Casey was a hero.
