Many moons ago (when I was in high school), we read a story about a passenger train engineer, who met a freight (on an adjoining track). He realized that the freight train had broken in two, and the rear half was rolling downgrade to collide with the front half. The freight train consist was all (or mostly) tankers, and he also realized that there would be an explosion when the two halves met.
I have Googled this story, using every bunch of keywords I can think of, but can’t find it. Does this ring a bell with anyone? I’m curious to re-read it – mostly to see how authentic the plot line might be!
So what did the engineer do when he realized this?
The break-in-two, and runaway of the rear section happened every day in the pioneering era before air brakes. I don’t know whether the story you cite is fact or fiction, but it is entirely plausible, and variations of it occurred many, many times in the 1870-1890 period.
Sometimes the rear half broke away on more or less level track, so the rear half might keep rolling while the front half pulled further away. The gap might widen to a mile or so, and then the front half might stop for some reason, and the rear half would catch up and collide at considerable speed.
Or sometimes on a grade, with a break-in-two, the rear half would run away backwards and collide with a following train. Controlling these detached sections depended on where the brakemen were at the time, and how well the hand brakes worked.
That’s why I want to find the story again; I didn’t know a lot about trains when I read it (way back when!)
As I remember it, the two trains were traversing something akin to the Horseshoe Curve. The passenger engineer saw the freight, on the other side of the valley, or canyon, and decided that it was too long (judging from the loco headlights to the caboose markers). Then, looking more closely, he could see that there was a gap between the two sections (did I mention that this was all taking place at night?)
The story revolved around his discovering the separation of the approaching freight, and his fear of having the collision (and explosion) of the two sections take place as HIS train passed them. His dilemma: (1)STOP, and hope the explosion occurred AHEAD of him, or, (2)SPEED UP, in hopes of passing the collision point BEFORE the explosion occurred.
All in all, a pretty good story – with the possible exceptions of unexplained events (like, how did the freight break in two, then the two sections separate, then the rear half manage to accelerate so as to run into the front half).
This story was in the sixth-grade reading book People and Progress, which we used back when I was that age (there were newer editions out by then). Scott, Foresman and Company was the publisher, and the book probably dated from the late Forties or early Fifties.
One of the lines in the story, used to explain the motion-after-separation of the train, was “The impossible had happened!” And they gave the story a real locale–Galesburg and Altona (not Altoona) were mentioned, so it was on the CB&Q main line in Illinois. The rear half caught up to the front half because they were slowing up to take water. And, of course, the break was in the tank cars, which would naturally explode if they so much as touched each other! [;)]
The explanation for the break-in-two would be a broken coupler as they have been doing since cars were coupled together. The explanation for the separation would be that the head end kept pulling, and the hind end began to slow. In the modern era, both halves would have dynamited their brakes and stopped fast as soon as the air hoses parted at the broken coupler.
However, in the pre- air brake era, the only way to stop the rear half would be for the brakemen on top to tighten several hand brakes. Otherwise the rear half would have kept rolling until it ran out of momentum. It might roll for miles if there is any down grade involved. In fact it might accelerate if it comes to a down grade. If the engineer and fireman did not notice the break-in-two, they might manage to run several more miles with the detached cars following them.
Then when they stop for some reason or just slow down appreciably, the loose cars can catch up and collide with the head end cars.
That was enough to jog my memory - I’m pretty sure an event like that is related in the recently deceased Charles Roberts’ lengthy and detailed book about the history of that portion of the PRR: Triumph I, but on the Muleshoe Curve line instead. I’ll see if I can look it up tonight and confirm.
Otherwise, it might be in Phyllis Fenner’s anthology of railroad short stories, Open Throttle. And/ or, one of the fiction pieces as were published in Railroad Magazine for many years before its demise.
But I’d put money on Carl’s recollection . . . [swg]
I have seen two similar events occur. I have related both of them here on this site at one time or other. (Note: I am NOT a railroader, just a fan that have observed the following events and the comments are just my conjecture based on what I witnessed.)
1.) A cut of cars was being pulled out of the yard onto the mainline to be delivered about a mile away to another RR’s yard. I could tell something was wrong due to the loud banging I heard and the jerky movement of the engine as it came toward me to leave the yard and the chatter I heard on my scanner (comments about, “Are you sure you released all the brakes on all the cars?”).
Things seemed to settle down and the train continued onto the main. My view was somewhat limited at that point by a car stopping at the grade crossing between my parking spot and the yard. I thought I could see the end of the train approaching, but then I noted another set of cars, apparently on the same track also in motion toward me. I just figured it was maybe some flat cars between the ones I could see in front of me and the ones still moving behind the automobile obscuring my view… but there seemed to be a difference in the speed of the two, the 2nd set being slightly slower! But speed is difficult to determine when something is coming nearly right at you.
Soon, I saw the “end” of the train in front of me and no connection to another set of cars following along about 4 or 5 car lengths behind! A yard worker came flying out of the office building across the tracks, jumped into the little Jeep type car they use there for getting around and he drove around the down gates on that side and parked the Jeep across the two lanes of street to block all automobile traffic (in case the gates came up, I assume!). The radio chatter then indicated a call to the engineer that his train had broken in two and the front began slowing to a stop (it wasn’t going all that fast anyway!).
First of all, the story in the book I mentioned had illustrations to suggest that it was taking place well into the era of air brakes, though still with steam as power on both trains (the train that was meeting the freight was a passenger train, of course).
Semper Vap, auto racks have been notorious for coming apart, and the drawbars had enough vertical play in them that this wouldn’t be unheard of (they were restricted as to downward movement by the carrier-iron on the cars, but could move upward from there as necessary to accommodate irregularities and “vertical curves”). We had times when pulling long cuts of auto racks back over the hump for storage or reclassification where the cut would break apart two or three times while we were pulling it back. Thank Goodness the free-rolling section would drift along a little, because it would have been rough putting together at the point where the separation occurred. We didn’t want to set the retarders on them as they were rolling uphill, but as soon as they stopped we’d hold 'em for the hump crew to make the joint.
Remember the video of UP’s APRPR in the tornado? The front of the train stopped pretty quickly after the air hose separated. But the rear portion was much heavier, and kept rolling (not derailing until it hit the damaged track) until it collided rather roughly with the locomotives. The tank car involved, had it been constructed to pre-World War II standards, probably would have caused a lovely fire and an excel
I think CshaveRR has it – although I remember reading the story around 8th or ninth grade. Maybe we’re just behind everyone else down here. No surprise there…
Oh, and Paul, I just went down to the dungeon, where about five railroad anthologies reside (including Open Throttle), and this story, the way I remember it, wasn’t in any of them.
We own the reading book in question, but it resides at the family cottage (those reading books are sort of a nostalgia trip for my sisters and me, and my five-year-old granddaughter was doing some reading in Fun with Dick and Jane this past summer), so I can’t retrieve the information on the story or the book until next summer, probably.
A somewhat similiar story about a break in two from the days of link and pin, pre-air brake era appears in the book, “Workin’ on the Railroad - Reminiscences from the age of steam” by Richard Reinhardt. (Not to be confused with Brian Solomon’s “Working on the Railroad.”) I think the story is fiction, but is possible.
This story, an excerpt itself from Herbert E Hamblen’s “The General Manager’s Story” first printed in 1898, is about an engineer who’s train breaks in two starting down a mountain grade. The entire train crew (conductor and brakemen) are on the caboose. The caboose derails and is flung down into the canyon, leaving the unattached rear end rolling towards the front end. It’s a hair raising ride down the mountain as the engineer trys to out run the rear end.
“Close, but no cigar.” That event - which occurred on 6 Nov. 1916 - is related on page 52 with a half-page photo of a wrecking crane cleaning up the aftermath - and was indeed on the New Portage Branch, which included the Mule Shoe Curve. An EB train was observed to be running too fast by the conductor of a WB train stopped for water near MS, who correctly surmised that it was a runaway. Not far ahead of it was another EB move of “light engines” returning to Altoona. The conductor phoned ahead to New Portage Junction - then a ‘wye’ at today’s Duncanville - to try to divert those engines to another track, but that was confusing at 4:55 AM and there just wasn’t enough time left to get it sorted out before the runaway hurtled into sight and plowed into the stopped engines, killing a total of 7 railroaders.
Carl, I was thinking of a story about an engineer of a runaway train laoded with gasoline in Mexico or another South or Central American country. I had thought it was in Open Throttle, but now I see it isn’t. I also recall a similar story by C. Grattan Price, Jr. in his short series “I Remember . . .” which appeared in <
Was there an occurrence on SOU’s rat hole division where the crew had an emergency brake application and when the train was inspected a parted air hose was found; reconnected; pumped up; and continued on its way? Sometime later (unkown time) a track inspector found a rail car on the ROW by itself? It was determined that somehow the errant car from that train had jumped off the track but with no damage to the other cars of the train? Someone with more info or is this a RR legend?