The Young Section-Hand

by Burton Egbert Stevenson

Not so serious, that is, in delaying the traffic of the road, but more serious in another way, since both entailed loss of life. The first one occurred just three days after the wreck at Vinton. A freight-train had taken a siding about five miles east of Wadsworth to allow the through east-bound express to pass, but the brakeman on the freight, who was a green hand, forgot to throw the switch back again after the freight-train had backed in upon the siding. He climbed up into the cab, and he and the engineer and fireman sat there chatting away, all unconscious of the impending disaster. In a moment, they heard the roar of the approaching train, and then it flashed into view far down the track. They turned to watch it, to admire the clean lines of the engine as it whirled toward them; then, as it reached the switch, they were horrified to see it turn in upon the siding. There was no time to move, to cry out, to attempt to save themselves. An instant of horrified suspense, and the crash came, and the two engines, together with the cars immediately behind them, were piled together into a torn and twisted mass of wreckage,—wreckage through which blistering steam hissed and about which in a moment hungry flames began to lap,—wreckage from which no man came forth alive. But, as the accident occurred upon a siding, the main track was not even blocked, and the wreckage was cleared away without the feverish haste which marked the wreck at Vinton.

The third wreck occurred at Torch, a little station on the east end of the road, when both engineer and fireman of an east-bound freight-train forgot their orders to take the siding there, to make way for the west-bound flier, and continued on full speed past the station. The conductor recognized the error at once, but he was away back in the caboose at the other end of the train. He sent a brakeman flying forward over the cars to warn the engineer of his danger, but, before he had got forward half the length of the train, the express hurtled down upon them, and both engineer and fireman paid for their forgetfulness with their lives. This wreck was so far east that it was handled from Parkersburg, and the gang from Section Twenty-one was not called out.

This series of accidents impressed deeply upon Allan’s mind the terrible peculiarity which belongs to railroading. In most of life’s ordinary occupations, a mistake may be retrieved; on the railroad, almost never. To make a mistake there is, almost inevitably, to sacrifice life and property. The railroad man who makes a mistake never has the chance to make a second one. If he survives the first one, his dismissal from the road’s employ will follow. Mistakes on a railroad are too expensive to risk them by employing careless men.

The employés of the road breathed easier after the accident at Torch. Until the fatal three had occurred, every man feared that his turn would come next; now they knew that they were safe until another series was started. Whether it was from the increased self-confidence and self-control which this belief engendered, or whether there really was some basis for this railroad superstition, at any rate, no more accidents occurred, and the road’s operation proceeded smoothly and uneventfully.

One exciting battle there was in late September. The fall rains had been unusually heavy and persistent; every little brook became a roaring torrent, loosening bridges and culverts, seeping under the road-bed, and demanding constant vigilance on the part of the section-gangs. As the rain continued without abating, the broad river, which usually flowed peacefully along far below the railroad embankment, rose foot by foot until the whole stretch of embankment along the river’s edge was threatened. Long trains of flat cars were hurried to the place, loaded with rock and bags of sand. These were dumped along the embankment, which was washing badly in places, and for a time it looked as though the encroachments of the water had been stopped. But the rain continued, and the river kept on rising, until it was seeping along the top of the embankment. If it once began to flow over it, nothing could save the track, for the water would slice away the earth beneath it in great sections.

All the men that could be spared from the other portions of the road had been hurried to the scene. At the gravel-pit just below the city, a gang of fifty men was working, filling heavy sacks and loading them on flat cars. A great steam-shovel was heaping the loose gravel upon other cars, and, as soon as enough were loaded to make a train, they were hurried away to the danger point. During that culminating day, no effort was made to preserve the train schedule. The work-trains were given the right of way, and even the lordly east-bound passengers had to flag through from the embankment to the gravel-pit. Train-master and superintendent were on the spot, directing where the gravel should be dumped, and watching anxiously the gauge which marked the rise of the water. Another inch and it would be over the embankment.

But from the last inspection of the gauge Mr. Schofield arose with a shout of triumph.

“It’s no higher than it was half an hour ago,” he said. “It hasn’t risen a hair’s breadth. It’ll begin to fall before long. We’re all right if we can only make the embankment hold.”

Hope put new life into the men, and they worked like beavers; but whether the embankment could withstand much longer the tremendous pressure of the water against it seemed exceedingly doubtful. The whole length of the river seemed to be concentrating its strength to push against this one spot. Allan, as he paused to look up the muddy current, almost imagined that the water was rushing toward the embankment with the deliberate purpose of overwhelming it. The débris which the broad current hurried along told of the damage it was doing in other places. Lordly trees had been uprooted, outbuildings carried away, stock drowned, fertile bottom land covered with gravel and rendered worthless,—but all this seemed trivial to the boy beside the danger which threatened the road. He could guess how long it would take to rebuild this great stretch of embankment, should it be swept away. For weeks and months, the system must lay powerless, lifeless, disrupted.

Mr. Schofield bent over the gauge again and looked at it.