The Saga of Burning Switch (continued)

The Saga of Burning Switch

A Railroad Saga by L. E. Trump, Ed Stabler and others as posted on the Narrow Gauge Discussion Forum, 2006 & 2007 (edited by Ed Stabler and L. E. Trump)

Few people were stirring at daybreak that morning in 1893 in the small, somewhat dreary community of Burning Switch, Montana. A short, southbound mixed train made it's smoky way out of the canyon north of town and stopped to take on water at the dilapidated, ice-coated tank just across the track from the old boxcar which served more or less as a depot. Billy Thompson, making his first pay trip as a newly promoted engineer, eased down from the cab of the little Baldwin 2-8-0, oil can in hand and began inspecting and oiling around his new charge. He had taken promotion the previous summer but only recently, with the retirement of J. D. "Stinky" Smith and G. B. "Jelly Belly" Moore taking a regular turn was he able to bid off the Fireman’s board and on to the Engineer's Extra Board. Here he was on his first Pay Trip.

The hog was a getting a bit long in the tooth, having been built almost 20 years earlier, but to him it looked like the finest machine ever to come out of Philadelphia. He wished that he had a photographer to record this moment, but they were expensive and he was still on Fireman's wages until he completed this trip.

Billy saw that his fireman was up on the tender deck, already adding water to the nearly empty tank. "Glad the damn valve in the water tank isn't frozen," he mused, “or we'd lose even more time than we’ve already lost waiting on that northbound freight extra that just passed, and why in hell didn’t we get any word from the dispatcher that we were to meet that train here? Good thing we were pulled into the siding to take on water when they showed up.”

He suddenly stopped his inspection of the little narrow gauge Baldwin, quickly walked back to the rear of the tender and called up to his fireman, "Hey, did you notice anything out of the ordinary on that northbound freight extra we were in the hole for?"

"Yeah," came the reply, "there was something odd about the guys on the rear end, they looked like they were asleep or something. Didn't wave back when I give 'em a Highball.”

"No, I meant the locomotive. It seemed to be having a rather hard time with that train. It was only 20 cars but it sounded like it was haulin’ 40!"

The fireman stopped for a minute and thought. "You know come to think of it did sound like the hogger was rappin’ 'er pretty hard with the Johnson bar down in the corner. Bet that fireman is cussin' him up and down tryin’ to keep up with it. Who was the engine crew anyway? Did you know either of 'em."

“No, neither one of ‘em looked familiar, and I thought I knew all the engine crews,” Billy replied, “and I haven’t heard that the company was hirin’ any new men. Seems odd neither of us recognized any of them.”

"Well if that hogger don't hook her up a bit, that tallowpot is gonna be reaching’ for coal before they get half way up the hill. He'll probably wrap the scoop around that hogger's head when they get in."

Just then they spied "Punk" Blackstone, their conductor wading through the snow, coming up from the depot telegraph office where he had gone to see if they could get the dispatcher to give them some more time on the next northbound they were to meet a couple stations down the line. They were already running late and would have to get moving to make the meet without delaying things. Billy could tell by the look on Punk's face that the news wasn't going to be good. "That damned dispatcher should go back to shufflin' papers for Mechanical. What he knows about railroadin' you could stick in a thimble," Punk complained. "He sez we got our orders and we gotta wait for the Northbound to clear, looks like another long trip.”

Billy looked at Punk and then at his watch, “Well,” he said, "we can't change nuthin', especially the dispatcher's mind, so I guess we gotta make the best of it. Punk, you got the stove back there in the Clown House fired up so we can cook somethin?"

"Sure" Punk said. Billy pulled a few coins from his pocket and looked at his fireman Billy “Jojo” Johanson. "Hey, Jojo go into town to the general store and see if you can pick up some eggs and maybe a couple slabs of bacon." Then he looked at Punk, "Any coffee back there?"

Before Punk could answer the operator came running out of the station. "Hey you there!" He pointed right at Punk then stumbling through the snow ran up to the confused crew. "Word just came down from the pass. No. 29 is stalled on the grade. I was told to tell you to cut off your train and head up there with your engine to give them a hand."

Billy frowned and thought to himself, "Why couldn't I have had an easy first day?"

They dumped the air, and tied down enough hand brakes on their train to keep it from rolling away, and got the head shack to cut their engine off so they could run around their train on the main and start back up the pass. They'd be running in reverse until they got back to Horse Creek where there was a wye to turn their engine and get it pointed right to couple onto the rear of No. 29 and give them some help . The operator handed Punk their orders to cover this movement and they all climbed up into the cab, and Billy whistled off. The head shack lined the switch to let them out on the main and then lined it back and locked it. He swung up into the gangway as they started back. It was getting crowded in the cab with the four of them in there, and they still had to stop at the hind end as they passed the caboose and pick up their rear brakie. Jojo grumbled about missing the bacon and eggs they had planned to cook up and hoped they'd have enough coal to get this little "extra" work done.

“Oh, brother," Billy thought to himself, "you can't swing a cat in this cab without hitting a trainman".

"Hey, Punk," Billy said aloud, "why don't you stay with the train, after all, we got your head Brakie and the rear end crew on the other train will be doing most of the work? That way you'll stay warm and breakfast will be ready when we show back up... or maybe lunch."

"Waal, y'know, Billy," Punk replied, "you just got promoted and I gotta make sure that you do things right."

"Well, I tried," Billy thought as he eased back out on the throttle and hooked up the reverse lever to make it easier on the ashcat across the cab.

"I wonder what's wrong with the hog on 29?" he said, half aloud. "Probably a blown flue."

"What waz zat?" queried Punk.

"Nuttin, just talkin to myself," Billy replied.

They were just getting up to speed on the Main when Punk changed his mind and said, "Well, choke her down then, and me and the rear brakie will stay here with the train and get some grub fixed to eat".

He had had time to think about it a little and decided he'd rather have a full belly and be sleeping in a warm caboose rather than jammed alongside the boiler in the deckless cab hog or standing in the gangway dodging the fireman’s every scoop while he was down on the deck putting in a fire. Besides that, he figured Billy would be OK with the head brakeman to line the switches for him and couple him up when they got up to where 29 was stalled. He also didn't want to be put to work passing coal later on, which was sure to happen when they got the coal gates open and Jojo began having to reach for it.

Billy slowed the hog when they came abreast the caboose, and Punk climbed down and swung off. Jojo came over and said, "Hey, we just got a full tank of water, and we ain't gonna use much of that getting back up the road, but I been eyeballing our coal supply, and mebbe we ought to stop at that coal tipple where the Yankee Boy mine is just the other side of Horse Creek and swipe us a ton or two of coal, just so we won't run out and stall on the hill ourselves."

Billy thought that would probably be a good idea. "No sense having two engines fail up there, if we can do anything to avoid it", he thought.

He said to Jojo, "We'll get more water at Horse Creek Tank too, just to make sure we got as much of everything on here we can possibly get. No telling what we'll run into up there."

He widened out on the throttle a bit, but didn't want to run too fast in reverse. It wouldn't do to derail before they got the engine turned at Horse Creek. After all it was Billy's first pay trip and the last thing that he wanted it to be was his last. Bill said to Jojo, "Let Lake, the head shack, keep his eye peeled. He seems pretty good and isn't about to doze off when we're running backwards."

Jojo agreed and Lake took his position back behind the tender collar so he could see, but where the wind wouldn't turn him into an icicle. Billy got the hand signal from Lake and they began easing their way toward Horse Creek. The wind was beginning to pick up a little and there were some small drifts forming over the track.

Now, bucking snow with a tender is not the best idea in the world. Everybody on the engine kept an eagle eye out, watching to see how much those little drifts were increasing as they rattled along. Billy opened the throttle just a bit more as they approached a drift slightly larger than what they'd been running through. The tender got through and stayed on the rails, and the little Baldwin shook herself free of the snow, got her feet back under her with Billy's skillful use of the throttle and pushed on. The snow was coming down a little harder now, and Billy had to occasionally use the sanders to keep moving.

Billy kept a sharp watch out his side, ready to stop the hog if they went on the ground or in response to a stop signal from Lake on the tank. He was glad it was daylight now and not dark because the hog didn't have a backup light on the tank.

"Lessee,” he thought to himself, "ten miles back to Horse Creek wye, that'll take us about an hour at the best speed we can make if we don't derail." He fished out his watch and checked the time.

The operator back at the water stop hadn't given them any exact location where No. 29 was stopped. Apparently, their conductor had hiked some distance to a telegraphone booth to let the dispatcher know they were in trouble, and it was hard to understand him over the primitive circuit with all the line hum.

Billy figured they'd get turned, take on all the water they could, get some coal at the mine tipple, and then proceed northward cautiously until they popped No. 29's guns (track torpedoes) and came on their rear flagman. He hoped the cold wind and blowing snow hadn't induced 29's rear brakie to do any "drawbar flagging".

Horse Creek was out in the middle of nowhere, nothing there but a water tank, a station signboard and the wye. There was an old boxcar set off there that was used for a telegraph office and a mine agent when the mine was shipping coal, but it was closed when the mine temporarily shut down a few months ago. The ceaseless winds generally kept the rails clear there, so Billy didn't figure they'd have any trouble getting turned. The wye was used to turn helper engines sent over from the terminal on the other side of the pass and they usually ran on "go and return" orders so there was no open train order office at Horse Creek.

The yard limit sign a mile south of Horse Creek was a welcome sight. There was only a skiff of snow on the rails here and there, thanks to the wind. Billy shut off and let the Baldwin drift easily to the south switch of the wye, where he stopped and gave a short blast on the engine's hooter. "Wish they'd put one of those new chime whistles on this thing," he thought.

The wye at Horse Creek was seldom used anymore. It had been built over twenty years ago when the line was first built, and still had mostly 30 pound rail on both legs and the tail. The brakeman waved a "come on" and Billy eased the throttle out and started backing into the wye. He had just cleared the main when suddenly the pops lifted with their usual sharp report. Jojo had been doing his job too well. "Easy on the coal, Jo,“ yelled Billy, "we still got to make it to the Yankee-Boy to coal up. I 'preciate the good job, though".

Billy tried the middle try-cock and water sprayed out as merrily as you please. "Holy Moses,” Billy thought, "those pops scared ten years growth out of me, I thought we had flipped a rail on this old rickety track". With the drivers lightly set, Billy began easing his charge around the wye. "Good thing this is an old hog," Billy confided to Jojo, "it's light enough that we can take this wye, even as rickety as it is, if we go slow enough.”

Lake got off the pilot, where he had positioned himself after lining the first switch and saw that the tail track was all ready lined for them. When the locomotive got to the switch stand, Lake bailed off and was at the ready to line back the switch behind them. He grabbed that old stand and fumbled with the lock, then threw the switch and gave Billy the come ahead. Billy eased the throttle open and kicked open the cocks. Steam rushed from them as the wheels started to turn then he closed them. Lake swung up into the cab as they past. The track creaked and moaned under the little engine. Billy stopped just before the switch to the main and Lake went to set it. Now that they were facing forward Billy called across the top of the boiler to Jojo, "Why don't you close them cab curtains its getting a little bit drafty in here."

Billy eased the hog out on the main headed north, and spotted her with the tender under the tank spout. Jojo climbed up, opened the manhole and pulled the tank spout down and jerked the water valve rope. It only took a few minutes to top off the tank, and he let go of the valve rope and swung the spout up, cussing the splashing he got from the icy water drizzling all over his overalls. He slammed the manhole cover shut and climbed back down into the cab.

Lake had also re-boarded, so they were ready to head for the coal tipple at the Yankee-Boy Mine. Even though the mine wasn't shipping, there ought to be several tons of coal still in the tipple where they could dump some of it right into the tender without much trouble. They'd need all they could get this day.

Billy hoped the hind end crew on 29 would have a coffee pot going when they found them. He knew their rear brakie would be standing out there on the rails with his flag, half frozen and waiting to be called in. The man was bound to be miserable.

There was something else that bothered Billy as the hog chuckled along, hooked up about halfway and running swiftly now that they were headed forward. They had met No. 29 on it's schedule at Horse Creek, and an Extra North that was following, the one with the funny sounding engine they had noticed.

The question now was: Where was that Extra North, if 29 was stalled in the pass? They must have run up on 29's flag and stopped there too? This could take more unraveling than they thought at first. Maybe the northbound extra's engine couldn't help 29 for some reason? They'd soon find out, he thought. The Yankee Boy coal tipple was in sight now, Billy hollered over at Jojo to get up on the tank and signal him to stop where he could get the coal chute down to the tender, and shut the hog off, letting her drift to a stop at the mine.

Billy spotted the tender under a coal chute where they found more than enough coal to fill it, and soon Billy whistled off and they headed on up the main on their rescue mission. Every man on board that little Baldwin knew that anything can and will happen of a railroad, and they were all hoping no one had been injured, or worse, on Extra 29 North.

Snow was falling more heavily as they started out. Three miles upgrade, they encountered snow drifts which nearly reached the top of the pilot plow, but the snow was fresh and powdery and the little Baldwin kicked it off the track will little trouble. Billy was careful to raise the Priest flanger ahead of the pilot truck when approaching a switch or grade crossing, lest the engine derail and tear up some track.

They'd gone nearly ten miles and were high on the side of the mountain on a nearly four per cent grade. As they nosed around a sharp, left hand curve Lake, who was leaning out of the fireman's side gangway shouted, "Stop, there's a flagman on the track!" As Billy dumped the air and slammed the throttle shut, the two torpedoes on the track went off with two very loud bangs. They stopped quickly, and the rear end brakeman from Extra 29 North, a man known only as "the German", slogged through the snow and pulled himself into the cab.

"Mein Gott, I'm glad to see you guys," he said with a thick accent. "Ve stalled in a drift, und ven ve backed out der damn hack vent offen der track. Dere vas no vay we could pull up to rerail der damn t'ing. Ve been here for several hours and it's gettin' colder all the time."

Lake, in a somewhat shaky voice, said to the German, "Did you see another train behind you at any time?" "Nein," the German replied, "but ve couldn't have seen it because of der snow." Billy told the German about the other train they'd passed, and the German turned white as a sheet.

Billy thought, "Well, this is a little strange, if the train ahead of us IS the 29 that is stalled, there must have been two sections of No. 29 that they met back at Horse Creek...this one maybe wasn't carrying signals as second 29, or maybe somewhere they had missed getting an order that showed a second 29 running some time behind the schedule. No matter now, they had found the stalled train ahead, picked up the flagman and now could begin sorting things out.

Billy had Lake go back a few hundred feet and put some new "guns" (track torpedoes) on the rail and leave a red flag to warn anything that might be following that they were stopped ahead. He didn't figure the dispatcher would run much up behind them with the siding at Burning Switch occupied with his own train. The only other place anything could get in the clear was the empty passing track and the wye at Horse Creek. The railroad was pretty well tied up until they could unravel what was wrong with the 29 and get the line cleared.

Billy whistled off and he moved slowly forward toward where the German had said their caboose was derailed. He thought if it maybe wasn't too far off the iron, maybe they could set a rerailing frog, chain up to the front coupler and pull No. 29’s caboose back on the track.

In the backs of their minds they were all wondering what had become of the second train they had met back there at Burning Switch. There was no place a whole train could have gotten in the clear and out of sight between where they were and Burning Switch. Had someone made an error and not made them aware of a "second 29", or was the vision of that second train with the strange sounding engine and the unresponsive rear end crew something they had all imagined??? A ghost train? Why had the German paled so when they asked him if a train had been following him?

When they got to the derail site they saw that the caboose could be rerailed with little trouble. They cut the caboose from the train, put the rerail frogs on and pulled the caboose back with Billy's hog. It came right back on the rails. They pushed the car back to the train and recoupled. Billy tied down the brakes on his engine and walked up to 29’s engine with Lake to see how bad the drift was. The hog was up to her valve chests in snow and it was packed hard around her pony truck and front drivers. Billy told the crew of the 29, "We'll pull you back out of the drift so we can clean her up."

The engine crew and head brakie of 29 had been shoveling snow from a large drift alongside the track into their engine's tender to keep them from running out of water. Billy and Lake waded back to their hog and Billy told Jojo to get a fire in her. They were already coupled into 29's caboose, so Billy whistled a backup signal and released his engine brakes. 29's engine crew responded with a like three short hoots, and Billy hauled her over into back motion and gave her steam and sand to see if they could get 29 free of the drift. Billy's little hog slipped and the exhaust roared, and 29's engine chuffed and slipped a time or two as well. After a couple attempts at bunching and stretching the slack to get the momentum and tonnage of 29's train to help, and with black smoke billowing against the cloudy sky from both stacks, the two engines finally moved 29 and her train back out of the drift a half dozen car lengths. They backed down a little farther and stopped in a fairly clear spot where the show wasn't too deep so 29's engine crew could get out the steam hose and clean up their engine's front end, pony truck and valve gear.

29's rear end crew had the coffee pot going, so they all took a break for some hot coffee, "Caboose Stew" and a little rest before taking to the shovels to clear a partial path in the large drift across the track that they could buck their way through. Billy and 29's hoghead figured with both engines working at it, they could punch through.

The plan was for Billy to stay coupled and help them to the top of the pass. There, at Summit's telegraph office, they could get the operator to report their arrival to the dispatcher, get new orders, and Billy and his crew could get turned on the wye in the snow shed and get started back down the hill to where they left their train.

That was the plan anyway......

During their break, the discussion turned to the strange "other" train Billy and his crew had seen following 29 before daylight. Had it been some kind of a mass hallucination and not real???? There certainly was no other train on the road between Billy's hog and 29, so what was it they saw?

The rear brakie on 29 got pale and quiet again and didn't participate in the conversation. What was it he knew that the others didn't???

The German was an old head on this railroad, having been a water boy during the construction over a quarter-century ago. When the line was finished, he entered train service, but for some reason, was never promoted to conductor, remaining a brakeman all these years. Billy had often thought that strange, but had never known the German's story.

"German," he said, "you've been on this line a long time. It seems like you get real worried about something every time this extra train we’ve seen is mentioned. What's the story?"

The German shuffled his feet, looked up as if hoping for divine guidance, and told his story in a shaky voice, barely above a whisper.

"Vell", he began slowly "I vass here ven t'ey built his line all right. Got a yob braking ven t'ey started running the trains over dis mountain. One night I vas called as rear brakeman. Ve vere nort'bound mit a heavy tren und der enshin vasn't verking vell. Ve got started up dis grade und pretty soon...WhoomBOOM! the enshun's boiler exploded und der enshin crew und head brakeman vas all kilt.

“Der tren stopped und started to roll back down der hill. My conductor und I "decorated" (climbed on top of the cars) and "cooned" the train, und tied down ass many handbrakes ass ve could, but ve cuddn't get it stopped und it ran avay vith us on top. The whole train piled up on von uff dose sharp curves back t'ere, und the conductor died under the wreck. I vas t'rown clear, but vas busten up real bad.

“I vas off verk for many months before I could go back. I dint haf no oter yob, so I vent back braking. Ever since t'en, in the night ven der vind is right, train crews haf now und again told of seeing a phantom train working up dis grade mit der ghost crew who ver snuffed from life before t'ey ver ready to go. It is said 'tey are still trying to reach the end uff t'eir run, und t'ey vont rest until t'ey do. I sometimes vonder iff t'ey are also vaiting for me to join dem.”

There was silence in the caboose when the German finished his tale. 29's conductor finally cleared his throat and said, "Well, enough of the "ghost stories. We'd better get ourselves moving, we're burning daylight here."

Soon they were all back on the train and had the air pumped up. 29's engine whistled off, and Billy answered with two short hoots, opened the cylinder cocks and put the Johnson bar down in the corner. He released his engine brakes and opened the throttle to bunch the slack. Lake was sitting in Jojo’s seat on the left side of the cab watching the track ahead. Jojo was down on the deck putting in a fire and then went to work getting his injector set. As they moved ahead, Billy closed the cylinder cocks, left the throttle wide open on the hog and worked the Johnson bar to keep her doing her best with the train, ready to give her a shot of sand if she slipped. The lead engine would regulate their speed as they started to attack the drifts ahead.

Billy was thinking while he ran his engine, "The old German brakie is really bothered by something."

This was before the Hog Law came into effect, which limited the hours train crews could spend on duty without rest. Billy and his crew had already been on duty many hours, and were half asleep while they were in the hole waiting for northbound trains. “So maybe we thought we saw something we didn't really see. Tired men can have some weird, lifelike dreams sometimes and see stuff in the road that ain't really there,” he thought.

-- End of 2006 part of story --

The train bucked and slowed when they punched through the drifts across the track, but they were making steady progress, and had only a few more miles to go to the Summit.

As the little hog barked to the heavens, shoving her share of the train, Billy had some time to reflect on the strange actions of the old German on 29 and the story he told them about the wreck long ago. Then, there still was the mystery of the "second" northbound train they had seen pass them (or thought they had seen) while they were taking water at Burning Switch.

Was that some kind of hallucination, or was there something to that business of it being a "ghost train" with a dead crew still trying to get to the end of their run., and maybe not able to until they collected the last living man on that crew to take with them??? Shivers ran down Billy's spine as these thoughts coursed through his mind.

The two engineers almost mauled the stacks off their little Baldwin hogs going up the remaining five miles of four per cent grade to the top of the pass. The trip was uneventful, and a stiff breeze was blowing the clouds off to the southeast and the sun was shining through when they finally stopped at the Summit depot, another box car body set on the ground, to cut off Billy’s engine.

Billy set his engine brakes and left the cab to go into the open train order office with 29’s conductor to contact the dispatcher to obtain orders for No. 29 to proceed northbound, and for Billy, his engine and crew to return to Burning Switch to pick up their train, now running several hours behind schedule.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/08/2007 12:32PM by Ed Stabler.