What with the thread on railroad stories, it's time to post the final version of a story that was largely written by L. E. Trump and myself with some help from others on this board in 2006 and 2007. Hopefully, it will spark the interest of the members to write other stories of interest, or to continue this one. This is lengthy, but we think y'all will enjoy it. -- Ed
The Saga of Burning Switch
A Railroad Saga by Ed Stabler, L. E. Trump and Andy Roth as posted on the Narrow Gauge Discussion Forum, 2006 & 2007 © 2008, Stabler, Trump & Roth
Few people were stirring at daybreak that cold winter 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 three-foot wide narrow gauge 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 30-ton Baldwin 2-8-0, oil can in hand and began inspecting and oiling around his new charge. He had been promoted 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 in 1881 and worked hard for all of her dozen years on this mountain railroad, 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 guy on the rear end, he looked like he was asleep or something. Didn't wave back when I give 'im a highball. I never did see a second man on that caboose.”
"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, 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 Joe “Jojo” Johanson. "Hey, Jojo go into town to the general store and see if you can pick up some eggs and maybe a slab of bacon or two." Then he looked at Punk, "Any coffee back there?"
Before Punk could answer the operator came running out of the station. “Hey, Punk,“ he called, and 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. 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 his 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’d 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 sees 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 Burning Switch 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". 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 the old stand and fumbled with the lock, then threw the switch and gave Billy the come ahead.
Billy eased the throttle open and 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.
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 No. 29.
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 with no 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.
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 the northbound extra at Burning Switch that was following, the one with the funny sounding engine they had noticed.
The question now was: Where was that northbound extra 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.
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 No. 29, a man known only as "the German", slogged through the snow and pulled himself into the gangway.
"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 and Burning Switch. 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 snow 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.
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 consolidations 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 depot at Summit (another box car set on the ground) to cut off Billy’s engine.
Before cutting off from the caboose and turning on the Summit wye, 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 get orders for Billy, his engine and the crew aboard to return to Burning Switch to pick up their train, now running many hours behind schedule.
The only person working inside the boxcar depot was Charlie Waters, son of the railroad's superintendent. After greetings were made, Charlie got to work sending the wire message for the train orders. The orders for No. 29 arrived first and its conductor was out the door. Two short blasts indicated that No. 29 was on its way down the mountain. Other wire messages were sent before Billy's arrived.
The events of the day were still on his mind and Billy asked Charlie if he had heard of the wreck years ago. Charlie responded, "Yes I remember the wreck a little. My dad rarely talks about it. He oversaw taking care of the crew and cleaning up the wreckage. I was 11 at the time and I remember dad being gone from home for a few weeks when it happened. It was sad what happened to the men. The surviving man's younger brother was the head end brakie on the train“.
Charlie added that if you looked in the right location, one could still see the blown away portion of the rock wall made by the explosion made near the top of the short grade at Eagle Cliff.
It took a few minutes for what Charlie said to sink in as Billy's stare glazed over. That explained some of the German's reaction. But the look in the German's eyes and his reaction meant to Billy that there was more to the story. Billy's train orders arrived and he bid farewell to Charlie. After he climbed aboard his engine and checked his gages, Billy let off the brakes and headed for the switch to the wye just past the depot to turn his locomotive. The wye was located inside a snow shed to protect the tracks from the harsh winter weather. Jojo had the fire in the firebox hot and ready to go.
Lake hopped off the pilot and threw the switches like he did at the bottom of the grade. Soon enough, the engine and its crew were finally pointed back towards their train. Lake threw the switch to re-enter the mainline and Billy eased the hog forward. After clearing the switch, Billy quickly applied the brakes to shorten Lake's walk back to the locomotive. After Lake climbed aboard, Billy whistled off and Lake waved to Charlie who was waving back from the depot's doorway. As they got underway, Billy told Lake and Jojo what Charlie had told him. All three men were silent for a few minutes contemplating what they had learned today.
Billy let the hog drift downgrade at leisurely pace, not wanting to take a chance of punching through a drift and derailing. Jojo and Lake were riding the seats along the left side of the boiler, lake looking out ahead on the left curves. Jojo had only keep steam up for the air pumps, so was taking it easy.
Darkness had caught up with them as they were getting lined up at Summit, and the bright glare of the carbon arc electric headlight now cast a strong beam forward. It was beginning to snow lightly again, and the wind was picking up a little, but the track was still relatively clear of drifting snow since their run up the hill.
Billy peered ahead into the gloom, and on a right hand curve just above where they’d pulled 29 out of the drift and where he could see way ahead down the pass, he thought he caught the gleam of another headlight. He watched intently and soon he was sure he saw it again, the beam sweeping as though a headlight on an oncoming locomotive was coming around a curve toward them.
Shivers ran down his spine....there was not supposed to be anything coming up the pass toward them. The Dispatcher had given them orders to run extra Summit to Burning Switch, not protecting against extra northbound trains, so the railroad was supposed to be theirs.
As they crossed a trestle that took the track across to the other side of the canyon that led out of the pass, Billy called across the boiler head to the others of his crew and asked them to watch ahead carefully and see if they saw what he was seeing. He slowed the hog, preparing to stop and reverse in case something was actually headed toward them. What was going on here????
Was that the phantom northbound train that had eluded them making another appearance? Was the ghost crew aboard still trying to make the end of their run? Were they after the old brakeman on 29?
Billy considered his options...He could stop and drop some guns and a fusee, then reverse a mile or two back towards Summit and stop and wait to see what happened. If something popped the guns, he would hopefully then have time to run back to Summit and get in the clear ahead of whatever it was that was coming up the grade toward them.
If the other men on the hog with him saw this light, he would know it wasn't just him seeing things, and then he would put that plan into action. He believed in the railroaders cardinal rule: When in doubt, the safe course must be taken.
They hadn't gone but another quarter-mile when Lake, as Billy eased the hog around a sharp right-hand curve, shouted, "Stop! There's a headlight down below us!" Billy stopped as quickly as the straight air brakes on the engine would allow, and they all peered ahead into the darkness.
"Turn our headlight off, Billy," said Jojo, "and maybe we can see if anything's out there a little better. Billy turned the headlight off and the darkness seemed to swallow them up.
The track at this point was built on a narrow shelf along the east side of the mountain on a 2-and-a-half per cent grade. Another hundred yards from where they stopped, the track swung sharply to the left and crossed a small creek on a high wooden trestle, reversing direction along the opposite side of the creek. From their vantage point, they could see the track below for nearly the mile and a half to Eagle Cliff. Beyond Eagle Cliff, the grade steepened to nearly four per cent, dropping around the Point and out of sight for a mile or more before reappearing much lower on the mountain side. They would be able to see anything with a headlight on the track from there nearly to the Yankee Boy mine in the valley below.
"I don't like this at all," said Billy. "Let's give whatever you saw some time and see if it appears again. But be ready to drop a couple guns and a fusee so we can get the hell back up the line to Summit if need be. I just hope that whatever it is, it‘s not on that track we can‘t see below Eagle Cliff."
Jojo dropped down in the gangway to fix his fire.
Within a few minutes, Lake and Jojo could see the oncoming headlight beam sweeping the side of the canyon as the approaching train or whatever it was came up the grade just below the point near Eagle Cliff..."There it is, and it's coming really close! Lets get out of here!
Lake dropped off the gangway and raced ahead a couple hundred feet, quickly reached down and squeezed the soft lead straps of two track torpedoes around the left hand rail which would be on the hoghead's side coming up grade. He put them two rail lengths apart and then ran back toward the Hog, popping a red fusee as he ran. He waved the fusee in a wild circle for a backup signal and grabbed onto the step at the front of the pilot plow as Billy horsed the hog into back motion and opened the throttle. The hog snorted rapidly in reverse and after they'd gone about a two hundred yards, Billy slowed and stopped so Lake could drop the burning fusee in the middle of the track and run back to climb into the cab.
Then they started back in reverse, running as fast as they dared to get some time on the oncoming northbound train. Jojo rattled the scoop and put in a fire, while Lake pulled on the left injector to get some water in the hog's boiler.
Billy remembered there was a short logging spur off the main line about three miles back. He hadn't paid much attention to it as usually there was nothing in there this time of year. The spur left the main track in a southward direction on the east side. It would be a good place to put the hog in the clear to let whatever was coming go by without a collision. They should have time enough to make it. He hoped the snow wasn't so deep on that spur that their pilot plow couldn't push it away.
Billy hollered across to Lake to be ready to drop off and line that spur switch when they got to it so they could run the hog in the clear, and then line it back behind them to let what ever it was coming go by.
When the switch stand hove into view for the logging spur, Billy choked the hog down so Lake could swing off to line the spur switch into the spur after they passed over it. Then as soon as the hog was into the spur and it's tank wheels cleared the points, he lined it back so anything running on the main had a clear track northbound. He locked the mainline switch and ran to catch the tailboard on the hog's tank as Billy ran the hog into the snow-covered spur far enough to clear.
Billy opened the cylinder cocks as he closed the throttle and set the air brakes to bring the hog to a stop well in the clear on the spur. He shut the headlight off so it wouldn't be seen by the oncoming train, and shut the steam dynamo off so they could listen without it's whine. . The main line was now on his side and He , Jojo and Lake all watched and listened intently to hear if anything popped the guns they had left on the track below.
He wasn't worried about anything coming down the hill behind them, as Charlie, the operator at Summit had said nothing was on the line to the north, and he would keep his train order semaphore set at "stop" until he heard from the operator at Burning Switch that they had arrived and were in the clear there.
The night was fairly still, the wind had calmed and they should be able to hear the torpedoes when they were hit. Rules required any train striking track torpedoes to whistle a couple short blasts in acknowledgement, then slow immediately to restricted speed of 15 mph or less and run cautiously until they found the reason for the torpedoes. In this case they would come on what was left of the half hour-long red fusee burning where they'd dropped it on the tracks, and were supposed to wait until the fusee burned out before proceeding past that point.
They would soon find out what was coming toward them on their railroad.
The men heard the sound of the approaching train grow louder as it struggled with its heavy train, wheels squealing on the sharp curves. The engine was having a hard time on the grade. Billy and Jojo thought at the same time the locomotive sound was similar to the unknown train. A sharp chill ran down their backs and their faces showed it. Lake read their faces in the firebox light and he had a chill run down his back as well.
The moon was full with only a few clouds in the early night sky which allowed the them to watch the unknown train struggle past them on the mainline. The three men in the engine looked straight ahead and did not acknowledge the presence of the lone engine on the spur. The twenty cars rolled past along with the caboose. But only one man could be seen standing on the rear platform holding something. A cloud covered moon just as the caboose passed and Billy could not see what the man was holding.
The three men looked at each other and Jojo spoke first. "That was the same train that passed us at Burning Switch earlier in the day. Billy and Lake agreed, and the German's and Charlie's stories replayed in their minds. Billy repeated that he had never heard of the wreck before today. Jojo and Lake had never heard of the wreck before today either, but Jojo mentioned that old man Stephenson, the No. 1 conductor on the railroad and his brother, the No. 2 conductor, both had stated that they didn’t not like to ride over this mountain at night.
Lake started to say something, but was interrupted by the roar of a huge explosion from uphill around the bend. The faces of all three men went as white as the snow.
A few minutes later, they heard the sound of squealing wheels coming at them from up the grade. The clouds cleared away from the moon as the caboose and a string of boxcars came into view from up the mountain. The caboose and cars were slowly gaining speed as they came rolling downhill towards the logging spur switch. Lake quickly checked his memory to make sure he had securely locked the switch.
They could see one man still standing on the rear platform holding a long pole type object vertically next to him . As the caboose came closer, the man on in the shadows on the rear platform walked to their side of the caboose and pointed his pole at them. Billy's hair literally raised up when he saw it to be a pole with a short sickle in the man's hand!! His steely gaze went right to their souls. He pointed it out towards the men in the moonlight as the caboose passed by. Billy realized with some relief that the man was holding only a pole, or was it a claw bar, but it was still pointed at them. The caboose and boxcars continued their roll down the mountain out of sight.
As they listed to the squealing wheels fade off into the distance, Billy thought he had aged ten years in the last ten minutes. After another few minutes, Jojo spoke up, “There was only one man on those cars, the guy on the rear platform of the caboose. There should have been two. What happened to the second man?“
Suddenly, Lake remembered: “The German!”, he said rather shakily, “If that’s a ghost of the wrecked train he was on, he survived the wreck and wouldn’t be on it…..yet.” No one said a word, but they realized their adventure, if so it could be called, wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.
Billy regained some composure and said, “We can’t stay here and our train is waiting for us at Burning Switch.” They waited another five minutes and heard nothing, not a single sound other than their engine and their breathing.
Billy said, “Lets get back to our train and the stew Punk’s got waiting for us in his caboose.” Lake climbed down to the ground and walked back to the switch and threw it. Jojo took the lantern and climbed up onto the tender as Billy slowly opened the throttle.
"STOP!" screamed Jojo and Billy did as he was told and asked "Why, what did you see.…?" Jojo climbed back into the cab and stated that the water in the tender was lowerer than it should have been. "We have somehow lost water. We should have been able to get back to Horse Creek Tank, but there is not enough water in the tank, something is wrong."
Lake had walked back to the engine and heard what Jojo had said. They looked at each other and though about the ghost train and the man pointing at them. Were they waiting to pick them up if something went wrong? Were they trying to warn them? None of them knew the answers to those questions.
Jojo and Lake quickly began the task of shoveling snow into the tender. All three of them wondered why there was less water in the tender. After enough snow was shoveled into the tender, Billy eased the hog onto the mainline. Lake closed the switch and climbed into the cab. The three men looked up and down the mainline carefully and now saw no train headlights at all. Billy eased the locomotive forward down the mountain toward Eagle Cliff.
BANG! BANG! The sounds rifled through the cab and Billy instinctively applied his brakes. "What was that!!" yelled a startled Jojo as the sounds pierced the icy cold night air, and then the three men realized they were where Lake had placed the two torpedoes a short while ago. The ghost train had not set them off and yet had made all of the other normal sounds as it climbed up the mountain.
The three men took deep breaths and looked up and down the mainline. Again, they saw no other trains and heard no whistles. Billy eased off the brakes again as they restarted their journey down the mountain. They all knew they would have to pass by Eagle Cliff and then the sharp curve below Pine Creek Trestle, where the German said his caboose and boxcars had finally derailed and piled up that fateful day. The mountain grade had a complete new meaning for the men and they were on edge.
By the time they reached Eagle Cliff, the snow had again begun falling in earnest, making it difficult to see the track ahead. Jojo made sure the boiler had plenty of water, Billy checked his try-cocks and grunted his approval when he got water from the top one. “Sure don’t want this thing not to have water on the crown sheet when we tip over on to the four per cent,” he mused to himself. He made another brake application as they hit the grade and let the little Baldwin continue it’s drift down the hill, easily kicking the new snow off the track.
Pine Creek trestle was located about half way between Eagle Cliff and Horse Creek. Lake was leaning out of the cab window on the left side as they rounded the curve short of the trestle. “My God, Billy, stop!” he yelled as the Baldwin came onto the tangent leading to the trestle. Billy wiped the clock and stopped as quickly as he could. There, fifty yards in front of them, just visible through the falling snow, was a lantern waving an imperative stop signal.
Billy released his brakes and let the engine roll forward, coming to a stop just short of the lantern. Out of the snow walked the German. All three of the men in the cab were speechless as the German approached Billy’s window. He said in a calm, friendly voice, “Vell boys, I’m almost home.”
A sudden snow squall enveloped the German and the little Baldwin, and when it passed, the German and his lantern were gone. The only sound they heard was the howling of the wind and the clank of the air pumps.
The three men stood there with their mouths open for a few minutes
comprehending what they had just seen. Another snow squall enveloped the Baldwin and the men saw the German standing again next to the cab.
He yelled up to the locomotive, "You had better get moving as fast as you can to get across Silver Creek trestle und don’ delay!" Billy yelled back, "What's happening at Silver Creek?! His mouth filled with snow fakes as another gust blew through the cab window. The German was gone again when the wind subsided. Billy turned to Jojo and Lake and yelled, "You heard the man, let’s highball!!"
Jojo grabbed his scoop and fed the fire while Lake pulled on both injectors as the fire grew hotter to get more steam as Billy slapped the brake lever to full release and moved the Johnson bar forward to accelerate as fast as he could. They were all concerned about what was waiting for them up ahead.
Silver Creek was a wide creek that crossed under the railroad at the opening of the valley at the bottom of the mountain on the north side of Burning Switch. The switch for the siding with the water tank where they had stopped that morning was just beyond the trestle. Water from the creek was used to fill the tank. The trestle was fifteen minutes away but it seemed to them like two hours. Billy approached the last tight curve in the canyon and slowed for it.
As they rounded the last curve, they saw fire at the trestle in the distance. There was a hobo camp at the trestle just outside of Burning Switch, and Billy quickly surmised one of their fires must have gotten out of control. The creek bank to the right was ablaze and its flames were almost licking the edge of the trestle. He coaxed the little hog for all she was worth and they roared out of the canyon. It became a race to the trestle between the Baldwin and the flames.
Just then, a snow squall blew in and enveloped the little engine and the valley. Billy and Lake tried to see what was ahead of them, but only saw white swirling snow, while Jojo kept feeding the firebox's big appetite for coal. Lake leaned out his window to try to see better to no avail. They should be at the trestle any minute now and Billy still could not see a thing and he was very concerned, actually frightened, but he would not admit it to even himself. Time was running out as the locomotive reached the trestle.
Billy, Jojo and Lake still could not see a thing, but they heard the German say, "Velcome home, boys," as a chill went down all three of their backs and they heard the clatter of metal under their wheels. The snow squall suddenly subsided as they shot off the trestle and they could now see the water tank and the depot in the distance. Billy set the air and brought them to a stop in front of the boxcar depot.
The operator ran out of the boxcar depot yelling, "Where the hell were you? The trestle is on fire!! Go help put it out!! He threw a forty-five foot length of hose up into the cab, which was all they had in town. As the emotional rush subsided, Billy said , "Let's get back to the trestle and put out the fire." Lake rode on the rear of the tender as they backed up. As they neared the trestle, Lake frantically waved his arm across to signal Billy to stop.
The end of the trestle and the railroad track at the switch were on fire. Lake and Jojo attached the hose to the engine and started to spray water. The section foreman ran up to them and yelled, “What were you dong racing that fast through a blinding snow!!! You almost killed me and my three men. We jumped out of the way so fast when we saw you at the last second, we dropped our metal lunch pails on the track!”
Billy and his crew were dead tired by now, especially after the mysterious encounters with the "ghost train" on the pass. Lake told the Section foreman in no uncertain terms where he could put his tracks and his trestle if he wanted immediate help in putting out the fire.
The section foreman backed off considerably after that, and he and his men worked with wet burlap sacks and water buckets to get the fire in and under the trestle under control. Generous hosing with the water hose from what was left in the hog's tank helped, and soon the fire was nearly out. The frequent snow squalls helped too. The hog's tender soon ran dry and they had to run for water.
Billy and his crew climbed back on the hog and pulled down near the depot where they took on water from the tank. When the tender was full, they pulled down past the south end of the passing track switch and Lake lined it so they could back in against their train and couple up. Punk and their hind end man came out of the depot and walked over to get the story as to where they'd been for so long. Punk also had a message from the dispatcher that the operator had copied for them, which he handed to Billy.
The message read:
" 23 DI BS DH DIVISION HQ 11 PM 16
CONDR BLACKSTONE
ENGR THOMPSON
EXTRA 27 SOUTH
BURNING SWITCH
TIE DOWN TRAIN IN THE
CLEAR BURNING SWITCH RELIEF CREW
ARRIVES TRAIN NO 3 THIS
EVENING WILL TAKE YOUR TRAIN
AND CONTINUE RUN TO HELENA
THIS MESSAGE STAMPED AND COUNTERSIGNED
BY OPERATOR BURNING SWITCH AUTHORIZES
CONDR BLACKSTONE ENGR THOMPSON AND
CREW EXTRA 27 SOUTH RIDE
TRAIN NO 4 BURNING SWITCH
TO HELENA REPORT TRAINMASTER HELENA
ON ARRIVAL
HWE SUPT "
"OH CRAP!” Billy exclaimed, “looks like we've been called in for some kind of investigation". But he, Jojo and Lake were so dead tired they didn't really care. They were ready for a ride home on the cushions. They'd find out what Supt. Egley wanted when they got home to Helena.
Punk said, "I heard the operator here let Summit know you had arrived okay, but it sure took you long enough to get here. What the hell
did you guys get into up there anyway?"
Billy told Punk, "You'll probably find it hard to believe us when we tell the tale, we had a plumb creepy run back to here."
"Summit also told the operator here that there had been an accident with train 29 north of his station,” Punk said. "The old German brakeman fell between cars and was run over and killed a few hours ago."
"Oh my Gosh!" said Billy, "they finally got him, didn't they?"
After a long pause, Lake said, "Yeah, but he stayed long enough to warn us about the fire so we would make it in okay. I guess they can run on home now." Jojo just nodded in agreement.
Punk said, "Got Who? What the hell are you guys jabbering about?"
"Come on," said Billy, “We're near starved. Lets go back to the crummy and eat whatever it is you got cooked up for us before that relief crew gets here on No. 3. We can't let them have it. We'll tell you all about it while we eat".
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