Re: Fatality on the SVRy Jan. 15th 1911

Great stuff Bret, it's really neat to get some of these stories that give insight to the human side of the SVRy operations. One thing that has stood out to me in your last two posts are the fact that I hadn't heard of either of the engineers involved in the accidents. One of the things that is easily forgotten or overlooked (at least by me) is how many engine crews the Sumpter Valley must have had in their heyday. Six to seven trains on the mainline over a 24 hour period, plus an equal amount or more of logging trains feeding the mills and mainline, plus the extra board and...wow, that's a lot of people. Your post about the ex-C&S/D&SL engineman illustrates how boomers obviously found their way to the road foreman's office in Baker to get hired on, coupled with the fact that I'd heard at one point Floyd Carpenter worked on one of lines in Colorado, and you get an idea of the varied experiences of the men that kept the line running.

As a side-note regarding accidents and fatalities, I remember Elvin telling a story of a runaway on the Oregon Lumber Company when he was still a fireman. As I remember it, he said he was working nights on either Shay 101 or 102, and they were coming down a hill with a bunch of Japanese gandy dancers who were riding the train to town. They lost the air and things got out of hand quite quickly. The gandy dancers started jumping off and Elvin said one of the things he learned as a young boy on the logging lines was to always jump on a fill or on the flat so as to avoid rolling back into the train. Well, one of the unfortunate gandy dancers had not been given this advice and jumped while in a cut. He rolled back into the train and a journal box to the head ended his life. Shortly thereafter the last car in the train derailed and created enough resistance for the engineer to regain control of the train. They got things stopped, re-railed the last car, and loaded the body onto the train before proceeding. Hard to comprehend or appreciate how things happened in those days.