Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, June 29, 1902, Page 31

e June 29, 1902. ELKHORN VALLEY EDITORIAL ASSOCIATION, WHICH RE THE ILLUSTRATED TLY MET AT CHADRON Engineer Dead at the Throttle 'M going to give you a story of my own experience,” said the veteran engineer to the Des Moines Leader. ‘It occurred many years ago when I was a fireman, just a few months before I was ‘set up' and given an engine. It matters not what road it was on. Our run was on an Illinois divi- sion between Chicago and the Mississippl river. We had left Chicago an hour late. The train was the fastest at the time on the line, being the through limited to Den- ver. We were quite anxious to get it to the Union Pacific transfer at Council Bluffs on time, and the engineer, a big, silent man, who, whether on or off the engine, had little to say, was crowding the engine for all the speed there was in it. The night was very dark, so that everything beyond the glow of the headlight was scured in gloom. The train was a heavy one and I didn't have much time to do any- thing except heave coal into the firebox and glare frequently at the steam gauge to see if I was keeping it hot. When T opened the firebox door the fierce heat would shoot a broad light high up uutil it tinted the clouds above us. When it was closed the exhaust shot a round pillar of fire from the belching stack ten feet into ob- the blackness. It was hot work and I opened the front window on my side of the cab about six inches to get the ben- efit of the breeze that rushed past us. I could never get over an instinctive fear in passing stations that a boxcar might have been blown out onto the main stem or that a switch was set wrong, so that every time we approached a station I dropped the point of the scoop on the deck and peered ahead “‘All went lovely, and T was congratulat- ing my tired back on getting near the end of the run, when something happened that gives me a chill to this day when 1 recall it. I had noticed the engineer was not blowing the whistle at crossings, as was the custom, but as that was his business and he was a man who resented intrusion into his affairs, I said nothing and shov- eled the coal. I glanced across the boiler head. He was sitting in the attitude he usually occupied when under full speed, only his left hand had dropped from the throttle lever and was resting at his side His head was out the and 1 window sup- DRILL TEAM AND OFFICERS OF B posed he was scanning the main rod play ing beneath him. Pretty soon we clanged over the switches at a small station only two miles from the river. I thought it queer he did not give the station signal, but then I was only a fireman and he was the engineer of the engine on the division, and 1 said nothing I put in a light fire, because in five minutes the train would be upon the bridge that spanned the Mississippi, and taliing up a bunch of waste I was wiping the perspiration from my face, when I observed we were getting close to the river. I cast a quick glance ahead and saw at once by the signal lights that the draw was open. Our train was un- der full speed, when I knew it should be slowing down to a stop as required by the rules in approaching the bridge. “A terrible suspicion flashed through my brain that perhaps the engineer was dead The bridge was less than a half-mile dis- fastest tant. The engine was under a full head of steam and quickening its pace down through a sag. 1 stepped quickly across the deck and, taking hold of the engineer's arm, shook him. He toppled from the seat box and fell partially to the deck. one of his arms catching between the reverse lever and the seat. He dead. The side of his head was crushed. By this time the engine was within a quarter 5f a mile of the bridge, and as no whistle had been given, the switchmen in the yards, rightly surmising something wrong, were standing in the middle of the track, swing- ing their lanterns for us to stop Dazed as I was, I had almost forgotten the peril of the train and its load of passengers in the horrifying discovery of the death of the engineer. But the stop signals restored me to a realizing sense of the fearful danger of plunging off the bridge into the river, and with one motion I shut off and with another I applied the air. The train re- sponded quickly, but we were so close to was was the bridge that I feared it was too late, and there being nothing else to do, | jumped off. I had pulled the sand pipes wide open before leaving the cab and this saved the train from taking the leap into the river. When it came to a pause the pilot was hanging over the end of the ralis That was more than twenty years ago, and I don't believe a single passenger on that &M MODERN WOODMEN train ever knew how near all came to being entombed at the bottom of the Mississippi “An investigation showed the engineer had been killed by striking his head against the end of a coal chute, left care- lessly hanging partially over the track, after being used by a train that had pre- ceded us. The blow had killed him, while scarcely disturbing his position, and had I not made the discovery when I did I think the chances were fine for me to have gone to a watery grave with everybody else on board, instead of being here telling you the story of the narrowest escape I ever had in twenty years of service on an engine.’ Overhead Crossings (Continued from Fourth Page.) who came to Omaha drove their wagons over a wooden trestle work on Sixteenth street that at that time was thought to be the acme of engineering skill Today at the same place is a construction of iron and steel that is the acme of engineering gkill. Over it run the street cars, and by the side of these tracks is a place for wagons and by the side of this a walk for the accommodation of pedestrians that is as safe as Farnam street. Engines puff and groan and smoke underneath and horse and man above is none the wiser. There is no wait for trains to pass; no col- lision of trains and street cars; no getting out and holdiug horses. And in different parts of the city—in fact, almost wherever needed, the same Is true, and if there is a place where a viaduct is needed to help city trafic it 18 an assured fact that ir will be constructed. While the city council has been acting as a board of equalization and one thing and another, another department of the city government has been at work figuring how to improve Omaha’s roads for the ac commodation of travel and traflic City Engineer Rosewater and his assistants are busy studying plan sts and de vising means for the construction of viaduct. This one, the city cngineer states, will be constructed over Martha street, between Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth streets And he also states figuring « another OF AMERICA. BEE. sult of a suit for that neighborhocd that the new nages, A resldent of brought suit, all tructure overshadowed his house and thus him by shutting | out his view The case would likely have gone against the plaintiff had not a plcture of the two viaducts been procured. That of the wooden structure showed a trestlework that was so closely interwoven | that a chicken could not fly between th: timbers, and that of the new, through its trestlework, gave such a view of the sky that the man’'s house made a most excellent place for the study of astronomy. Judge Baker found for the defendant. As a factor in the growth ng damaged of Omaha's trade and wealth the viaducts cannot be overestimated The cost of their con- | struction to the city has been very littl:, as the railroad companies have pald a much greater portion of the $750,000 expended in their construction than has the clty. Cily Engineer Rosewater is a good example of | the good roads ‘‘crank,” and he states that Omaha trade owes 8o much to the viaducts and good roads that it cannot be estimated, and even as a prevention of accidents the viaducts have pald for themselves In the illustrated Bee last summer pictures wer¢ published of the viaducts where the street trafic is carried on above the railroads. 1In this number the fllustrations show the via- ducts where the streets run under the railroads and a few of the places where railroad crosses rallroad on a bridge, Carpenter’s Letter (Continued from Sixth Page.) to the surroundings. You fee the guards on the trains, the porters at the depot, the men servants, women scrvants and boy servants at the hotels and almost every one who gives you information. In the more expensive hotels of New York the system is almost as bad, but there you fee when you get the service, and when you leave there is nothing but the porter to pay. Here the sensible man pays nothing until he leaves, when all the hotel servants | come in for a present 1 hey Were All This feeling is very obnoxious to Amer- | icans. 1 heard of one Yankee who created ' quite a sensation in regard to it at a hotel in Frankfort-on-the-Maln the other day. He liberal and he was a man scattered money after the American fashion during his stay He dropped silver marks everywhere, com pensating each service with a present at the time it was made Nevertheless, upon leav ing he found a score of greedy-eyed under- lings in brass buttons and caps lined up to bid him goodbye. He had not down until his baggage was on the and he come cab | wrapper ulmululc-l{ ree na 7 that before the snow flies the viaduct will looked at the expectant crowd with sur be under course of construction prise. He had spent so much already tha Where the wagon road runs under the he had not thought more would be needed viaduct it 1s paved and everything for the on leaving. His heart grew hot as he r g accommodation of traffic has been done a¢ alized the cheek of the proceeding and 1 cording to the twentieth century idea. sald: The South Thirteenth subway is a good ‘Ah! Indeed! and are you all there example of this There the Union Pacific The servants, thinking he wished to mak. and the B. & M. railroad companies have every one happy, looked up and down the constructed a bridge, over the top of which line, and the porter thought of h or tracks have been laid for their travel, and the chambermaid, and replied underneath, through the tunnel made by ‘No! Minnie, the chambermaid, ba the bridge, is a paved street, on which come.” runs the street car tracks and the wagon “Well,” sald the American, “you had het traffic This construction will ever lve ter get Minnie!’ a monument to its builders and to the city. And a few moments later in came th The Tenth street viaduct, over which the rosy-cheeked Minnfe with her cap of snow Harney, Farnam and Dodge street car whiteness lines, and over which thousands of wag “And now sald the American wair ons and vehicles pass every day, spans the ire you al! there?” various railroad tracks of the city and was Ja! Ja! Mein Herr! Ja! ja' in were th the first constructed in Omaha It was rpeplies, with low bows begun by the city in conjunction with th “Well concluded the American " Union Pacific Railroad company in 1880, It pose vou stay there.' help to city traffic cannot be estimated And he thereupon got into the Whoand and the number of accidents and collisions rode off FRANK G. CARPENTER its construction has prevented, had they occurred, would have made the medical 197 > fraternity of Omaha rich l)L\‘l hILd All but one of the viaducts of the city Chicago Tribune: *“Archibald. dear,” hi are of steel and hnuj that one belng over wife sald, arousing him in the dead of LU DOLSVEIU SANG RIS S ITasU BME R 10 SL S niRHY LT Wisliny ou wotllt wallEwi thipativen wood The change from wood to steel In 00 while. He's going to wake up the construction of viaducts recelved a “How can 1 do that, Lucinda?" expostu slight setback when the Sixteenth street ..., (ho sleepy husband. “You know 1've wooden structure had to come down, and got the ping pong ankle.” had it not been for the thoughtfulness of Then put him in his eradle and rock an Individual who had a photograph of the him a while."” wooden structure, it would probably have “I can't do that, either I've got the cost the city considerable money as the re " golf shoulder. e e — DON'T BE SO THIN. ~ ol o) < < FREE REMEDY. 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