Tornado v. Train

On time out of Fargo, N. Dak. one stormy afternoon last week pulled the Empire Builder, Great Northern Railway's crack Seattle-to-Chicago limited train. It flashed across the State line, roared through Moorhead, Minn., headed for St. Paul across the prairie at 50 m.p.h. At the throttle was Engineer B. E. McKee. Behind him in the string of eleven Pullmans were 119 passengers, reading, napping, playing bridge. Beyond Moorhead, Engineer McKee eyed the sky apprehensively. It was turning black, blacker. It was shot through with greenish-yellow light. Wind clouds bellied down to earth. Without hearing its far-off rumble, he knew a tornado was near, jerked his throttle wide-open to outrace it. Out of the murk it came, an infernal funnel of dust and cloud, spinning along toward his train across the prairie.

The twister struck the Empire Builder broadside just behind the tender. The baggage car coupling snapped like thread. The vacuum sucked coach after coach up from the track, lifted them like a giant's playthings through the air, flopped them down on their sides along the right-of-way. As the storm swirled away eastward, torrents of rain fell upon a wreck unique in U. S. railroading.

Rescuers pried their way into the over-toppled steel cars, released the bruised and bloodied passengers. One man was killed, a score injured. Unhurt in his cab was Engineer McKee whose 77-ton locomotive alone had held the rails.

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