On the Selma Grade

On the Pennsylvania Railroad's Columbus-to-Dayton stretch a section gang working near Selma, leaned on their tools one morning last week to watch the crack St. Louisana whip by on its way from Manhattan to St. Louis. As the flyer thundered past there was a tremendous gasp from the big, black K-4 locomotive, and from the cab belched strange clouds of steam. On toward nearby Cedarville it hissed, roared over the Main Street crossing with no warning blast, came to a wheezing stop at the town's westerly limits. But no human hand had thrown the brake. The engineer and his fireman, scalded and dead, were lying three miles back, along the Selma grade.

A "crown sheet," which fits over the locomotive boiler's end separating the water chamber from the fire box, had given way. The water drenched the fires and steamed, scalding, into the cab. The ultimate dissipation of the locomotive's steam pressure had set the air brakes, averting calamity. In railway air brake systems, air compressed by a head of steam keeps the brakes off the wheels. When the steam head is released, the air valve opens, letting the air escape and clamping on the brakes.

Railroadmen thought the accident might have been due to insufficient water in the boiler. Last week the disabled locomotive stood boarded up at Xenia, Ohio, awaiting inspection by the Interstate Commerce Commission.

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