The Runaway Train

It's a mighty rough road from Lynchburg to Danville,

And the line's on a three-mile grade.

It was on that grade that he lost his airbrake,

And you see what a jump he made.

He was goin' down hill at 90 miles an hour

When the whistle broke into a scream.

He was found in the wreck with his hand on the throttle,

And a-scalded to death with the steam . . .

A message ran over them telegraph wires,

And here is what it said:

"Steve Broady was the engineer,

"And the brave engineer is dead."

--The Wreck on the Southern Old 97

Red-faced, grizzled Pennsylvania Railroad Engineer Hank Brower had every reason to believe, just after 8:30 one morning last week, that he was going to glory just like Steve Broady--but with a much bigger bang. Like the pilot of Old 97, he had been logging close to 90 m.p.h. as he rocketed across the South from Baltimore to Washington. His 250-ton electric locomotive and 16 cars of the crack Federal Express were on a slight downgrade. And when he reached for his air brakes at the outskirts of the capital, he found to his horror and amazement that they had failed.

Engineer Brower had eased off his power after flashing through outlying Bowie. But the train was doing 70 m.p.h. as it came roaring toward C Tower, which stands just three minutes from the station at slow yard speed. The locomotive's whistle was screaming, its engines were running in reverse, and clouds of steam, flame and sparks were flying from its screeching wheels.

It was at K Tower, 15 car lengths from the entrance to the station, in little more time than it takes to say the Lord's Prayer. Conductor, flagman and brakemen went through the head cars, coolly instructing passengers to lie down or brace themselves in their seats. Still whistling wildly, the train jolted into a switch with its coaches careering behind it, raced down its appointed track and into the terminal like some vast, noisy and hellish projectile. Engineer Brower was seen gesticulating from the cab like a madman as he went by. At that moment, it seemed that nothing could prevent a disaster.

At Washington's Union Station, tracks for southbound trains come to a dead end inside the terminal. Though they are only 20 inches lower than the level of the vast concourse and the waiting room, the metal guards at the track ends will only stop a train going less than 30 m.p.h. There was a good chance that the Federal would smash across the concourse and the waiting room, killing dozens.

As it passed K Tower, Train Director John Feeney grabbed his telephone and dialed the stationmaster's office, which stood in the station concourse at the head of Track 16, and directly in the path of the oncoming juggernaut. The phone was answered instantly by Stationmaster's Clerk Ray Klopp. "Get the hell out of there!" shouted Feeney into the telephone. Klopp began to sputter indignantly. "Runaway train coming right at you!" bellowed Feeney. Klopp wasted no more time. He wheeled and yelled, "Runaway tram! Get out! Get out!"

For a second the two operators in the room hesitated--Klopp, the hero of the day, is an aggressive man, known for pranks and jokes. But his expression made it plain that he was not joking. His fellow workers ran. White-haired Telegrapher Richard Outlaw grabbed a crippled secretary named Mary Leonardi and pulled her with him. They bawled a warning to people in the concourse as they fled. Meanwhile, at risk of life & limb, Klopp ducked out to the track side of the office and yelled a warning to a crew of car knockers (cleaning women, electricians, etc.). Then the Federal, whistle still blasting was upon them all.

The train thundered down the tracks between passenger-loading platforms, catapulted over the stopping block, plunged through a newsstand, and emerged into the concourse like a bull elephant bursting out of a screen of jungle. It headed incongruously across the floor toward the crowded waiting room. Then the concrete flooring gave way and it crashed through into a baggage room below amid clouds of steam and dust and a heart-stopping tumult of sound. The first coach hung at an angle over the gaping hole. The second coach also entered the concourse. Other front coaches were derailed, but passengers in the rear coaches did not realize there had been an accident. They thought that the engineer had made a rather jolting stop.

Fifty-nine passengers were hurt, only eight seriously (the worst injury was a fractured pelvis). No one in the station was injured. And Engineer Brower--who had stuck courageously to his cab and kept his "hand upon the throttle and his eye upon the rail" until the bitter end-- stepped out of the awful wreckage of the locomotive without a scratch to show for his experience.

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