It's not just in yards that cars could be found rolling.
The following event on the Burlington & Missouri River was reported in the
Lincoln (Nebraska) State Journal 30 March 1874 and repeated in the Railroad
Gazette the following month.
Last Thursday, there was a very strong wind which almost
amounted to a tornado, especially west of the city. About 5 o'clock, when the wind was at
its strongest, it started a train of eight box cars, loaded with coal, that were
standing on the side track at Akron.
Two brakes were set but they were not enough to hold it and it ran
through the split switch without being derailed and started
east.
The track was nearly level where the train started, but
there is a strong down grade this side of Akron. The wind was so strong that it took the
train more rapidly than the passenger train over the line move, even on the
level track, and when it reached a down grade of course the speed become
something fearful.
The operator at Akron noticed the runaway train soon
after it broke loose and sent the alarm down the line. Everything was ordered side-tracked, and
the crazy train had the right of way. The Cannon ball train, going toward
Akron, was only two stations away when the message to side track came, and it
had only been on the side track a short time when the engineless train came
thundering by.
Marvellous as it may seem, those runaway cars ran 100
miles, passing eight stations, over a track which is for a great part of the
distance almost perfectly level, with no propelling power but the wind and their
own inertia. They ran the 100 miles
in less than three hours, and the station agents and others who witnessed the
strange train held their breath with awe as it whirled by at the rate of nearly
a mile a minute.
At Benkelman, 95 miles from Akron, a freight was
standing on the side track. As the
runaway train passed, the engineer ran his engine out with a brakeman on the
tender to make the coupling, and gave chase. It was an exciting chase, but the engine
soon closed the gap between itself and the flying train. About half way between Benkelman and Max
the fugitive was overtaken, the coupling successfully made, and the cars, after
pulling the engine some distance, brought to a standstill.
(No white
flags or lights to identify it as an extra, nor any marker lights on the
rear!)
Rupert Gamlen
Auckland
NZ