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In my brief brakeman's career...summers 1956-58...When the matter of "jump or not to jump" came up it seemed to be pretty much a universal adage that if a gasolilne carrying vehicle was going to be involved it was best to jump.
I only had one close call myself..It was summer of 58 and I was the head brakeman on the eastbound Fairmont-Hildreth local one hot summer afternoon.
We were dragging slowly up the grade from the Blue River Valley west of Edgar Nebraska...Moving maybe 10-15 mph in throttle eight with full tonnage of 40' boxcars of newly harvested wheat.
We had one of the lightweight SD7's (400-411) running long end ahead. I was sitting behind the fireman about half asleep and suddenly I realized the fireman had turned around and was sitting on the window ledge with his feet out the window...I said.."What are you doing"...He just pointed ahead to the Hwy 14 crossing where a tanker truck was rapidly approaching.
Before either of us did anything the driver apparently saw us and the vehicle began to swerve back and forth with smoke pouring from the tires...He did get stopped with quite a bit to spare, but it made my "heart go Pitty-Pat" for some little time.
The fireman who was kind of an arrogant disagreeable character never said a word or called a warning to the engineer who couldn't see on account of us going around a right hand curve and having the long end forward gave him a restricted view of events on the fireman's side of the engine. I think he would have jumped without saying a word to anybody.
I'm very familiar with the October 1939 Napier Missouri event with the Pioneer Zephyr having grown up just north of Napier at Rock Port. That brakeman who did the deed causing the wreck eventually got back to work, but was restricted to branch line service...His name was "Cookie" Baldwin and was a brakeman on the Corning-Villisca branch one summer when Jim Christen and I rode the train.
Again...the full details, complete with pictures is described in the Accident Investigation section of the ICC reports. The conductor on No. 21 was Lester "Pinky" Crouch and was a good friend of my grandfather and dad...
I wrote up my version of the event based on the ICC reports and my own memories of the event and stories the other railroaders told about it.
If Charlie V thinks it would be worth of publication it can be made available.
Pete
-----Original Message----- From: Kenneth Martin <kmartin537@surewest.net> To: CBQ <CBQ@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Sun, Jan 13, 2013 9:19 pm Subject: [CBQ] Jumping was Re: Montgomery, IL Train Wreck of 1943 To jump or not to jump is always a tricky question. in the wreck of the Pioneer Zephyr at Napier, MO in 1939 the fireman jumped at 55mph and lived the Engineer and Road Foreman didn't and were killed.
In a somewhat humorous note on the old Denver South Park and Pacific there was a wreck and the brakeman stayed on and was injured. The superintendent asked him why he didn't jump. He replied "Jump? Where in h*ll could I have jumped to? On one side was a canon a mile deep and on the other side was a granite wall so close to the cars there wasn't even room a skinny superintendent could stand". The super took it and liked it. He had to. (M.C. Poor "Denver South Park and Paacific")
Ken Martin
On Jan 13, 2013, at 12:10 PM, Jpslhedgpeth@aol.com wrote:
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