DEATH BY TRAIN

A long train stopping in emergency feels pretty much the same as a short one--the miracle of modern air brakes not quite equaling the great mass--but there is no mistaking the sudden deceleration, twenty five percent greater than a full service brake application. If you happened to be standing outside such a train you would hear the sudden explosion of exhausting air from each car and the screeching of iron wheels on iron rails, but on the train you just feel yourself leaning forward. And that pinch in the gut is always the same. . .

There's just one reason a passenger engineer will dump the air going track speed: he's about to hit something. In this case, it was an auto on the tracks in Kendelville, Ohio.

We’d been barrelling through the Indiana country side uneventfully for over an hour, already some two hundred fifty miles out of Chicago. Kendelville is a small town at the beginning of a seventy-two mile stretch of straight rail. The longest straightaway in the country.

After addressing certain difficulties in one of the New York sleepers (another story) I was returning from walking the train. I was, in fact, about five cars from the rear, in the New York section. Ahead of the lounge and diner was the Boston section, more coaches and two more sleepers. I was headed that way, back to my office in the lounge. I don’t like setting up in the sleepers like a lot of the fellows – no one can find you. The train was crowded, maybe seventy five percent sold out. This is over three hundred souls. It was quiet in the coaches, the lights had been dimmed. People were in various stages of getting ready to sleep. New York was still many miles and many hours away. It was full dark out, after 10 PM, when I heard the train go in emergency and felt my gut tighten.

The engineer said later that he came around a curve and there the car was, front wheels on the tracks and no lights on. People trying to beat the train by going around the gates is fairly common--they're afraid of being stuck waiting for a 2-mile-long freight--but this guy was on the tracks in the middle of town at a dead-end street. No crossing even. He must have been trying to turn around and got stuck on the tracks.

The impact was incredible. It shook the engine. The front end of the auto was clipped off cleanly at the fire wall. The rest of the car slammed against the side of the lead locomotive before bouncing off and away, some 40 or 50 feet but right side up and no fire. It came to rest empty, but had not been empty a few seconds earlier.

It took three quarters of a mile to stop the train: 3 cars of mail, 3 baggage cars, and 11 cars of people. I heard the engineer on the radio before we even stopped: "Emergency, emergency, emergency, we've struck a car at Kendelville".

"Hello, Dave; Hello, Dave--we got one."

"OK Dale, you guy's all right?"

"Yeah, but the car's on the front of the engine, hitting hard on the crossings--I think we're going in the mud!" An euphemism for derailing.

Actually, just the front of the car, but Dale didn’t know that. But it was stuck, caught on and around the draw bar (coupler) and wedged on and under the snow plow. The front end of the car had begun to roll as the train shoved it down the tracks, sending up a tremendous shower of sparks, and the bumping Dale felt was the motor itself trying to go under the plow (it finally did) and hitting the road crossings, actually raising the engine a bit on it’s suspension as it bounced along. It must have been quite a ride for the head end crew, the engineer and fireman.

The train does stay on the rail, and finally comes to a stop.

I grab my flashlight as I go through the lounge car, making haste to the head end of the train. The passengers are blissfully unaware anything is amiss, for the most part. A few of the more wide awake souls are looking at me questioningly as I hurry past, they know this is not a normal stop.

Dale is already walking back to meet me (by law he doesn't have to get off the engine) as I climb out of the head baggage car. He is a big guy, and with arms pumping he is struggling along the wayside with no flashlight, and he is pretty understandably upset.

"Jesus, Dave--we just got the wheels and motor--rolled under the plow--the rest must be back there!"

He has saved me a walk to the front of the train. I ascertain he and the fireman are OK and before sending him back up to await the officials, I ask,

"Dale, was anyone in the car?"

"Yeah, it looked like maybe two in the front, we couldn’t really tell, for sure. But at least the driver. He never looked up!"

So I head towards the rear, back up the tracks. It is a long walk. I wonder what I’ll find. I hear no sirens, yet. It is slow going along the tracks, walking on a slope in the dark. I can see inside the coaches, but no one notices me walking alongside. Finally I come to the end of the train, and it is a bit easier walking, in the gauge. Dale said the car was hung on the tracks from his side so I concentrate my search on that side of the tracks. I am still outside the small town, about another eighth of a mile away. It is very dark. I begin to notice parts of a car here and there, and sure enough--I come to the rear half of a car slammed up against a building. It is some distance off the tracks, in what looks like a small parking lot at the end of a street, sitting in knee deep weeds. The smell of gas is very strong, but what remains of the car is relatively intact. It is pretty banged up looking and not one piece of glass is left anywhere, front, side windows nor rear. From the dim light of a lamp pole 50 yards away I can see wires and pieces of metal sticking out through the firewall, but no front end at all. And no driver. It's very dark. I use the light, trying to figure out what's going on. Was anybody in this car? There is no one else around, and still no sirens. I begin to cautiously circle the car, using my light. There is blood in the front seat. I reach in and can tell before I touch that it is fresh. Hastily I withdraw my inquiring fingers. This was before the days of rubber gloves. I widen my search around the car, and it’s then I notice a blood swath down the side of the building.

It too is fresh. It starts up high, higher than I can reach, and slants down the wall at a forty five degree angle. It stops at the bottom of the wall, and as I follow the path it becomes clear that something slid down the wall and landed in the weeds. There is a marked depression at the bottom of the wall, in the weeds, and there is a crawl space of 6 or 8 inches under the building. But that is all. I look about myself, carefully. Have I missed something?

Finally I step back and shine the light underneath the crawl space. And to my right, there in the weeds a few feet away, I notice a sock sticking out. The sock contains a foot. The foot is attached to a leg--but the leg goes out of sight under the crawl space.

Feeling very creepy and confused I feel for a pulse on the ankle. There is none. Now I am wondering what to do next, reach in there and try to pull? At last, to my relief I hear sirens, and since the flashing red lights will be pulling up any moment, I decide to wait.

It is the local cops.

"We heard the train might have hit a car. I guess it did. Wow, what a wreck! Anybody in it?"

I show them the marks on the building, and lead them to the sock. The cops decide they'll wait too, and shortly the fire rescue folks arrive. They elect to wait also. There is much discussion and speculation. I tell them what little I know from what the engineer told me, and what I know from experience. The part of the car that bounces off the train usually becomes airborne, and spinning. The driver was most likely thrown out at this point, and struck the building with such force that after he slid down the side his remaining momentum carried him underneath, leaving only the sock to point out his final resting place. Finally the coroner arrives.

He takes charge and directs the cops to pull out the body. They reach in to get a grip on the leg and pull, but the leg is like rubber and stretches. They look under with their lights and find the other leg is still attached and get a hold of both cuffs and pull some more. And out comes a person, accordion fashion. Every bone in this mans body is broken.

Once he is stretched out, he looks pretty regular. All arms and legs in place, face pretty much in repose except for his eyes, which are wide but calm. The coroner reaches out a gentle hand and closes them.

"OK, boys. Let’s roll ‘em over."

Again, pulling on the hands accomplishes nothing, the flesh stretches like my son’s doll, ‘Stretch Monster’. They have to get a grip up higher, on the long sleeve of the guys shirt, and over he goes. Suddenly the cause of death is quite clear. There is a gaping five inch hole in the back of this mans head, with jagged cartoon edges like one might find carved in the top of a pumpkin. A hole which, when the cops shine their light in there, reveals exactly nothing. The man's head is M.T. You can see to the bottom of his skull, a glistening red hole.

"Well, boys, spread out and be careful where you step. We gotta’ find the rest of this mans head, I need the brain for the autopsy. It’s gotta’ be around here close."

In fact, it wasn’t. But that fact did not develop for quite some time.

Since I had already told the police what I knew, I drifted back to my train. One of the assistant Conductors met me by an open door and told me they had made the necessary ‘track problems' announcements, so I continue on to the head end to view things from that perspective. It is a mess. The car’s motor had somehow wrenched itself under both plow and pilot and was against the first traction motor. The head end crew had radioed for a wrecker, hoping to pull the motor out with a cable and winch, but no one had arrived as yet. An hour had already passed. A cop arrived from the rear to interview the engineer and allowed that their search was so far fruitless, producing no brain, as yet.

This got me to thinking. Trying to picture the impact in my mind I saw the rear of the car splitting away from the front end as the engine carried by, and then slamming into the locomotive as it passed, before bouncing away into the air and spinning into the field. So I took my light and began an inspection of the side of the locomotive. And right at the jacking anvil, which had apparently caused the unique hole in the mans skull, was what remained of his gray matter, where it had ejaculated onto the unit, and remained. Now to get this information to where it was needed, so we could get on our way.

Fortunately a west bound freight was just being given permission to pass our train in emergency, at restricted speed. As this trailer van train with 154 platforms began to lumber by I was able to step in front of our engine and step aboard his leading unit, just like that. Left hand on the step railing, lean into the direction of travel, plant the right foot on the first step and let the momentum swing me aboard. I turned to face forward. It was about a half mile to the scene, and as the TV train’s lead unit, and seven thirty-five hundred horsepower six axle GM Electromotive Division engines passed the rear of our train he notched it out. Con Rail promises timely delivery of their hot TV train, or it’s free. And ConRail is making money. Now I had a small problem. Namely, when to bail off.

I could see a small clutch of about four officials standing next to the mains, not too far ahead, but this train was kicking it up pretty fast, all in all. Notch eight and sand. I wasn’t sure I could wait that long, without gaining too much speed to make my move to detrain myself. Once when I was a rookie working the fieldman's job for the first time I stepped off a caboose facing the wrong way and going a tad too fast. I tumbled backwards for two somersaults before managing to stop myself and regain my feet if not my dignity. I was younger then, and didn’t hurt myself. I didn’t want to take that chance this night, in front of these officials.

It was getting close. Close to the speed where I had to make a decision. If I didn’t bail off soon, I’d become a passenger. The clutch of officials had turned towards the train, deduced they were in the clear, and resumed talking. They didn’t see me on the fireman’s steps, of course, as they were staring into the multi-thousand candle power engine headlights. Hoping I was playing this right I faced the engine and put both hands on the step ladder, both feet on the edge of the bottom step. All I had to do was time it right. About twenty feet from the group I began to loosen my left hand. We were fairly flying now, it seemed to me , all of a sudden. Just five feet from the group, in one smooth move, I let my body swing out into the wind, which began to slow me down from the nearly twenty miles an hour we must have been doing at that point. At the same time I released my right hand and planted my left foot, followed closely by the right which came down with a sharp slap as I let the ground take away the last of my momentum.

These four gentlemen jumped like a bomb went off next to them. I had literally appeared out of nowhere like an apparition. One second I wasn’t there, the next second I was. Plus the roar of the passing train lent a certain element of grandeur to my appearance.

"Jesus, fuck! Where the hell did YOU come from? Out of the sky?"

"I hitched a ride on the front of that TV train. I came to tell the coroner where to find that brain he’s looking for."

"Man, you scared the shit out of us!"

All in all we were delayed about two hours. Two weeks later a 2nd person came forward and admitted he was in the car too, but had bailed out when he saw the train's headlight. He said he tried to get his buddy out as well, but his buddy was pretty drunk.

Also pretty dead.

They had been trying to make a ‘u’ turn when they got stuck on the tracks. They had just left the tavern after arguing about who was the most sober and could drive. The survivor won more than the argument.