A Book of Railway Journeys

by Ludovic Kennedy

  C. F. ADAMS

  from S. LEGG (ed.),

  The Railway Book (1952)

  CASEY JONES

  Come all you rounders for I want you to hear

  The story of a brave engineer;

  Casey Jones was the fellow’s name,

  A big eight-wheeler of a mighty fame.

  Caller called Casey at half-past four,

  He kissed his wife at the station door,

  Mounted to the cabin with orders in his hand,

  And took his farewell trip to the promised land.

  Casey Jones, he mounted to the cabin,

  Casey Jones, with his orders in his hand!

  Casey Jones, he mounted to the cabin,

  Took his farewell trip into the promised land.

  Put in your water and shovel in your coal,

  Put your head out the window, watch the drivers roll,

  I’ll run her till she leaves the rail,

  ’Cause we’re eight hours late with the Western Mail!

  He looked at his watch and his watch was slow,

  Looked at the water and the water was low,

  Turned to his fireboy and said,

  “We’ll get to ’Frisco, but we’ll all be dead!”

  Chorus

  Casey pulled up Reno Hill,

  Tooted for the crossing with an awful shrill,

  Snakes all knew by the engine’s moans

  That the hogger at the throttle was Casey Jones.

  He pulled up short two miles from the place,

  Number Four stared him right in the face,

  Turned to his fireboy, said “You’d better jump,

  ’Cause there’s two locomotives going to bump!”

  Chorus

  Casey said, just before he died,

  “There’s two more roads I’d like to ride.”

  Fireboy said, “What can they be?”

  “The Rio Grande and the Old S.P.”

  Mrs. Jones sat on her bed a-sighing,

  Got a pink that Casey was dying,

  Said, “Go to bed, children; hush your crying,

  ’Cause you’ll get another papa on the Salt Lake line.”

  Casey Jones! Got another papa!

  Casey Jones, on the Salt Lake Line!

  Casey Jones! Got another papa!

  Got another papa on the Salt Lake Line!

  WALLACE SAUNDERS

  A crash in Palestine

  An account of a journey from Damascus to Haifa undertaken in about 1911 by Sir Frederic Treves, serjeant-surgeon to the King and Surgeon in Ordinary to Queen Alexandra.

  Some way farther along the blank road we came to a stockade of posts, where we stopped and, as instructed, got out. This we were told was the station, although so far as anything visible was concerned we might as well have been in the centre of the Sahara. Apparently there is something occult, or even sacred, about a railway station in Syria, for neither carriages nor other mean things on wheels are allowed to come within a certain respectful distance of the presence. We stumbled after the dragoman across some very uneven ground in the direction of a solitary light. This light, poor as it was, revealed the corner of a small, low, stone building precisely like a miner’s cottage in Cornwall. The building was the station. The light came from a lantern placed on the ground in front of a sleeping man who was surrounded by a bank or entrenchment of bread. Probably no conception of the railway terminus of the capital of a country could be more remarkable than this. In place of the usual immense fabric and the vast dome of glass and iron was a miner’s cottage, with a lantern on the ground by the side of a sleeping man surrounded by bread.

  The time was now 4.50 A.M. Further investigation showed an empty train standing derelict at a little distance from the stone cottage. Between the latter and the train was a slope of very bumpy ground such as is met with around houses in course of erection, and this we concluded would be the platform. It was occupied by a number of large bundles which proved to be men wrapped up in blankets and asleep. Similar bundles were propped up, in an unsteady row, against the wall of what we now knew to be the Central Station of Damascus. These sleeping men were pilgrims from Mecca. They were on their way to the coast, as we were, but they were taking no risks as to catching the train. They knew something of oriental railways and their habits, and by sleeping on the platform between the booking-office and the actual carriages they evidently felt that the train could scarcely creep away without their knowledge. The men who were asleep on the ground about the miner’s cottage were by no means all the intending travellers by “the early train.” Close to the building were a number of tents full of silent human beings whose feet projected here and there from beneath the canvas. There had been a camp fire in the centre of the bivouac, but it had evidently long died out. It was apparent now that the man with the lantern and the bank of bread represented the refreshment-room. The buffet was not yet open, for the baker was still wrapt in his dreams.

  Our coming was an event of moment, for we awoke the slumbering station. But for us the passengers, the station-master, the ticket clerk, and the porters might possibly have slept until noon. We woke the first series of men accidentally by falling over them and by treading on their bodies. They arose in panic, dreaming no doubt that the train had gone, and proceeded to rouse their friends and to aimlessly drag their luggage about. In a few minutes we witnessed what was no less than a resurrection scene. We found the terminus in a state of silence and the ground occupied apparently by dead men. Almost immediately these bodies rose from the earth, took up their beds, and walked. In a while out of the camp of tents poured several scores of pilgrims to join the shuffling crowd. All of them seemed confused, as would be a like body of men on the resurrection morning.

  It was the train now that afforded a surprise. It consisted of three closed vans—labelled, as we perceived, later on, for eight horses or forty men—a third-class corridor carriage, and a like carriage with first-class compartments. The carriages were in darkness and apparently sealed up. But pilgrims began to beat on the doors of the goods wagons with their hands, when, to my amazement, they opened and out of each poured no fewer than forty sleep-muddled Moslems. These devout men were in fact making exceedingly sure of the train by sleeping in it. Some of those who were released from what must have been a chamber of asphyxiation began forthwith to clamour at the doors of the third-class carriage, when, behold, that structure in turn proceeded to give up its dead, for out of its doors stumbled or fell more than enough men to fill it, I should imagine, twice over. The man-producing powers of the place appeared to be now exhausted, for the crowd already amounted—as was afterwards made clear—to over 150 souls. But this was not all, as was proved when an excited man attacked the first-class carriage which had, up to this moment, exhibited no sign of life. He beat violently upon the walls and doors of the same, screaming the while “Aboo-Shihab, Aboo-Shihab.” The man who made this onslaught upon the irresponsive carriage was apparently connected with the railway. He not only screamed and kicked the doors with his feet but he thumped the windows with his fist. For a long time there was no response to this vast outburst of noise; but finally a sleepy man, whom I supposed to be Aboo-Shihab, opened the door (which he had locked from the inside) and stepped to the ground like one in a trance. He was followed by many others, all of whom were evidently railway men who, not wishing to miss the starting of the train or to be late to their work, had wisely slept in the field of their labours.

  Up to this moment the stone cottage had exhibited no evidence of human occupation. It still remained silent and dark in spite of the fact that the dragoman had been hammering upon the door with an umbrella for some time. Possibly the inhabitants of the building would have remained lost to the world for the rest of the day had it not been for the actively minded man who had awakened Aboo-Shihab. This enthusiast, at 5.15 A.M., seized a bell and rang it like a demented person for a considerable period. The effect produced was marvellous. The pilgrims began to cry aloud and to rush
to and fro like people in a burning house. As each man dragged his belongings with him the platform became a place of danger. There was evidently a belief that the train was starting at once, although there was no engine attached to it, nor was there even a sign of one; so they began to climb into the third-class carriage and the vans as if they had but few seconds to spare. The bellringing, however, had an effect upon the little stone house, for in a while a light appeared, and later on bolts were withdrawn and the door opened. I was anxious to have a peep at the station-master, the man upon whose word the rising of the sun depended, but he was as difficult to discover among the buzzing crowd as a queen bee in a swarm. Consequently I never saw him—a circumstance I shall always regret.

  After a while the pilgrims became calmer again; they even strolled about, chatted with one another, bought bread of the baker, and generally behaved as people of leisure to whom railway travelling is rather a bore. At 5.30 A.M., however, the awakener of Aboo-Shihab seized the bell again and rang it for his very life. The effect was again astounding. The loitering pilgrims were once more electrified. They once more made a rush for the carriage doors as people rush to the exits of a burning theatre; they blocked the doors, they trampled upon one another, they fought to get in, while those who found any attempt at entry impossible flitted to and fro on the platform as folk deprived of reason.

  Near about 6 A.M. the bell was rung for the third time, but the pilgrims had not yet recovered from the last shock, so beyond a general shudder it produced no visible effect. As a matter of fact the platform was deserted, every man was already in his place, the engine had been coupled on, the baker had sold all his bread, had blown out his lamp, and could be seen wending his way towards the city. The dawn was appearing. It would seem as if the ringing of the bell had awakened even the sun. The light fell upon one of the most forlorn-looking railway stations I had ever seen, upon the deserted camp, upon the ashes of the fire, and upon a wide drift of litter that was indescribable. As soon as the bell had ceased, the train, without further ceremony, glided out into the mist, and we knew that the sun was at last at liberty to rise.

  It is desirable to note—in connection with what happened later on—that next to the engine came the three closed goods vans, each containing about fifty pilgrims, and that it was followed by the third-class corridor carriage which held no fewer than forty more devotees from Mecca. At the end of the train was the first-class carriage in which we and our dragoman were the sole passengers. The pilgrims were Russian Moslems, men of a marked Mongolian type of face, who were clad in heavy coats, one coat being worn over the other, while the outer garment was peeled off, on occasion, to make a praying carpet. They carried with them a good deal of untidy baggage, varying from battered German trunks and sailors’ sea bags to bundles in blankets. With the same were associated such odd articles of luggage as lamps, jugs, and cooking pots, with, above all, the inevitable samovar which they clung to as if it had been a sacred image.

  The descent from the tableland to the plain is by a mountain railway of considerable length and of no mean degree of steepness. We came to about the worst part of the incline at 2.30 in the afternoon. The line at this point follows a rocky defile. The road, which is very narrow, is represented by a ledge cut on the side of an almost vertical cliff. Above the line is the precipitous face of the hill, while below, at the foot of the great wall of rock, is the river, converted into a torrent by the recent rains. At this somewhat hair-raising spot the engine was proceeding very slowly, when we suddenly felt a shock which I imagined was due to the carriage being struck by a falling rock. There followed immediately a second blow like to the first, and then I became aware of the fact that the train was off the line. Before I fully realised that there was very little margin for a manoeuvre of this kind we came to a sudden stop. I jumped out and made my way to the front of the train. On arriving there I was astounded to see that both the engine and the tender were missing, and, looking down over the cliff, I saw both these vehicles in the river. Apart from the roar of the stream everything was so quiet that these essential parts of the train might have been lying in the water for weeks. The engine was upside down and was almost entirely submerged in the muddy water, the wheels alone being visible above the flood. The tender was the right way up, but the water reached to the level of the floor, while it was empty of every particle of coal. The drop from the line to the river bed was about forty to fifty feet.

  We were relieved to see two men—the driver and the stoker—crawling out of the river. Their escape from immediate death was due to the fact that the engine, in turning over in its fall, had thrown them on to a slope of stones, on to just such an incline as forms the talus at the foot of a mountain. The officials on the train immediately went to the assistance of their comrades. The approach to the water’s edge was difficult, and still more difficult was the conveying of the injured men up an adjacent slope. The stoker, who was a Turk, was suffering a good deal from shock, was badly cut about the head and face and much bruised elsewhere. The engine-driver, a Bulgarian, was unhappily in a worse plight, for, in addition to superficial injuries, it was evident that one of the abdominal organs had been ruptured. Both of the men were placed lying down in the compartment next to ours. They were in great pain, but fortunately I had with me a medicine case and a flask of whisky. After two doses of morphia they each expressed themselves as much better. The stoker began to regain his pulse, but the poor engine-driver, although free from pain, showed no amendment, and it was evident that, as no operation was possible in this wild ravine, his case was hopeless.

  As to the cause of the accident no light was forthcoming, but it was quite clear that the carriages had not been struck by any falling rock as I had supposed. The first of the three goods vans full of pilgrims was wholly derailed, the front wheels being within eighteen inches of the edge of the precipice. Had not the couplings broken the disaster would have been terrible to contemplate. The front part or bogie of the second van had left the rails, but the hind wheels still held to the metals and so saved the whole train, after the couplings had given, from running headlong over the cliff, for the incline of the road was considerable. The third van and the two carriages were not derailed.

  The pilgrims turned out of the train in a languid and lethargic mass and crawled vaguely about the line. They contemplated the engine in the river with an air of weariness. They were so little disturbed from their tortoise-like calm that one might have supposed that an episode of this kind was a common occurrence. The journey from Mecca had been to them a succession of wonders, and this was but one of many strange things. If a railway bell had been rung they would have been thrilled and alarmed, but the dropping of an engine with two men into a river was not a matter for emotion. Their first care was to set the samovar going and then to glide down to the river to wash.

  The world’s first major railway accident. On 8 May 1842 a train from Versailles to Paris was derailed and caught fire. Many passengers were unable to escape, the carriage doors having been locked. Fifty-seven died.

  I may say that during all this time it was raining hard. It had rained steadily since daylight, and further, I may add that it rained with equal perseverance all night. In due course, namely at 5 P.M., a relief train came up from the direction of Haifa. It consisted of trucks enough to take the pilgrims, and of a guard’s van. The process of transferring the baggage was very slow, owing to the narrowness of the way. On the river side the train was within eighteen inches of the edge, so that it was dangerous to pass on that part of the road with heavy trunks; while on what may be termed the land side was a deep, stone-lined trench between the line of rails and the cliff. There was a choice, therefore, between falling into the river on the one side, or into the stone crevasse on the other. A special difficulty arose in connection with the transfer of the injured men. The stoker could be helped along between two of his comrades, but the driver was unable to stand. It so happened that on the train was a solitary Bedouin who possessed a very stro
ng and ample cloak. I proposed that the driver should be placed in the cloak and carried between two men along the narrow way as if he were on a stretcher. It was explained to me, however, that he was a Moslem and that he could not be carried lying down because it would be “unlucky” and a portent of death. He must be carried, his co-religionists decided, upon a man’s back. I protested earnestly against this inhuman procedure. I appealed to the patient as well as to his friends, but all was in vain; so I witnessed the horrible spectacle of a heavy man with a ruptured intestine being carried along a very shaky road on another man’s back, while he was held precariously in place by a third. I made the poor fellow as comfortable as I could on the floor of the guard’s van, on a bed of coats and cloaks, and was gratified to find that he slept a little before we came to the journey’s end. He was a man of admirable fortitude and courage, who never uttered a sound of complaint, and was only distressed by the fear that he was giving trouble.