Chapter 169
Cab Forward
The young woman was on a passenger train. She was beautiful. She looked out the window. There was snow outside.
She looked out the window on other side of the passenger car. The sound around her changed and everything went dark outside. She caught a reflection in the far window. It didn't register on her that the reflection was her own reflection.
'I know that girl.' She thought.
She was sure she knew that girl from somewhere. It looked like someone she knew.
The darkness ended. They'd gone through a short tunnel.
Someone in a black uniform approached her seat. It was the conductor. He came by to check the tickets.
"May I see your ticket please?" The conductor asked.
The girl looked around her seat.
She didn't have one.
"I'm not sure where it went." The girl said.
The conductor looked above her seat. There was colored piece of paper stuck in the frame of the luggage rack. It was bent over so it could not be seen easily. He fixed it so it was clearly visible.
"I'm sorry." The conductor said. "It was already checked."
He moved on.
She must have given it to him earlier. She did not remember. She didn't even know where she was going. In fact she did not remember a thing. This was her first awareness right now. She wondered where she was at and - who she was.
She caught the reflection of the girl in the far window when they passed through another tunnel.
'I know that girl.' She thought again.
There was something so familiar about that girl. It looked like someone she cared about. She could not remember who. She thought she was a long way from there, wherever that was.
The train twisted and curved a lot. The steel wheels often squealed against the steel rails on the curves. The train passed through a few more tunnels as it snaked along the mountainside. They'd been going uphill earlier. They were headed downhill now.
They passed another train that sat waiting. There were a lot of containers on it and they were double stacked. It seemed the freight train would have trouble getting started on the uphill grade to continue.
The container train did have trouble getting started. It could not. The engineer left the train break on and shoved backwards with the locomotives. This created slack in the couplers. Once the engineer felt he had enough slack, he would accelerate one car at a time as the slack was pulled out and the drawbars or couplers stretched out and started to pull the car behind it. There was always the danger when using this method to start a train that a knuckle on a coupler could break and separate the train into two.
The pretty girl heard people talking about some movie being filmed where they were. It was about the 'Last run of a 'Cab Forward' over Donner Pass'. They'd recently passed a very large black locomotive that was parked on a siding. It was a giant steam locomotive. It was huge. Smoke drifted slowly out of the twin stacks. The air pumps made a wheezing sound. The film crew was in the process of putting their gear away. The filming for the day was completed.
This was all very new to her. She was not sure where she was at, where she'd come from and where she was going. She still didn't have any idea who she was.
As they entered another tunnel a few minutes later, the locomotives derailed on ice built up between the rails. The flanged steel wheels rode up on the ice and off the rails. There was a screeching and crashing sound and the girl was thrown forward. Everything came to a sudden halt. There was some screaming and a lot of confusion. Fumes from the two diesel locomotives began to fill the passenger cars that were now trapped inside the tunnel. Soon smoke began to pour it. One locomotive had ruptured its fuel tank and started to burn.
People crowded back through the cars to try to get away. It was near panic. The last two passenger cars were still outside of the tunnel entrance. Everyone frantically piled out into the snow. They wanted to get away from the fire and smoke. It was mayhem for most of the people.
The girl drifted among the confusion of frantic people. Everyone seemed to be cold but not her. She did not know why. She was concerned but she was not afraid. Most of the people stuck there were scared. There was nowhere for them to go.
Where the tracks were located was a very narrow ledge. There was a steep drop off on one side and a steep mountain on the other side. The tracks were cut into the cliff side by Chinese workers more than a century ago.
She listened to the radio of the conductor. She heard that the container train that they'd passed earlier snapped a coupler and broke into two. There was now a runaway situation. There were about twelve double stack container cars rolling towards them. The air lines were frozen. That prevented the air from moving in the brake line. That in turn prevented the automatic air brakes from functioning properly and stopping the runaway double stack container cars. There was nowhere for the people to go. They were trapped on the frozen, snowy and icy cliff side. There were a dozen cars headed towards the stranded group that were out of control. They were runaways with no way to stop them. Dozens would be killed and injured. Smoke poured out of the tunnel as the fire spread to the passenger cars wedged inside.
The girl took it all in. She made an assessment of the situation. The passengers and crew were trapped in the narrow confined space. There was nowhere to go. There was no way out. Even if they tried to go back the way the train came from, it was even narrower along the cliff side there. The fact everything was frozen and the way back was uphill made everything even slipperier. She needed to think.
In the 1860s the Central Pacific Railroad need laborers. They were hard to come by. Many people still chased the dream of the Gold Rush which started a decade prior. The men who sought gold did not want to do hard physical labor for fourteen hours a day for low wages. They were all still sure they would find the 'mother load'.
Charles Crocker, the head of construction for the Central Pacific, suggested that they could use imported labor to do the job. He'd witnessed men from China work the tailings from mines to get all the gold out of them. They were very persistent and hard working.
When asked if Chinese could do the tough physical jobs the room broke out in laughter. The thought of small slight built men doing the job was preposterous to them.
Charles Crocker the chief of construction faced the rest of the men down. He was a very large man and the laughter enraged him.
"They built the Great Wall of China, didn't they?" Charles Crocker asked angrily.
The laughter in the room died off quickly. The Great Wall of China was built by hand without the use of machinery about two thousand years ago. That was all done on the backs of men and a lot of hard manual labor.
The ledge the tracks were on was blasted and chipped from solid granite by Chinese workers hung in baskets from the top of the mountain in the 1860's. Black powder simply blew out of the holes drilled by hand with little effect. Nitroglycerine was mixed and used. It was highly volatile and explosive. Many workers were killed. A saying soon developed for a dangerous situation that someone didn't have 'A Chinaman's Chance'. That meant there was little or no chance at all.
The Chinese workers built the railroad and even laid ten miles of track in one day. It was a feat that modern machinery would have trouble to beat.
That thought made the girl think about the story of another man against a machine and there was a name associated with that. She tried to remember what it was. The name escaped her. It was something or someone important.
The crying people brought the girl back to 'now'.
The girl did not know why but she ran in the direction the train came from. She ran uphill toward the oncoming runaway container cars. She reached the location of the Cab Forward locomotive. They'd also gotten word that there was a runaway headed in their direction. The girl was able to calculate the size and mass of the locomotive. She identified it as an AC-12, the tender was lettered 'Southern Pacific'. It was a newly constructed replica. The siding it was parked on faced the direction she was going, opposite for the direction of the runaway. Opening the switch would have no effect on the runaway train.
The girl tore the lock off the switch and opened it. She headed toward the locomotive. There was a section of chain in back of one of the drivers, she reached down and yanked it out. There was an old man watching her from one of the trailers.
She looked at him.
"I have to get this locomotive on the mainline. I can stop the runaway train and save dozens of lives." The girl said.
The old man went down the stairs of the trailer into the snow.
"I can operate the locomotive." The old man said. "I'm the technical advisor."
She helped the old man into the cab as she lifting him.
"Wow!" The old man said. "You're strong."
The girl briefly smiled.
"I work out." The girl said. "We need to hurry."
The old man understood the seriousness of the situation.
"I just heard about the runaway and the derailed passenger train." The old man said. "It doesn't look good."
The girl looked at all of the controls.
"I need to get this locomotive moving - NOW." The girl said.
"I know how to make this locomotive work. My father used to let me ride in the cab sometimes of a locomotive just like this." The old man said. "We can wait for the regular crew if you want."
The girl looked over the controls there were dozens of valves levers and gauges. She needed to determine each one's function. It was going to take some time.
"We don't have any time to spare. Every second matters. Quickly, tell me what needs to be done. Show me." The girl said as she scanned the equipment.
She could figure it out but it would go quicker if he told her.
The man went over everything once. He increased the fuel flow into the firebox to build up more steam pressure. There was enough pressure already to move.
The man released the brakes and the locomotive rolled backwards from the siding and onto the mainline. The girl dropped down and threw the switch as the locomotive started forward. The massive drivers slipped under the surge of power. They then bit the rails as the sanders were engaged to give them additional traction. The other workers came out to see what was happening. The locomotive thundered past them. It literally shook the ground with each crashing stroke of the massive drivers as the Cab Forward accelerated uphill.
'What the Hell?' Was the collective thought among the workers.
The old man told the girl what needed to be done. They needed to build more steam pressure. They were low but not by much since they'd just finished filming before the passenger train went by. The girl opened the valves for the fuel oil all the way and adjusted the water flow. The fire in the fire box raged.
"I'm Bill." The old man said.
The girl looked at the old man but said nothing.
"Who are you?" The old man asked.
She was very confused still.
"I don't know." The girl said. "I think my name is - Allison. Show me how your controls function."
The girl asked question from the old man as he accelerated the locomotive.
He was impressed how the girl could fire the locomotive expertly in just a short time.
The girl knew what to do in under a minute. She checked the firing process. It was still at maximum. She took the controls and slowed the locomotive. There was a wide spot in the narrow ledge up ahead. She grabbed the old man and gently dropped him in the snow as the locomotive nearly stopped. He protested but could not resist.
"Thank you, Ole' Timer." She said. "Get to safety."
The girl was alone now, she opened the throttle all the way. The locomotive surged forward. The drivers slipped, she hit the sanders. The slipping ended. The massive drivers slightly dented the rails with every powerful stroke. She checked the firing of the locomotive, everything was at maximum.
Three curves ahead she saw the container cars round a corner less than half a mile away. She checked everything again and stepped out into the snow. The locomotive traveled at fifty miles per hour as it climbed uphill on the steep grade. It was still accelerating. She knew she needed to be away from what was about to happen.
She landed in the snow and rolled. The massive Cab Forward disappeared around the bend. A thick cloud of smoke and steam billowed into the cold mountain air.
In only fifteen seconds there was a huge 'crash' sound and the tearing of metal. It was at that point that the boiler exploded. It felt like an earthquake. She struggled to get away from the tracks. She really expected to see the flaming wreck being shoved around the corner. It would be sure to sweep her over the side.
Much to her surprise nothing came. The only sounds were the cars crashing down the canyon side. There was silence and then a slight 'singing' of the rails. Around the corner rolled a single axle with two wheels. The girl moved over to the tracks and knocked it off the track. It disappeared over the side of the ledge into the canyon as well. She was unsure how she did all this. For some crazy reason she thought she was a 'robot from the future' and someone was after her.
None of that made any sense.
An Effective Strategy
There are many things we may seek
Very few of them we achieve
It seems that we give much more
Than we will ever receive
The game is rigged
We are predestined to lose
What we think is real
Is most often only a ruse
We can take the blows
Roll and sting from the hits
Why is trying to reach someone
Worse than surviving a blitz
When we think we have won
Maybe even gotten ahead
Suddenly it all falls apart
Making us wish we were dead
Life becomes a tragedy
Wrapped in a travesty
Knowing you are going to fail is not
An effective strategy
Nobody