CHAPTER VIWITH THE WRECKERS
Jeff knew where track sixteen was and it did not take him long to find the wrecking train. There it was on a siding with a clear way to the main track. It was a train of caboose and six flat cars, two of which were equipped with tremendously powerful, but squatty and flat-looking derricks. The others were loaded with boxes of tools, and all sorts of emergency equipment. The train reminded Jeff of an engine or hook and ladder truck of the city fire department ready to get away at a moment’s notice.
A warm glow of light came from the cupola and the more or less smudged windows of the “hack,” as Kelly had called the caboose, and Jeff knew that the wrecking crew, who lived in the train, in shifts day and night, week in and week out the whole year through, were inside card playing or reading or amusing themselves as husky railroad men do while awaiting word of trouble or a wreck that calls them out to clear the line.
Jeff stamped his way up the steps of the hack, shoved open the door and stepped inside. Gathered around a table in the yellow glare of a big electric light, that hurt Jeff’s eyes momentarily, were the wreckers, big broad-chested, broad-shouldered, experienced railroad men who seemed to Jeff the impersonation of courage, resourcefulness and reliability. They were the men who were responsible for keeping the line open so that trains could run uninterruptedly no matter how grave the catastrophe or how serious the damages. And they were good-natured and hearty men, as was evident from the greeting that the boss of them all, big Tim Crowley, gave him, when he introduced himself and began to ask questions about the three-legged calf.
But Jeff had scarcely got well started on his catechizing when the door of the caboose was flung open and banged closed again and a man from the dispatcher’s office, still in his shirt sleeves despite the cold and with his green eye shade on his forehead, burst in upon them. In his hand he held a piece of flimsy yellow paper, a dispatcher’s telegraph blank, on which was typed a brief but evidently important message.
“Tim, No. 89, fast freight out of New City is piled up at Granville cross-over. Ten cars off the track and some of them smashed to pieces. Both tracks are blocked. Tracy, the conductor, says it’s a bad mess. Engine 1107 with Ed Dixon is backing down to pick you up. Cold night for a wreck, ain’t it? Wish you luck,” and passing the yellow slip to Tim he slammed his way out and raced back to the dispatcher’s office.
For a moment Jeff did not realize what was happening. But as he heard the hoarse blasts of an engine not far off and felt the jarring clank as it backed against the wrecking train and coupled up he understood it all.
“You best beat it if you don’t want to take a lively ride,” said Tim with a smile, as the men put their cards away and got up from the table.
“Beat it! What? With a wreck on the line and me on board the wrecking train ready to roll. Not on your life; that is, of course, if you will let me go along,” said Jeff, looking eagerly at Tim.
“As a reporter there ain’t no rules against it, I guess,” said Tim, sliding into his heavy coat. “Go along if you want to. Tumble out, men.”
It took a remarkably short time for the crew,swarming over the train of flat cars, to get everything ready for the run, and by the time the engine was coupled on everything was “ship shape,” to quote the wrecking boss, and the men were back in the hack.
With several deep-toned, almost arrogant blasts big, panting 1107 got under way and began clanking over frogs and switches, making toward the tracks of the main line. Jeff crawled up into the cupola of the hack where Tim and three other husky wreckers sat, looking out above the flat cars toward the engine ahead.
“You’ll have a ride this night,” said Tim to Jeff, smiling as he spoke. “Ol’ eleven-o-seven is a speed boy, an’ with Ed Dixon in the cab we’ll be yanked along somethin’ fierce. Sixty mile an hour won’t be a patch to what we’ll make. The dispatchers have cleared the track from here to the wreck. They always do for the wrecking train. Ain’t only one train that can have the right o’ way over us and that would be a hospital train with nurses and doctors aboard which they’d send out if this was a passenger wreck. But t’ track’s clear to-night with everything in sidings, so ol’ Ed Dixon will burn up the rails.”