The Train Wreck

A Friend recently shared this post on Facebook:

Back in my job-hunting days, now and then I'd have to consider an ad from CSX seeking freight train conductors.

I never applied: I wasn't fond of the image of myself outdoors, alone, in the middle of the night, in freezing weather, in the middle of nowhere, banging away at a frozen switch with a sledgehammer.

Then I came across a report of what the hiring process actually entailed.

100 applicants would be assembled in a room to watch a 1 hour video of what the work consisted of. At the end of the hour, THREE were left for the actual interview.

Speaking of "the middle of nowhere ..."

If you travel cross-country by train, there will be hours and hours when you never see a building or road.

My father was born in 1917 on a farm near the little town of Columbus Grove, Ohio. I've never been there. He was the second-oldest of six. When the children grew up, Grandma sold the farm and moved into a big house in Ada, Ohio. In my childhood, we had a reunion at that house every Christmas.

Big house. Lots of ornate woodwork.

This first map shows Columbus Grove, Bluffton, Lima, and Ada. Those are the names I am familiar with. Lima was always referred to as the nearest city. My parents attended Bluffton College.

This "zoomed-out" map gives an impression of where that area is, in Ohio.

Now and then, Aunt Jeanette, the oldest of the six, would recall a train wreck that had occurred nearby, when they all were children. Derailment of a passenger train. I do not know exactly where this happened; the maps do not show railroads; I do recall that Ada has a railroad running right through the middle of the town.

How many were aboard, I do not know, nor how many were injured or died. Possibly hundreds in each category. But this was an event where an entire community had to come together all at once, to rescue strangers, in a time very different from our own.

Wherever the derailment occurred, there certainly were no roads leading to the site. If radio was available, the surviving crew may have radioed to the rail company, that a derailment had occurred, and the location — if, in fact, they were in a position to know their location. The railroad might then have been able to alert emergency services in the nearby towns. I do not know if any of that was feasible at the time.

No cell phones; no GPS. And, in that part of the country at that time, very few motor vehicles.

So whenever, whoever in the area first learned of this event, that person probably began by doing an all-call on the party line, to alert all the neighboring housewives to call the men and boys in from the field and send them, across the open fields with their horse-drawn wagons, to rescue those in need.

It was a major operation.