Passengers Form Bucket Brigade and Quench the Fire.

ENGINEER PREVENTS AN ACCIDENT

Despite Eight Hours’ Wait Passengers Kept in Good Spirits and Thank Engineer and conductors.

It was largely due to Engineer D. K. Wright of train 31 of the Seaboard Air Line that his train pulled into the local depot last evening at 6:55 o’clock – exactly eight hours late. And yet there was no censure for Engineer Wright, but only kind words and commendation, fro his quickness of thought and cool head prevented his train from being plunged through Jumping Gully trestle, where a score of lives might have been sacrificed. The trestle had caught fire and was in flames when the engine driver saw it applied the emergency brakes. A wrecking crew was sent for, but it was a long wait until the train was able to pass over the bridge.

All around his train seem to have had more or less ill luck. At Norlina yesterday morning there was a delay of an hour and a half, while waiting for the Portsmouth connection and, consequently, the training of six coaches, due at Hamlet at 6:45 o’clock, did not arrive there until about 8:15 o’clock. Camden was passed a short time after the noon hour, and here the engine took on water.

The train was well in hand, when about 4 miles from Lugoff it begin to descend down grade leading to the trestle, at it highest point 51 feet above ground. Some of the passengers noticed that the brakes were applied, but few looked out to see why, until a few minutes had elapsed. Then it was discovered that the wooden structure was in flames about 100 feet from the nearest abutment.

Almost all of the male passengers left the train and, with the crew, a bucket brigade was formed from the trestle to the engine, where the water was obtained. It took a long time to extinguish the fire which fed heartly on the fat pine timbers. But the passengers did yeoman work and seemed to enter into the spirit of the occasion with unusual zest. It was a picturesque scene – the long line of passengers working under the noonday sun, the thick clouds of white smoke rising up from the trestle into an almost cloudless blue sky, the great engine standing motionless on the rails and purring like a giant kitten. The quiet stately pines, their sofe broughs awayed in the snapping breeze, and the white clay embankments and gullies formed a pleasing and bizarre background.

Over an hour was consumed in quenching the flames with water and sand, and then train conductor Walter Gibson walked to Lugoff, four miles away, and sent for a wrecking train. All this took time but there was never a merrier and more good nature crowd of passengers. This seemed to impress the train crew and they remarked freely upon it. Some of the passengers took a walk in the woods, some absorbing so much of the Arcadian spirit as to go wading, others played setback and the time was employed in various ways. Everybody was apparently happy – even the passengers bound for Jacksonville and Tampa, the latter due to have arrived in the capital of the Land of Flowers at 2:20 o’clock yesterday afternoon.

One passenger coach contain a party of Italians, direct from Castle gGarden and en route to Ybor, a Tampa suburb, where they will become cigar makers. Their musical language, the flashing shawls of the women, the tiny black-eyed children and their evident interest in everything that went on made them the centre of attraction, to an extent.

There was only one man on the entire train who “kicked” and this was a young Philadelphian who found fault with all things, from the dirt on the brasses of the Pullman steps to the southern sun. How he tried the patience of the various conductors with whinings and groans must have been heart to be best laughed at.

When Conductor Gibson returned from his long walk to Lugoff there was naught to do but be patient. One very necessary accessory to a peaceful state of mind was the cafe car, which was still attached to the train, although due to meet No. 34, northbound, at a small station this side of Savannah.

The wrecking crew, which had to come from Columbia, arrived about 4 o’clock in the afternoon and the gang went at once to work. About 14 feet of the trestle, including the ties and big stringers, were almost consumed and what was not was so badly charred that it had to be replaced.

The wrecking crew had not long been at work when the engineer decided that he must go back for water, while the repairs were being made. Although the engine had been watered at Camden, the bucket brigade had taken almost all of the water out of the tank. The train was run back to Lugoff and the engine sent back to Camden, the nearest water tank. During this wait, Capt. Gibson got his first opportunity to get something to eat. Beside fighting the fire like a Trojan, and climbing down the sides of the high trestle to smother the last embers, he had made the long walk of eight miles.

It was 5:40 o’clock when the train with the engine left Lugoff and the trestle was almost ready when it was reached. There were a few minutes and here and another short wait at Blaney, and the train, after making good time between Blaney and this city, pulled in about 6:55 p.m. instead of at 10:55 a.m.

During the run from Blaney to Columbia, the passengers, with Mr. L. P. Rawlings as chairman and Mr. Frank A. Robertson as secretary (both of Camden) drew up resolution thanking the engineer and train conductor for their care and attention. One clause read, “We wish to especially mention the coolness of Engineer D. K. Wright and the care and patience fo Conductor Gibson.

It was only the engineer’s veteran service which prevented a catastrope.

“Well,” he said afterwards, in his quiet way, “it did look pretty bad coming around the curve. If it had been night, we might have been all down there,” and he pointed to the rocks below the trestle.