Chapter 10

In Which An Engineer has an Idea

The locomotive left Oakland station precisely at 6pm heading for Omaha. There was but little conversation in the car, and soon many of the passengers were overcome with sleep.

In the morning, the train left Sacramento and headed into the Sierra Nevada mountains. Travelers could observe the picturesque beauties of the mountain region through which they were steaming. Having breakfasted, Dr. Floyd and his companions watch a varied landscape unfold; vast prairies, mountains lining the horizon, and the creeks, with their frothy, foaming streams. Sometimes a great herd of buffaloes, massing together in the distance, seem like a moveable dam.

Dr. Floyd took up his usual pastime in a card game of Whist with some of the passengers. Nearing the late afternoon, the steam engine heaved a huge sigh and jolted with the screeching of breaks.

Passepartout, along with about 40 other passengers rushed out of the car. The train had stopped due to a red signal which blocked the way. The engineer and conductor are talking excitedly with the signalman. The passengers draw around and take part in the discussion.

"No! you can't pass. The bridge at Ogden is shaky, and would not bear the weight of the train. It's a mile ahead and you'll have to walk to Ogden to get another train." the signalman explains.

"How long for another train?" asks a passenger.

"The conductor telegraphed Ogden. Might be near 6 hours" states the signalman.

"I can not possibly tell my employer this news. Six hours is too long!" complains Passepartout. "And walking, impossibles!"

The engineer, a true Yankee, interjects; "Gentlemen and Ladies, perhaps there is a way, after all, to get over."

"But the bridge is unsafe," urges the conductor.

"No matter," replies the engineer; "I think that by putting on the very highest speed we might have a chance of getting over."

There had been stories out west of engineers leaping their trains over rivers without bridges, by putting on full steam; and many of those present avow themselves of the engineer's mind. Yet, Passepartout did not feel at ease.

The locomotive whistle blew; the engineer, reversing the steam, backed the train for nearly a mile. Then, with another whistle, he began to move forward; the train increasing speed, and soon its rapidity became frightful; a prolonged screech issued from the locomotive; the pistons working up and down. The train, rushing on at the rate of a hundred miles an hour, hardly bore upon the rails at all.

It was like a flash. No one saw the bridge. The train leaped, so to speak, from one bank to the other, and the engineer could not stop it until it had gone five miles beyond the station. But scarcely had the train passed the river, when the bridge, completely ruined, fell with a crash into the rapids below.

The whist players were quite absorbed in their game during all the excitement and barely noticed the commotion.