Page 6 - Remembering the "Judique Flyer"

ISSUE : Issue 19

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1978/6/1

took another roll, broke away from the cars • and she went down on the steep side. So I said to Steve there were rumours that he had jumped. "I can't tell you that," he said. "The only thing I know, I landed down on the highway. I looked up and saw her and took off running. And I lost my cap," he said, "and I never found my cap." So he said when it stopped he walked back, anyway. Campbell was in her and they got Campbell out. And according to Steve, Campbell walked up i:he bank and he sat on the rail for a few minutes, and he stood up and he sang "Nearer My God to Thee." And then he dropped. Dead. Another accident, the same engine rolled at the bank at Mabou. Same engine, what they call Engine 1. She came down here first as Engine 79. Then they changed her number to 1219. Then they changed her eng? ine to Number 1, She was what, they call a Pacific type engine. Used on the passenger train here all the time • that was her reg? ular run. But there was nobody hurt that time. The other side of Mabou. She went into a bunch of cows on the track. The next time she went over, she went over down here at Craigmore. Well, the whole works went that time • three coaches and the engine. She was out in the water. Well, the ocean wasn't very far. Right be? side the track pretty near. Some of the passengers got hurt that time. The fire? man, Jack T. MacDonald, he got scalded really bad • they didn't think he was going to live. But the driver that was on her was a fellow by the name of John Hector Maclsaac. He got out without a scratch. When we were kids we were always around, up around the engine and all this • so I asked him about it. He said, "All I can tell you, I was in the seat of it, and I went to move and I couldn't move. I was pinned in the seat of it." He was in her till she stopped and he got out of her. Not a scratch. But the fireman was scalded. I can say, rap on wood, I never had much, outside of a few run-offs. I never had what you'd call any real bad run-offs. A mn-off • well, she'd be off the track, on the ties • you'd run into a broken rail sometimes, you'd run into certain things on the track. Then if she jumped you'd just put the brake on her, stop her. You could always tell • there was no trouble to tell when she jumped the track. She just got bumping something like a flat tire on a car. I never seemed to mind it too much. Once you've run on the railroad for a num? ber of years, you could always tell where you were at on the track or whether it was Mabou or Port Hood. You could almost tell by the feel of the engine? you could tell by the roll of the engine. Specially run? ning a snowplow. If you had a snowplow, you couldn't see where you were going.. You couldn't see a thing ahead of you. Snow flying. So you just took a chance on the feel of the engine. It'd be hitched right onto the train • but there'd be a man ahead of you, sitting in the plow. For a number of years they didn't have anybody on the snowplow. The driver did it all on his own, from the engine. Then they decided they'd build a seat, when they started to Where Better Service Costs No More MacLeod's RNA Baddeck we Buy % We Sell ' and We*re as Near as yonr Teleplione Sid s Used Furniture fhone 564-6123 436 Charlotte Street, Sydney CO-OP J DO-IT- YOURSELF Home Improvement Centre Connate slocks of lumber, building supplies. Plumbing, Heating and Electcical materials. W' CMCP to iMl MHlCMIS pUDHC Component Homes & Cottages COOP Building Supplies Sydney Port Hawkesbury 539-6'HO 625-2600 Public Information Centres Glace Bay and Port Hawkesbury Open Daily, June To September, 10:00 a.m.- 6:00 p.m. An insight into the atomic age through MODELS FILMS EXHIBITS Visits By Groups From High Schools, Service Clubs, Church Organizations Can Be Arranged At Any fime Of The Year

Cape Breton's Magazine