My Trainwreck Tribute
Has anyone heard what a sage one time said?
“Nurses are angels in training,” they shine!
This ballad I’ve titled, “My trainwreck tribute,”
for two injured nurses on the M&M Line.
O’er the Mohawk-Malone, Neville engineered,
Montreal Express south thru Big Moose churned,
eight cars in tow- Pullman, Baggage, and Mail,
and a hundred souls safe on the Saturday rail.
NoelFour gents from Lowville returning they were,
from a four-day trip fishing, on Big Crooked Lake.
The fireman shoveled fresh coal in the box,
while a Texas Steer driver attended his stock.
A cloud of dust rose as it passed Nelson Lake,
a rattle of stone swept along in its wake.
Neville’s orders to side there, misunderstood:
“At McKeever, pass Train 651,” he assumed.
North past McKeever, Plato’s passengers sped,
rushed at top speed just to make up lost time;
Plato’s Utica Express, fastest train on the Line,
he presumed No. 650 off, on Nelson Lake’s Side.
On board were two men, for a fishing-trip bound,
a 4th Lake adventure made one year in advance,
with a hundred or more on the passenger list,
relaxed in day-coaches, eight cars at aglance.
The drivers’ eyes met at a curve in the track,
just five hundred feet from a rugged rock jag.
no time to jump out at this furious speed,
both express train engines now running mad.
Then: A roaring crash and a massive steam-blast,
locomotives enmeshed as if a single machine!
Splinters and dust in one vast shattered mass,
a rending of iron and wood, oh, a terrible scene.
Cars on the railbed, crumpled and crushed,
as if trapped by the spin of a twister’s might.
Smoker and Horse cars like a jackknife folded,
wood, glass, and metal pelting the pitiful sight.
Debris spewed all over, even into the woods,
valuables, luggage, letters, loose in the wind.
but then the real human toll to life and limb,
two hundred or more hurt, oh, injuries grim!
The true tale of carnage, too tough to be told,
but the shrieks and groans voicing it, tenfold:
Severe the wounds suffered in the violent bolt,
some even knocked senseless by the sudden jolt.
Everyone injured, even to the point of death,
hurled over seats and held in their pyre;
robbed of their senses, some fled to the forest,
there to be met by a new threat- forest fire!
An awe-inspiring sight out of this scene of woe,
the brave and noble work of two trained nurses,
amid so many bodies, hurrying to and fro,
loath to be named as “the stars of the show.”
Wiping the blood from their hands and faces,
rallying their sisters to stand by their side,
dressings ripped from underskirts & handkerchiefs,
applied with ready hands in emergency relief.
The traincrews telegraphed a cry for urgent help,
an engine from Malone, first to reach the scene,
a surgeon’s aid from Utica too slow to intervene,
but many saved thanks to angels unforeseen.
These headlines in the Watertown Re-Union ran:
“Engineer’s Blunder, Fast Train’s Head-On Fate,”
“A Score were Maimed in Adirondack Wreck,”
“One of the Worst Rail Mishaps in New York State!”
So, I’m repeating what a sage one time said,
This ballad I’ve titled, “My trainwreck tribute,”
“Nurses are angels in training,” I agree!
for two unnamed nurses in Nineteen-o-Three.
—–
This poem is a memorial to the Great Nelson Lake Train Wreck.
Read More Poems From the New York Almanack HERE.
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