Angel Protects the Whites on Train trip

The Whites protected by an Angel in train wreck.

Ellen G. White: The Early Years: 1827-1862 (vol. 1) pp 294-296

 

 

That same night James and Ellen White were to leave for Wisconsin, taking the train at Jackson at eight o'clock. Tuesday afternoon was spent at the Palmer home. Several times James White spoke about the anticipated trip. He said, “I feel strangely in regard to starting on this trip; but Ellen, we have an appointment out, and we must go.” A little later he declared, “With my feelings, if I had not an appointment, I should not go tonight.”— Ibid. Before the Whites left for the station, all united in a season of prayer for God's special protection of the workers. Getting up from his knees, James expressed his faith that the Lord would care for them and keep them. Loughborough accompanied them to the station, and he later described what took place: At eight o'clock I went aboard the train with them, to assist in getting on their parcels. We went into one car with high back seats, called in those days a “sleeping car.” Sister White said, “James, I can't stay in this car; I must get out of here.” I helped them in getting a seat in the middle of the next car. Sister White sat down with her parcel in her lap, but said, “I don't feel at home on this train.” The bell then rang, and I bade them “goodbye.” On leaving the train, I went to Brother Smith's in west Jackson to tarry for the night. What was the surprise of Brother Smith's family, about ten o'clock, to hear Brother White, whom we supposed was well on toward Chicago, knocking for admittance! He said the train had run off the track three miles west of Jackson; that most of the train, with the engine, was a total wreck; but while a number had been killed, he and Sister White had escaped uninjured. Brother Dodge went with Brother White and brought Sister White in the carriage to Brother Smith's.—Ibid. Ellen White described the accident:

The train had run about three miles from Jackson when its motion became very violent, jerking backward and forward, and finally stopping. I opened the window and saw one car raised nearly upon one end. I heard most agonizing groans. There was great confusion. The engine had been thrown from the track. But the car we were in was on the track, and was separated about one hundred feet from those before it. The baggage car was not much injured, and our large trunk of books was safe. The second-class car was crushed, and the pieces, with the passengers, were thrown on both sides of the track. The car in which we tried to get a seat was much broken, and one end was raised upon the heap of ruins.

The coupling did not break, but the car we were in was unfastened from the one before it, as if an angel had separated them. We hastily left the car; and my husband took me in his arms, and, wading in the water, carried me across a swampy piece of land to the main road. Four were killed or mortally wounded.... Many were much injured. We walked one-half mile to a dwelling, where I remained while my husband rode to Jackson with a messenger sent for physicians.—Life Sketches of James White and Ellen G. White (1880), 308.

The cause of the accident was reported in the Jackson Patriot of Wednesday, May 24: The passenger train going west last evening at nine o'clock met with a severe accident at the second crossing, three miles west of the village. The train at this point came in contact with an ox lying on the track, and the locomotive [without a cowcatcher], tender, baggage car, and two second-class passenger cars were thrown off the track, and the forward end of one of the first-class cars badly stove in. The baggage car, locomotive, tender, and one second-class car are a perfect wreck. The engineer, Henry Cluck, the fireman, Woodbury Fuller, were instantly killed, the locomotive and tender falling upon them.... Doctor Gorham was promptly at the scene of suffering, doing all in his power. Loughborough and Dodge went early Wednesday morning to the scene of the wreck. In an article in the Review Loughborough described what they found: As we viewed the wreck, and then the car in which Brother and Sister White were riding at the time of the accident, standing quietly by itself, some fifteen rods away from the wreck, we felt to say in our hearts, God heard prayer, and sent His angel to uncouple that car that His servants might escape unharmed. More especially did we so decide when the brakeman said he did not uncouple the car, and that no one was on the platform when it was done, and that it was just as much a mystery to the trainmen how it was done as it was to us. There was no link nor bolt broken, but the bolt, with its chain, laid quietly on the platform of the unwrecked car.—JNL, in The Review and Herald, January 27, 1885. Of this Ellen White wrote, “I have been shown that an angel was sent to preserve us.”—Life Sketches of James White and Ellen G. White (1880), 308. The next afternoon, the tracks having been cleared, the Whites took the train for Wisconsin. The first appointment was for the weekend of May 26 to 28 at Koskonong; the following weekend they were at Rosendale. James White gave a word picture of the Koskonong meeting—the first conference held in Wisconsin: A goodly number of brethren came in from the region round about, some thirty miles. The meeting was one of interest, and we trust much profit. We were happy to meet Brethren Phelps and Waggoner at this place. They have labored extremely hard in the cause; have traveled many hundred miles on foot to get the truth before the people, and the Lord has blessed their labors, and raised up many friends of the cause.—The Review and Herald, July 4, 1854.

 

 

Evolution of Couplers and Brakes on 19th Century Railroads

 

Couplers have been in continual use in trains from the early 19th century to contemporary times. A modern freight train can include more than one-hundred cars and be over a mile long. Couplers hold the cars together, from the first tug of the engine, as its force overcomes the inertia of each car, to the end of the train. A coupler requires extraordinary strength and flexibility to maintain its hold over hills and dips, around curves, and over rough track.

In 1863, when the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroads were breaking ground, the most common coupler in use was the "link-and-pin" ("Lincoln pin").  This was a simple, elongated iron loop that was fitted into an opening at the end of each car's drawbar. The loop was anchored in place by an iron pin dropped through a socket in the top of the drawbar. The pin passed through the link and through another socket in the bottom of the drawbar.

The link-and-pin construction was inexpensive to manufacture, making it the predominant coupler in use until the 1870s. However, the link-and-pin, as well as other early railroad couplers, had disadvantages that became more problematic with the expansion of railroad systems, the increase in locomotive power, and train length. 

Excessive slack between cars ensured a jarring, uncomfortable ride that could harm passengers and cargo when a loosely-coupled train pulled out of a dead stop and each car started forward with a violent lurch.  In 1863, Ezra Miller successfully patented and marketed the first model of his coupling device that became known as the "Miller Hook" or "Miller Platform."  The Miller Platform eliminated slack between the cars and included a shock-absorbing spring and a buffering platform that prevented damage from cars' bumping into one another during sudden stops. Because of its high cost, the Miller Platform was used on passenger trains, while freight trains continued to use the link-and-pin couplers.


Plan view of Ezra Miller's coupler as applied to the bottom of adjoining rail cars.

The link-and-pin was also slow and inefficient to operate, requiring a worker to stand between the cars and effect every coupling and uncoupling. The switchman, also called "brakeman," who worked in the yard with the link-and-pin coupler had a dangerous job. Crushing accidents were common.  Mangled hands and missing fingers were the badge of the experienced worker.  Standing between cars as they were being pushed together and holding the iron link up to guide it into place, working around the "dead wood" buffers that kept the cars from telescoping together, the switchman would only need a moment of lapsed attentiveness to lose a finger, a hand, or his life.

In 1879, Eli Janney, a shop clerk and skilled whittler, patented his first coupler design. He whittled a wooden model of his "knuckle" coupler and commissioned a draftsman to make a drawing of it for his patent application. With a few subsequent revisions, Janney's coupler, which resembles two hands with fingertips hooked together, solved more than the safety problem. The Janney coupler automatically engaged without the need for a man to stand between the cars. It held train cars without slack, enabling smoother acceleration and more efficiency around curves, but with enough play to secure the train over hills. It also functioned as a buffer, preventing damage to passengers and cargo.

Patent diagram of the Janney coupler

After testing and comparing the performance of many coupler designs, in 1888 the Master Car Builders Association received a partial waiver of patent rights over the Janney-style coupler. The Janney-style coupler became the standard for U.S. railroad cars.

 

Brakes

 

Early methods of stopping trains included reversing the locomotive engine and the use of wheel braking systems that were limited to the locomotive and its tender. During the 1860s, railway brakes were manually-operated by the brakeman, who applied or released them by turning a handwheel that was positioned at the end of the car.

By the late 1880s, passenger trains were running as fast as fifty and sixty miles per hour. Rail lines, once local and isolated, had become interconnected so that freight cars could carry their goods across the country by being hitched to a succession of different trains with compatible coupling and braking systems.

Various patents for brake improvements featured apparatuses for linking the brakes between the cars and employed different methods for reducing slack in the brake line. These innovations made it possible for trains to become longer and to carry more cargo, as heavier trains require more stopping power. The most successful of the early continuous brakes used a chain link running through the length of the train that connected to a single control.


Diagram for an automatic brake patented by Luther Adams in 1873.


A steam brake patented in 1853 was recognized by later generations of engineers as a hazard from the past.


As the use of railways increased, the need for "automatic" brakes, which would engage in cases of accidental car uncoupling, grew more urgent.  Railroad engineers grew quite inventive because of the proliferation of rail crashes involving cars that detached and ran downhill. Even a few chain brakes were designed to engage in cases like this, the tension in the chain functioning to keep a brake lever disengaged.

Steam brakes were among the early power brakes. Used on locomotives and their tenders, they had dual disadvantages: steam lost pressure as it cooled and the hoses carrying the steam would freeze up and clog with ice in cold climates.  Steam pipes were not alone in their vulnerability to ice; it could handicap chain brakes as well.

Patent illustration for George Westinghouse's first patent for an air-brake.

Contemporary freight trains employ air brakes that use compressed air to keep a car's brakes disengaged. When air pressure drops in a car's reservoir the brakes apply automatically. George Westinghouse patented his first air brake in 1869. He had difficulty persuading railroad officials that air could stop a train, but the efficiency of his system convinced detractors, and, by 1880, the Westinghouse automatic air brake had been installed on 2,211 locomotives and 7,224 cars in the United States. It was also used on rail locomotives and cars in Europe and Australia.

The efforts of the Master Car Builders Association to standardize brakes, couplers, and car design, and the Safety Appliance Act of 1893, brought U.S. railroads into modern times. The Act mandated that all rail lines conducting interstate commerce must use cars that coupled and uncoupled without manual assistance of a worker standing between cars. The Act also required that the trains employ power braking systems that could control the speed of the train without a brakeman to do so manually. A seven-year grace period allowed railway companies time to comply with the new law. The effect of the changes was marked by the dramatic reduction of injury and death to brakemen.

Reference: 

https://railroad.lindahall.org/essays/couplers-brakes.html