Dead at his post March 8, 1902, Cornwall Local “In the early hours of last Saturday morning, an extra coal train came tearing into Cornwall yard, northbound at a terrific speed past block signals and switches with never a warning as it sped on. Night Yardmaster Ellingham gazed at the train for a second, awe stricken, and then rushed to the telephone and calling the towerman said: “Snake Chaser coming to you running wild. Engineer is dead or drunk, give him a clean road!” The towerman set his switches as soon as possible but it was too late. The train rushed past the junction and up the West Shore main. As they shot past the towerman caught a glimpse 4 pale faced men tugging frantically at the brakes and then he knew something was terribly wrong. And so there was. When they got the train stopped about a mile from New Windsor, one of them crawled in the cab and found the engineer kneeling in a pool of blood, stone dead. The train was an O&W coal extra pulled by engine 175, in charge was Engineer Mike Hoey of Middletown and consisted of 41 empty coal cars and a caboose. The Engineer was at his post when they left Valley Cottage, but somewhere between that place and Cornwall, while leaning out his cab window and looking back to see if his train was all coming, unmindful of the dangerous places he had so often passed safely, his head came into contact with an overhanging rock or drawbridge, no one knows which, and in the twinkling of an eye passed into the great unknown. The engine was known as the Mother Hubbard type in which the Firemen is not in the same cab as the Engineer. And no one suspected anything wrong until the train approached Cornwall. When it did not slow down on entering the yard, the crew thought the man in the head cab had fallen asleep. By the time they had rounded the curve at the station and up in the yard, ahead of them the men saw two trains, they did not know which track they were on or how soon they would hit them; and men of less daring would have thought only of themselves. But railroad boys are not the kind that fears danger. These are brave hearts that beat under those grease stained jackets and so one man was sent over those flying cars to the engine and the others tugged away at the brakes. And the train was brought to a stop and the company’s property saved. Engineer Hoey’s funeral was held in his late residence in Middletown Tuesday morning and was one of the largest ever held in that city. Mr. Hoey leaves behind a wife, family and three brothers on the O&W. A peculiar circumstance is that two weeks before a brother of the dead engineer fell from the same engine at Campbell Hall and was badly injured. LATE: The inquest held in Newburgh Wednesday in regard to the accident in which Engineer Hoey was killed decided that he was struck by a bridge span at Fort Montgomery, his cap having been found here.”
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 03:08:19 +0000
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