Number 13 For most people a steam locomotive is just a steam locomotive, but for the crews who operated them day in and day out, they are the ones who tell the stories. Some engines are known for such feats as conquering the Appalachian Mountain Range with a one million ton coal drag; For topping one hundred ten over the vast flatlands of Indiana and Ohio; or for just simply being the largest and heaviest machine ever to roam on a given railroad line. Then there are those with history that crews and railroaders alike strive to forget; their histories forlorn with tragedy. In December 1914, one of Thomasville Railroad’s predecessor lines, the Thomasville Switching Railroad, began building its first 4-6-2 “Pacific”. Similar in many ways to the later USRA Pacific, it would be a well-balanced machine, easily capable of topping over 110 MPH. The first engine, built as number 13 (as the railroad didn’t believe in jinxes or bad luck). Death and number 13 went hand in hand from almost day one. During the lowering of the frame onto the axles, it was a cold Wednesday night in January 1915, due in a large part to several timely delays to her building. The chains holding the frame failed, dropping it onto two workmen guiding it into position. Both were crushed and killed instantly. Strength test on the sample chain showed that it was completely capable of lifting such a heavy object and possibly more. Construction was restarted, and with the frame repaired and lowered on successfully. During the fitting on the superheater flues into the smokebox, the heavy cast steel smokebox door mysteriously drifted shut. Crushing the pipe fitter inside. Unfortunately, it took him several hours to slowly bleed to death while workers franticly worked with crowbars to pry the door open, wedges and anything else they could get their hand on to attempt to get the severely wounded pipe fitter free. They were too late, when the door finally let go, the pipe fitter was already dead. Workers called the main headquarters rethinking their decision to give this engine the number they decided on. For peace of mind, the road changed it to 18. After this was done, the mysterious death and bad luck seemed to go into submission for a period. This also allowed shops to get back on schedule and release the four units to the road for use. By 1920, the road would officially be part of the Thomasville Railroad company. For all the engines, the builder’s photo was taken directly in front of the original shop complex. The photographer asked for 18 to be moved to the back for better lighting. While the photographer survived through photographing the engine, he was horrified when he saw how his picture came out. On the side of the cab and other markings clearly showed the number 13. Despite the relocation of the engine to a safer area, he had been marked by its curse. During the photographing of his next subject, he tripped and fell backwards into the path of an oncoming local, whose engineer and fireman were busier talking than watching the track for obstruction. Still as the crew kept talking and as the photographer was picking up his equipment, next thing you hear is train brakes squealing to a halt, then the next thing you saw was the dead body of the photographer beside the train. The crew who was operating the train never had an operating mishap before. In 1925, the former commuter railroad became one of the three players that became the Thomasville railroad. A lot of the founding roads equipment was sold or retired for better machines, but for the four Pacific’s were renumbered as #100-104 and merged into the new road’s roster without incident(13’s number has been changed to 100). In 1930, the old crew that operated #100 got to retire, handing their old assignment down to a newer crew. They had heard the stories about the unit but refused to believe. They would soon regret it. The locomotive (13) started its games instantly. Upon trying to start it, the mechanical stoker took sick, forcing the crew to have to hand fire her, which on a warm summer day would be near torture. During the run, the engine suddenly started losing water and quickly began to drive up the boiler temperature to an alarming rate. It was soon to discover to be a leak that had developed into the otherwise solid water bunker within the tender. When they reached the next tank house, the fireman went head down the cab ladder, when he lost his footing, fell onto the roadbed, breaking his neck. After an hour delay, the train proceeded onward for Bluefield, complete with a new fireman on board. The next run was no better. With a fresh new crew in the cab, the train headed back for Traxington with a full load of passengers. On a cold night in February 1935, the engine was once again pulled in for service, this time as protection power. The Thomasville Railroad’s eastern, an all-coach train consisting of nothing but heavyweight equipment. The engine that had brought the train was in need of servicing, and so without any thoughts about it, old number 100(13) was tacked onto the head end. Even though the weather was worsening, and the visibility level was dropping faster than the lifespan of a fruit fly, the train still had to proceed onward for Pittsburg. On the way though, tragedy once again struck, this time worse yet. As the train hit a bend at low speed, one of the rail joiners broke free, throwing the rail out and several cars off into a nearby creek. The last 2 cars of the five car train survived. And strangely enough, #13 survived as well. All in all, the passengers in the first three coaches drowned in the depths of the creek. Those in the second coach that didn’t drown were crushed to death. A week later, the roundhouse hostler, who was busy refueling the engines with coal supply, died when he slipped and fell into #13’s coalbunker, after which the stoker mechanism pulled him into the coal. He was killed instantly as the auger bit tore his body to shreds. Finally, word spread that the engine itself was jinxed. Crews even claimed that despite the fact her road number was now #100, they instead saw something far more horrifying: The old number 13 would instead be visible. Even rail fans claim who took pictures came with evidence of this. Worst of all, the accidents, and everything else all terrified crews to no extent. Even the 22nd street roundhouse hostler refused to place the engine within the confines of his roundhouse. They would instead leave it on an unused siding where former Coal fork branch lead had gone off the main (This had been relocated in 1940 and was simply a semi weed grown storage track now). For a few months it was simply left there, its fire long since extinguished. Finally the railroad found a solution to their problems. At the roundhouse foreman’s request, they coupled a shop switcher to her, and were going to tow her to the shop storage tracks, where most of the usable parts would be stripped and saved for newer engines, and the rest simply sold for scrap. Unfortunately, misfortune once again accompanied. The switcher moving her, a 0-6-0, broke down halfway out of the siding, courtesy of a broken main rod. Since it was connected to #13, and plans were to retire this engine as well, they would only fix enough to get it to where it wanted to move their bad-luck charm. After an hour of waiting, several shop men finally got over to the switcher with a small MOW cart with the necessary replacement parts to repair the damaged engine. Another twenty minutes, and they were ready to go again. This time, they managed to get it to the storage track where they deemed it for its final demise. But the misfortune and unexplainable catastrophes continued. During the removal of the bell, one shop worker fell and broke his neck after the handrail mysteriously failed; The supervisor was killed when one of the generator parts fell and crushed his skull; Worst yet, another worker who was removing the eccentric rod got his rib cage crushed when the entire rod assembly fell onto him. With that, the shop decided to rid itself once and for all: They sold it to a scrap dealer for no less than a dollar. After an attempt by the scrap dealer to remove several parts with disastrous results, the unit was left to rot on a little if used at all spur. When 1941 came, the road really ran into problems, with most of its passenger and freight roster in use because of war time, and leasing engines being way out of the question, the road decided to swallow its pride and take a risk: Bring #100(13) back into service. With that, the shops brought out the retired engine yet again, and towed it back onto its little spur where it would be refurbished and rushed back to service troop trains. Problems would once more follow the engine and anyone who worked on her. Her first run, after her return to service was almost her last. A freight train, having passed a failed red signal, rear-ended the sitting passenger train’s tail. Although steel, the force exerted from the freight’s impact was great enough to crumple and derail the rearmost car. Luckily enough, nobody had boarded that car yet other than the conductor who was killed on impact. The next run was uneventful; then again once more the crew aboard kept the bible close by as protection from the engine’s curse. The worst was yet to come: On a cold night in December, the Thomasville railroad’s secondary express train, The PA Limited, pulled into 22nd street depot in desperate need of a new engine. The train’s original engine had dropped a rod and limped after the crew got the damage part removed as luck would have it, the only engine that was already serviced was engine #100(13). To the road crew who knew the engine’s terrible story, using this engine was as unacceptable as taking a pay cut. After an hour of arguing, the crew finally accepting the engine only upon a 20% pay raise and an up in seniority, finally climbed into the cab and got underway. Little did the officials know, this would be the last time that #13 would ever see this facility, or any facility on the Thomasville Railroad System. Engine #100 made up for lost time easily, running at well over 100 for several miles with the 10 heavyweight Pullmans making up the train. Then it happened. As the train blasted out of the Summit tunnels bound for Summit Junction, they ran into a complete white out with little if any visibility. Still trying to make up for lost time, the crew reduced speed slightly but not enough. The train was still running slightly over the proper speed for conditions. The crew also knew there was a semi-sharp bend up ahead, and began braking to track speed, but it was already too late. Ahead, in the viewing angle, was clear track, but a heavily loaded coal drag with loads probably bound for Thomasville Steel Corporation’s large mill in the Pittsburgh area. That was it. The engine rammed head on into the train’s rear and dove down the embankment with its train in tow still. The engineer, fireman, and brakeman, unable to move from their stance near the windows, were trapped in the cab, while the force of the accident crumpled many of the train’s heavyweight equipment. The passengers that weren’t smothered in the coal, which poured down from the wreck hoppers, were crushed in the entangled wreckage of the coaches. The trapped crewman perhaps had the worst fate going. Trapped and pinned in the cab, the fireman was slowly burned to death when the flaming coals from the firebox spilled when #13 was tumbling down the grade, while the brakeman had been impaled by the rake used to clean the firebox grates. This is where fact turns to belief. It is believed in that final seconds before the boiler on #13 exploded, the engineer, in his final dying breath, cursed #13 to roam the rails on the anniversary of the wreck and the day all those lives whose have been stolen by #13, Rest in peace. Whatever the reason, engine 13 and her phantom consist continue to pry the rails, forever doomed to reenact her violent ending until the end of time. Shortly after the cleanup of the accident, a monument was resurrected upon the site to honor those whose lives were cut short by #13. Oddly enough though, this has also had some strange occurrences at it. Several visitors had reported seeing blood oozing from the spaces of the concrete, especially on the anniversary of the wreck. Time has gone by, and many changes have taken place since that day. The Thomasville railroad has gone bankrupt, been reorganized as part of the Conrail, and later its own company yet again. One thing’s definite though: the memory of train 13 is a bad memory that refuses to rest in peace, for the hell-spawned locomotive and it’s consist, still loaded with those unfortunate victims. The first report came from a Thomasville Railroad crew a few months after the wreck. During a cold night, the crew of a fifty car freight headed off the coal fork branch ran into an unexpected blizzard. Following suit, they reduced speed, but as they did the visibility also decreased. Not long after, the crew noticed something coming head on at them: They saw the light of what to appear to be an oncoming train. Strangely enough, as the headlight grew closer they could clearly notice it was not a yellow headlight, but a red one. In an instant, the shape of what appeared to be a Pacific and ten heavyweight cars dashed right at them, and through their train without even causing so much as an accident. The terrified crew slammed the brakes at the next call box and reported their sighting to the nearest tower, which reported back to the head offices. This was to be the first sighting of Train 13. Interestingly enough, the same train was involved in a massive derailment hours later that placed several engines and a dozen or so cars into a nearby river. The entire three man crew drowned. Another example took place modern day. Only a few minutes before Amtrak’s Sunset Limited derailed out west, Train 13’s ghost was sighted running at 70 an hour on the siding. Sure enough, The Sunset Limited derailed. Even the crew from a recent Northfolk Southern derailment in upper Pennsylvania, describing the same thing: “A semi-translucent steam locomotive with a headlight burning brightly with the colors of hell, a tender, and ten heavyweight Pullmans”, all of which tend to disappear shortly after a catastrophic wreck. To this very day, reportings of Train 13 sightings continue to be as common as UFO reports. But there’s definitely one thing for sure: If you hear the shrill cry of Train 13’s whistle, or see its glowing red headlight, don’t turn your back, as you may never know what may be beyond you…..
Posted on: Fri, 02 Aug 2013 00:00:34 +0000
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