Source: ‘he Mining Journal
Marquette, Mi.
February 18, 1888 Saturday

A Terrible Ride

At 7:30 Thursday evening that thrilling locomotive shriek
was heard which instantly told people in Marquette that there
was a runaway train coming down the grade from Bruce mine and
whose blood-curdling intonations brought men to their feet at
a bound as soon as they struck the ear. Nearer and nearer
came the long shrill shrieks, rising higher and higher in
pitch and louder and louder, until the very air seemed to
quiver in sympathy, and almost human agony seemed expressed
in the wild danger signal which a brave engineer and fireman,
facing almost cetain death themselves, were sending ahead to
warn men along the road and to clear the main line for the mad
rushing train. Quicker than it has taken to tell it the train
came thundering down through the yards into the city, the en-
gine still sounding that awful danger signal which will never
be forgotten by those who heard it then or last summer. Hun-
dreds were in the streets by the Front street yards when the
train came down past the Fourth street crossing like a whirl-
wind and with a blaze of flame, which made every car seem on
fire,pouring from under every wheel from the two-fold fric-
tion between the rails, the wheels and the tightly set brakes.
Men shuddered as they thought of the sharp curves by the rock
eut on the east side of Front street and realized that sure
distruction awaited the whole train there, while there seamed
no possible chance for stopping its mad career before cross-
ing that street. Like a meteor the train rushed across Third
street and was lost to sight behind the buildings. Then a
sudden silence came. There had been no crash, the train did
not cross Front street. Each turned to his neighbor with an
expression of amazement on his face, then a wild rush for Su-
perior street began.

In two or three minutes the street was choked with excited
mane There at the depot just where each east bound passenger
train engines stop, stood the big mogul freight engine No. 32
as quietly as if obedient to the will of its fealess engineer,
James Ahearn, who stepped from the cab as calmly as if he had
not come down the grade for five miles with certain death star-
ing him in the face. Sitting quietly on the box at his side
of the cab was his young fireman, Frank Kelly. Each said that
he never expected to be numbered among the living at that mo-
ment for each knew that if the yards were passed safely the
runaway train could never strike the curve by the approach to
No. 3 ore pier without going into the lake. Ahearn said that
he had expected to bring up there anyhow, but was amazed at
finding his engine still on the track when the little curve by
Third street was passed. He felt over his engine, trying ev-
ery wheel and piece of mechanism as carefully as a man feels
of a favorite horse just stopped after a runaway. Borrowing
his lantern the Mining Journal representative passed back with
a trainman to see what was left of the train, and find what
had caused its almost miraculous stoppage. The three box cars