93° and Sunny
Image
By Margaret Leidy Harner from her book One Day at a Time: A Social History of Boyertown, PA
August 26, 1929: A freight gondola car broke loose as it was being shunted on to a side rail at the Boyertown station and a piece of iron was thrown into the brake mechanism disabling it. The gondola sped madly down the tracks from Boyertown to Linfield in one of the most thrilling chapters in Colebrookdale Railroad history.
Reaching speeds up to 70 miles pr hour and traveling 16 miles in 20 minutes, the runaway car carried two veteran railroad men, Albert Moll, 55 years old, a conductor from Barto and S. Paul Seeders, 40 years old, a brakeman from Pottstown, along with 50 pounds of pig iron.
The men tugged frantically at the brake controls to no avail, as the heavy car gained tremendous momentum within a few seconds of breaking loose. Fearing for their lives, Moll and Seeders were obliged to lie flat and hang on to the sharp, rusty edges of the pig iron, the only secure grip they had, and even that shifted and threatened to slide off every time the car rounded a curve.
Claude Croll at the Boyertown station, frantically notified all stations along the line to “drop the gates and keep them down,” which prevented a railroad crossing smashup. An emergency order was issued to clear the tracks, but not everyone got that warning. At Pine Forge, the runaway car hit a small hand-operated dirt truck which was on the track as workmen were fixing the roadbed. Joel Mest, a guard on the track desperately waved a red flag to signal the car to stop. As it bore down on him, he jumped for his life, just in time.
At Glasgow, it clipped the main arm of the big boom of a derrick, which then struck the wires of the Western Union and Reading Company telegraph lines and put them out of service.
The frightened men trapped on the freight car now had to worry about the crossing at Route 422, which vehicles were continually passing over. Fortunately, the watchman there had just managed to lower his gates to stop the traffic when they shot across.
Continuing on, they somehow navigated the “big curve” at the Sanatoga Station so fast that the agent didn’t even see them.
Its momentum was slowed by the grade and the curve north of the Linflield station and the car finally stopped. It had been the most thrilling 20 minutes in the lives of those two veteran railroaders, who were thankful they were still alive.
More News from Boyertown
- Coach Rich Zuber Shares Team Wins That Inspire Pride There are "wins" that bring trophies and bragging rights, and then there are "wins" that showcase character.
- Artist Trudy Moore Introduces Roscoe, the Family's Summer Visitor Studio B's "The Three Bears" project included an invitation to writers to respond to the theme.
