How much better than the acting superintendent's word was the performance of Engineer Scott and his crew this story shows. The special, after leaving Pittsburgh, ran wild until it got to McKeesport, sixteen miles distant. At this point the regular train, which left Pittsburgh at 8.40, was overtaken. The regular train was on a siding, and the special passed through the city with but a minute's stop. Then the special had a clear track before it, and the engineer drove his machine to the utmost limit of speed consistent with safety. It is nineteen miles from McKeesport to West Newton, and the special made this distance in twenty minutes, the average time of over a mile a minute being much exceeded for certain periods. The curves of the road are frightful, and at times the single car which composed the train was almost swung clear off the track. The _Sun_ men recalled vividly the ride of Horace Greeley with Hank Monk, and they began to reflect that there was such a thing as riding so fast that they might not be able to reach Johnstown at all. From Layton's to Dawson the seven and one-half miles were made in seven minutes, while the fourteen miles from Layton's to Connellsville were covered in fourteen minutes precisely. On the tender of the engine the cover of the water-tank flew open and the water splashed out. Coal flew from the tender in great lumps, and dashed against the end of the car. Inside the car the newspaper men's grips and belongings went flying around on the floor and over seats like mad. The Allegheny River, whose curves the rails followed, seemed to be right even with the car windows, so that one could look straight down into the water, so closely to it was the track built. In Connellsville there was a crowd to see the special. On the depot was the placard:-- "Car will leave at 3 P. M. to-day with food and clothing for Johnstown." In Connellsville the train stopped five minutes and underwent a thorough inspection. Then it shoved on again. At Confluence, twenty-seven miles from Connellsville, a bridge of a Baltimore and Ohio branch line across the river was washed away, but this didn't interfere with the progress of the special. For sixty miles on the road is up hill at a grade of sixty-five feet to the mile, and the curves, if anything, are worse, but there was no appreciable diminution in the speed of the train. Just before reaching Rockwood the first real traces of the flood were apparent. The waters of the Castlemore showed signs of having been recently right up to the railroad tracks, and driftwood and débris of all descriptions lay at the side of the rails. Nearly all bridges on the country roads over the river were washed away and their remnants scattered along the banks.