Ralph on the Overland Express; Or, The Trials and Triumphs of a Young EngineerChapman, Allen
General
Ralph on the Overland Express; Or, The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer
Chapman, Allen
Railroads -- Juvenile fiction
"Say!" he spluttered out; "I was looking for you. That car, the one
they use out west in Calfrancisco, Francifornia, no, I mean
Calfris--rot! out west, anyway--tourist car."
"I know, yes," nodded Ralph.
"Well, you remember the queer old fossil's special to Fordham spur?
That fellow Zeph Dallas was on it."
"I remember distinctly; go ahead."
"There's another car just like that one in the yards now, right this
minute."
"You don't say so? I didn't suppose that more than one antiquated
relic of that kind was in existence," said Ralph.
"Come on and see," invited Torchy. "This last car must have come from
the north this morning, just like the other one did. It's bunched up
with a lot more of the blockade runners, delayed freight, you know,
and they've made up a train of it and others for the Mountain
Division."
Besides being intensely interested, Ralph had time to spare. It was
nearly a week after the Shelby Junction incident. The great storm had
crippled some of the lines of the great Northern to a fairly alarming
extent. The Mountain Division had felt the full force of the blizzard
and had suffered the most extensively. There were parts of the
division where it took several days to repair culverts, strengthen
trestles and replace weakened patches of track. The Overland Express
missed several runs, but had got back on fair schedule two days
before. A new storm had set in that very morning, and as Ralph
followed Torchy there were places where the drifts were up to their
knees.
"There you are," announced his companion, pausing and pointing over at
a train on a siding. "Isn't that last car the very picture of the one
that Dallas was on?"
"Remarkably so," assented Ralph.
"I've got to get to the roundhouse," explained the little fellow,
turning back in his tracks. "Thought you'd want to know about that
car, though."
"I do, most emphatically," declared Ralph, "and greatly obliged to you
for thinking of it."
Ralph approached the train on the siding. It was one of the queerest
he had ever seen. There was a motley gathering of every class of
freight cars on the line. As he passed along he noted the destination
of some of the cars. No two were marked for the same point of
delivery. It was easy to surmise that they were victims of the recent
blockade.
Ralph came up to the rear car of the incongruous train with a good
deal of curiosity. It was not the car that had made that mysterious
run to Fordham Spur with Zeph Dallas, although it looked exactly like
it. The present car was newer and more staunch. A fresh discovery made
Ralph think hard. The car was classified as "fast freight," and across
one end was chalked its presumable destination.
"Fordham Spur," read the young engineer. "Queer--the same as the other
car. I wonder what's aboard?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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