Hearing no sound, now, he glanced back and saw the wild train almost leap upon his own--yet just before it…
- Date of account
- Published 1896
- Source
- Myths and Legends of Our Own Land — Complete
- Reference
- Myths and Legends of Our Own Land — Complete · selected passage 161
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
Hearing no sound, now, he glanced back and saw the wild train almost leap upon his own--yet just before it touched it the track seemed to spread, the engine toppled from the bank, the whole train rolled into the canon and vanished
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyHearing no sound, now, he glanced back and saw the wild train almost leap upon his own--yet just before it touched it the track seemed to spread, the engine toppled from the bank, the whole train rolled into the canon and vanished. Edwards shuddered and listened. No cry of hurt men or hiss of steam came up--nothing but the groan of the wind as it rolled through the black depth. The lantern ahead, too, had disappeared. Now another danger impended, and there was no time to linger, for No. 19 might be on its way ahead if he did not reach the second switch before it moved out. The mad run was resumed and the second switch was reached in time. As Edwards was finishing the run to Green River, which he reached in the morning ahead of schedule, he found written in the frost of his cab-window these words: “A frate train was recked as yu saw. Now that yu saw it yu will never make another run. The enjine was not ounder control and four sexshun men wor killed. If yu ever run on this road again yu will be recked.” Edwards quit the road that morning, and returning to Denver found employment on the Union Pacific.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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