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Casey Jones
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Image:CaseyJones.jpg Portrait of "The Brave Engineer" himself: John Luther "Casey" Jones, 1863-1900.
John Luther "Casey" Jones (March 14, 1863 – April 30, 1900) was a locomotive engineer who worked for the Illinois Central Railroad (IC). In 1900 he alone was killed when his locomotive collided with a stopped freight train at Vaughan, Mississippi, on a foggy and rainy night. His dramatic death trying to stop his train and save lives made him a folksong hero beginning with a song sung by his friend Wallace Saunders, who was an African American engine wiper for the IC.
Contents
- 1 Youth and career
- 2 Death
- 3 Museums in Casey Jones's honor
- 4 See also
- 5 References
- 6 External links
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Youth and career
John Luther "Casey" Jones was born March 14, 1863 in southeast Missouri. While he was still a small child, his family moved to Cayce, Kentucky, which is how he got his nickname. As a boy, he developed a growing obsession with trains. In 1878, at the age of 15, he went to work for the Mobile and Ohio Railroad as an apprentice telegrapher. By 1890, "Casey" had reached the pinnacle of the railroad profession as a crack locomotive engineer on the Illinois Central Railroad. The railroad sent him to Jackson, Tennessee, where he met and married Janie Brady, bought a house, and set about raising a family. Railroading was a natural talent, and Casey Jones was recognized by his peers as one of the best in the business.
Death
In
1899, Jones was given a regular passenger run on the
Cannonball route which ran between
Chicago and
New Orleans. On
April 29,
1900 Jones was in
Memphis, Tennessee, from the northbound
Cannonball when he agreed to take the southbound
Cannonball because the scheduled engineer called in sick. He left Memphis at 12:50 am, 95 minutes behind schedule, but made up almost an hour between Memphis and
Grenada, Mississippi, nearly 100 miles away. By
Durant, 55 miles farther down, they were almost on time.
At Durant, Jones received orders to "saw by" two freights that had taken the siding in Vaughan. The two freights were too large to fit into the siding, leaving one end on the main line. If the "sawing" maneuver had been done correctly, the freights would have allowed the approaching train to pass the first switch, and then the trains on the siding would move past the other switch. However, an air hose on one of the freight trains burst, applying the brakes on the freight cars behind the break, and left them immobile on the main line. Meanwhile, Jones was travelling excessively fast, possibly up to 70 miles per hour, and did not have enough time to brake. When collision seemed imminent, Casey told his fireman, Sim Webb, to jump for it, but Jones rode the engine into the cars and was killed. It is believed that because Jones stayed to slow the train, he saved the passengers from injury and possible death (Casey himself was the only fatality of the collision). Popular legend holds that when Jones' body was pulled from the wreckage of his train his hands were still firmly latched onto the whistle cord and the brake.
The fireman, Simeon T. Webb, died in Memphis in 1957 at the age of 83. Jones' wife, Janie Brady Jones, died in 1958 at the age of 92. The Joneses had two sons and a daughter. Mrs. Jones hated the last line of one version of the ballad, which said "..go to bed children and hush your cryin', cause you got another papa on the Salt Lake Line." She said she never had any thought of remarrying. [1]
Casey's tombstone gives his birth year as 1864 but according to information written in the family Bible by his mother he was born in 1863. The tombstone was donated by two out of town railroad enthusiasts who accidentally got his birth year wrong.
Museums in Casey Jones's honor
See also
References
- ^ "Widow of Casey Jones Is Dead at 92; "haunted' by Ballad of Famed Engineer", New York Times at ProQuest Historical Newspapers, 1958-11-22, pp. 21. Retrieved on August 14, 2006.
