… what is a driver to do to ensure the safety of the precious human freight whose faith in his abilities never wavers? If he pulls himself together, fearlessly does the right thing in the right way at the right moment; if his judgement be quick as a flash, and without hesitating he does the best thing to meet the emergency, he shows himself in every way to be the master of the situation, and lays indisputable claim to be classed with the very best in his profession.
Bagley’s Australian Locomotive Engine Drivers’ Guide
The first thing he sees when they round the bend is the Spirit coming straight at him. One look and he knows that train is really hammering. He also knows there is no point in applying the brakes because the Spirit shows no signs of slowing. The fireman and the driver quickly look at each other, and the driver tells the fireman to jump. The goods is still travelling at sixty miles an hour and the fall, at best, will be painful. Both men stand on the steps of their respective cabin doors, stare down at the passing ground, look quickly back at the approaching Spirit, and know there is only one course of action to follow.
But as the driver stares down into the blur of passing ballast on the side of the rails, he knows he won’t jump. With one foot raised on the driver’s side of the steps and both hands gripping the railings, he quickly looks back at the Spirit and tries to judge its speed. That diesel is hammering. That is all he can say with any certainty. But he knows his own engine. He knows what this thing can do because he’s just let it off the lead and he knows it can move. It can move faster than any diesel on rails. What’s more, he knows the loop is just up there. Within range, he’s sure of that. And something tells him that it can be done. The engine can do it. It will get him there into the safety of the loop and the Spirit will then pass on as will the danger.
He also knows as he looks to the ground that his bones won’t take the fall. He’s sixty-four and his body is no longer capable of enduring a tumble like that, however happily he might land. In his own mind he can already see and hear his old bones shattering on impact with the ground like fallen glass. And there are the passengers on the Spirit, currently dozing in the night or sipping warm tea from their thermoses, oblivious of the situation. If a collision takes place at this speed people will die, he is certain of that. As his foot lands back on the cabin floor he knows what he must do. He knows that if he jumps now, and somehow lives, and if people die because nobody tried to stop the thing happening, he knows that the whole of his driving life will have been for nothing. All of this takes no more than a few seconds.
It is then that he turns round to the fireman. You jump, he can hear his voice calling out to the fireman, but calling from far away. I think I can make it, this voice is calling. And as soon as he utters those words, as soon as he calls them out into the speeding summer air, as soon as he hears his own voice calling from far away as if he were already a spectator to his own actions, as soon as he hears and notes all this, he knows he is about to die.
The fireman jumps. The driver is alone. Perhaps five or six seconds have elapsed since they first saw the Spirit. He knows what he must do. He rushes back into the cabin and immediately adjusts the speed. And, instantly, he feels the engine respond. He has faith in this engine and he is backing that faith now. As he stands at the window, staring straight at the approaching headlights and frantically calculating the distance between the Spirit and the loop, he is backing this engine to beat death. Diesel and steam. Steam and diesel. It’s come to this.