Temple, TX Farmer Saves Train Crew in Flood, Apr 1908

FARMER SAVES CREW OF TRAIN

Discovers Washout, Gives Signal and Engineer Stops Car Length from Large Washout.

Special to The News.

Temple, Tex., April 23.---The Leon River flood took out seventy feet of Santa Fe Railway track this morning, eating out the dump and leaving rails and ties hanging. As a consequence railroad service between Temple and San Angelo is destroyed and it will be forty-eight hours before it is resumed. Mail for the San Angelo branch is being diverted via Fort Worth and the Frisco Railway.

The local westbound Santa Fe freight train narrowly escaped being engulfed in the flood. The washout was discovered by a farmer named Mullens, who flagged the train just as it approached the dangerous place, the engineer stopping within a car's length of the flood.

The river has taken a cut across county at the Santa Fe bridge, destroying the sixty feet of track. The piledriver and bridge crew are hard at work repairing the damage.

The Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway also suspended service on its Belton branch today on account of a weekend bridge over the Leon River. A severe electrical storm, accompanied by hail, wind and a drenching rain, occurred here at 7 o'clock tonight.

Dallas Morning News, Dallas, TX 24 Apr 1908
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Transcribed by Linda Horton. Thank you, Linda!