Chapter 18: Tragedy

1873

After the chill rains brought forth a glorious spring, track laying on the twin rails of the Metropolitan Branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was finally completed. Ballasting work continued steadily, but the sweating crews missed a mid-April and then an early May date that officials had announced for an long-heralded opening celebration. A special excursion train did travel up to Cumberland one weekend, proving that the tracks were actually finished, but it made no stops.

When May 18 was established as the new starting day for regular service, a good number of wagers were made throughout Rockville, and knowing smiles were exchanged when no steam engines appeared on that date. "I told you so," seemed to spread across the town like a tide.

But on Sunday, May 25, scheduled service began with very little fanfare. Soon five or six trains passed through Rockville every day and two of them stopped, a freight and a passenger train, in both in the morning hours and again in late afternoon. By June the depot was being erected, and local parents were taking note of how fast some of the trains rumbled through their town, steam whistles blaring as they approached the grade crossings. The grinning engineers always waved to the youngsters along the tracks, and speculating entrepreneurs redoubled their efforts to buy up prime properties on both side of the right-of-way including a whole new development its boosters bravely called "Peerless."

On the last Sunday of June, Robert and Zed took the store's wagon out to the land they had rented just west of the tracks. Together they cleared the weeds, grubbed out some roots, laid out spaces for guano and other fertilizer, hammered in stakes for the fence they intended to erect, drew rough plans for two open-sided sheds to cover their goods and unloaded several reels of barbed wire and a small pile of steel fence posts.

As puffy clouds climbed and darkened in the late afternoon, Zed mounted to the driver's seat with Robert beside him, his collarless shirt limp in the early summer heat and his short boots orange with mud. They left the rear of the big garden plot with a wave to its elderly owner and approached the railroad crossing at the old horse's steady pace.

Zed stopped on the slight rise, stood at the driver's seat and looked both ways. He listened carefully, smiled at his weary employer, clucked at the horse and flapped the reins as he resumed his seat.

The wagon quickly rumbled over the first set of tracks, crossed the wooden platform between rails and was almost all the way across the second pair when the right rear wheel failed and slid almost all the way off the axle as four spokes gave way. The shattered wheel fell between the rails, tipping the wagon far to the right.

Robert jumped down on that side, stumbling in the loose ballast stones, and Zed climbed down to look at the damage. Since the wagon was empty, they both assumed it would not be much of a problem to get their rig moving again or at least to get it off the tracks and out of danger. Except for the buzz and whir of insects, it was quiet enough to hear the rumble of what they assumed was distant thunder.