Casey Jones Was A Real person

It was there that the youth was caught up in the romance of
railroading. As a teen-ager he hung around the Mobile & Ohio
Railroad station where the clicking of the telegraph ever
fascinated him. He never grew weary of watching the thirsty
locomotives take on water at the tank near the depot.

Time passed slowly but he continued to be lured by the powerful
iron horse as it pulled a long line of freight cars along the rails
stretching into the distance away from Cayce.

Finally in 1879, with the reluctant consent of his parents,
Frank and Ann Nolen Jones, lanky John Luther, then about 15 years
old, boarded the M&O passenger train and headed North for the
Columbus depot where he’d made up his mind to study
telegraphy.

Columbus was the end of the line for Northbound passenger and
freight trains on the M&O and retained that distinction until
1881. The depot there was abuzz with activity because of transfers
made from the St. Louis & Iron Mountain Railroad which had been
extended into Belmont, Missouri, just across the river from
Columbus. A transfer boat ferried the trains across the river to
make connections North and South. (See Photo).

When young Jones arrived at Columbus, he was soon recognized by
the train crew as the boy who spent his spare time around the water
tank at Cayce. Forthwith he was nicknamed ‘Cayce’ but the
spelling was soon simplified to Casey.

Casey Jones’ first job on the railroad was as a fireman but
he soon realized his dream of becoming an engineer. After 12 years
with the Illinois Central system, he was assigned to its fast mail
train, the Chicago to New Orleans ‘Cannon-ball.’

On the night of April 29,1900, he brought the roaring locomotive
into Memphis, Tennessee, on a regular run. When he learned that the
engineer scheduled to take the ‘Cannon-ball’ on South was
sick, he volunteered to run the next leg of the journey.

The train was 95 minutes late when he headed toward Mississippi
from Memphis at 12:55 a.m. on April 30. With Sim Webb, the black
fireman, madly shoveling coal, Casey set out to make up the
time.

Having received the ‘al clear’ signal, he opened up the
throttle and highballed through the countryside, with the whistle
on the locomotive wailing like a giant whippoorwill Casey’s
trademark.

Orders had been given to clear the main track but as two
freights were being sidetracked on a long curve just North of
Vaughan Station, Mississippi, one of them burst a hose, causing
four cars to stall on the main track and with not enough time to
move them.

Too late, Casey saw the warning flares. ‘Jump, Sim, for your
life,’ he yelled. Webb did and landed in a clump of bushes,
uninjured, but Casey stayed with the train in an effort to slow it
down, but his Engine

382 plowed into the protruding cars. Casey died with one hand on
the throttle and the other on the airbrake control, but all the
passengers survived.

The brave engineer has been immortalized with a ballad written
by Wallace Saunders which says in part: ‘I’m gonna run her
till she leaves the rail or make it on time with the southern
mail.’

At Cayce, on the corner of the school yard, is a monument
honoring the fabled engineer and farther South in Jackson,
Tennessee, his life is memorialized with a whole museum.

This ad is printed on a card which was distributed in connection
with the famous Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia in 1876. It
is interesting that a firm dealing in farm equipment would have had
its office on Broadway, New York City.

OLD ST. LOUIS TRANSFER-In 1871 the St. Louis & Iron Mountain
Railroad extended its track into Belmont, Missouri, just across the
Mississippi River from Columbus, Kentucky. On the Kentucky side,
Columbus was the terminus for the Mobile and Ohio Railroad which
originated in Mobile, Alabama. A transfer boat shown below in this
1883 photograph ferried the St. Louis and Iron Mountain cars and
trains across the river to make a connection with trains to
Mobile.

The track of the Iron Mountain was 4 feet, 8 inch gauge, and the
M. & O. gauge was 5 feet. Because of the difference in the
tracks, it was apparent that either all freight would have to be
unloaded and reloaded at the Columbus terminal or that the railroad
trucks under the cars would have to be exchanged. It was finally
decided that a steam hoist would be established to raise all cars
after which the trucks were changed. Therefore, all cars that were
ferried across the river in either direction between Columbus and
Belmont were hoisted and the trucks under them changed as needed.
It was in this setting that Casey Jones began his railroad career.
The ferry was discontinued around 1911.