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The 1913 
 
 (Q)(Q)E) 
 
 Jlnd how it was 
 meihyaraJlroad 
 
THE 1913 
 
 FLOOD 
 
 AND 
 
 HOW IT WAS MET 
 BY A RAILROAD 
 
 BY 
 LEWIS S. BIGELOW 
 
 ISSUED BY 
 
 THE PENNSYLVANIA LINES 
 
 GENERAL OFFICES, PITTSBURGH, PA. 
 

 v.- 
 
 Bridge Over Mohican River After the Flood 
 
The 1913 FLOOD 
 
 WITH a terrific and irresistible rush the 
 1913 flood attacked the Pennsylvania 
 Lines west of Pittsburgh. The battle- 
 ground chosen for the fiercest onslaught 
 was in the States of Ohio and Indiana. In Ohio par- 
 ticularly the Muskingum, the Scioto and the Miami 
 Rivers burst their normally narrow banks and from Pig- 
 mies became Titans. Like the Titans they were in re- 
 bellion. They fought their battle like Titans. They did 
 enormous damage. But in the end man conquered them. 
 You may find here a record of some of the difficulties 
 they heaped up and how these difficulties were sur- 
 mounted and overcome. 
 
 There is a watershed running northeast and south- 
 west through the northern part of Ohio. To the south 
 it drains by the valleys of these three rivers into the 
 Ohio River. Dayton, Zanesville and Columbus are the 
 three principal cities in these valleys. Each one had the 
 flood of its existence. In Ohio alone there were de- 
 stroyed 22,000 houses, while 35,000 were seriously dam- 
 aged by water. A few miles above Zanesville the 
 Muskingum Titan produced a raging lake fifty-one miles 
 long; and this over the main line of the Pennsylvania 
 System between Pittsburgh and Columbus. On the north 
 was found another east and west lake of a length of 
 thirty miles — and this covered the main line of the Penn- 
 sylvania between Pittsburgh and Chicago. 
 
 3 
 
 291091 
 
The term "lake" is, however, misleading. It means 
 here stretches of water over what is ordinarily dry land 
 — land which civilization has taken for its own, on which 
 it has built its towns and villages, laid out and cultivated 
 its farms, and over which it has constructed its railways 
 and electric lines and its roads for ordinary travel. 
 
 These "lakes" were anything but pacific creatures. 
 They were filled with rushing, boiling currents so power- 
 ful that, during the zenith of their existence, no ordinary 
 boats could live in them. They tore out embankments, 
 carried steel-girder bridges long distances and ate away 
 the soil of thousands of acres of fertile land, depositing 
 in its place sand and gravel and stones. 
 
 Governor Cox, of Ohio, in the early days of the 
 flood, gave out a statement, to the effect that the dis- 
 aster would prove to be a greater one than the San Fran- 
 cisco earthquake. This was regarded, in some quarters, 
 as one of the wild reports emanating from the flooded 
 district. It has proved more than literally true. It 
 should be borne in mind, too, that there was no insurance 
 against the losses occasioned by the flood. Even after 
 the abolition of temporary relief some 16,000 families 
 required financial relief in order to return to house- 
 keeping. 
 
 Generally speaking, there fell on this Ohio water- 
 shed, in less than three days, more than three months' 
 normal rainfall. And it came when the ground was 
 thoroughly soaked and every river and stream filled to 
 its limit. The only wonder is that the damage and the 
 loss of life were as small as they were. Governor Cox 
 says that in Ohio alone the population affected numbered 
 a million and a quarter souls, and that the direct money 
 loss was above $300,000,000. 
 
 7 
 
Railroad Paralysis 
 
 This was the situation that confronted the Pennsyl- 
 vania Railroad in the last week of March, 1913. Its lines 
 all through Ohio, running from east to west and from 
 north to south, were literally shot to pieces. Bridges 
 were gone; tracks and embankments swept away — holes 
 in a thousand places; no through line anywhere. Its 
 telegraph and telephone system, too, was a temporary 
 wreck. Passenger and freight trains were marooned, 
 and above 1,250,000 human souls were dependent upon 
 the railway as a means of bringing them the aid and 
 succor they needed in the shape of food, medicines and 
 the ordinary necessities of life. 
 
 The Pennsylvania was not the only railroad that 
 suffered. It would have been much simpler had that 
 been the case. Then one railroad could have helped the 
 other with its men and its tools. 
 
 The labor market also was as bad as possible. Every 
 city needed every available man for its own work. 
 When the water receded, streets and houses were left 
 covered with a deposit of mud and slime from six inches 
 to a foot and a half in depth. Wreckage and filth re- 
 moval were imperative for life and health. 
 
 Wfii. 
 
 One-quarter Mile East of Port Washington, Ohio 
 8 
 
Bridge Over Black Fork, which had to be Entirely Replaced 
 
 So the Pennsylvania had to depend on itself. There 
 was the general staff in Pittsburgh with its hands on the 
 keys, and its sixteen divisions sometimes in touch with 
 headquarters in those first days, but usually isolated, 
 each working out its own salvation. 
 
 Theve were no eight-hour days, no coming home 
 in the evening, no meals with the family. The army was 
 in the field, and in an incredibly short space of time, with 
 the obstacles confronting them, the havoc wrought by 
 the Titans was repaired. No body of men working for 
 money merely could have done what this army did. 
 
 The Company did endeavor to show at least some 
 of its appreciation of the loyalty of the men when its 
 mason and carpenter gangs and shopmen engaged on 
 damaged portions of the roads for more than twenty- 
 four hours were paid one and a quarter times for all 
 hours worked, including the time consumed en route 
 between headquarters and their work. Extras were also 
 paid to individuals called on or volunteering for unusu- 
 ally hazardous work. Bonuses were paid to all classes 
 of labor in varying amounts, reaching down to the track 
 laborers who had been in continuous service of the road 
 about a year and who were employed on washout work. 
 The bonus to each of these latter was $10. The pay 
 
 9 
 
checks bore the sentence: "As a token of appreciation 
 of the spirit of co-operation shown during the recent 
 flood." These bonuses and extra allowances amounted 
 to more than $70,000. 
 
 Samuel Rea, president of the Pennsylvania System, 
 made this comment on the flood and on the way the 
 disaster was met by the regular organization of the Com- 
 pany : 
 
 "The officers and the employes of the Pennsylvania 
 Lines west of Pittsburgh have done remarkably efficient 
 work in restoring their lines to service. Immediately the 
 seriousness of the storm damage was known, the Com- 
 pany placed all its facilities at the command of the State 
 authorities of Ohio and Indiana for the relief of the 
 affiicted area. 
 
 "Simultaneously most energetic efforts were insti- 
 tuted to repair the various lines and re-open them without 
 delay to the service of the public. That this work has 
 been done so promptly, so carefully, and with such free- 
 dom from casualty reflects every credit upon the officers 
 and employes faced with responsibility for meeting this 
 extraordinary emergency. 
 
 "No event in the history of railroading in this coun- 
 try has shown more convincingly the necessity for the 
 railroads to be permitted to earn sufficient revenue not 
 only to make reasonable return on invested capital, but 
 also to have a surplus sufficient to meet emergency ex- 
 penditures like these and to improve the properties in 
 those respects which, even if not adding to gross reve- 
 nue, make the lines better adapted to withstand the rav- 
 ages of storm and flood and the better able to perform 
 their duties to the public with efficiency and satisfaction." 
 
 10 
 
Br-.-- 
 
 Ri\fr at Muncie, IikI. 
 I 
 
 The Coming of the Waters 
 
 Rain began to fall in extreme northwestern Ohio 
 Sunday morning, ]\Iarch 23d. In the succeeding four 
 days there was a total precipitation extending over the 
 State ranging from more than eleven inches at Belle- 
 fontaine down to two and seven-tenths inches at Mari- 
 etta, the average for the State being from seven to eight 
 inches. 
 
 What rainfall of ten and eleven inches means can 
 be best appreciated when it is known that the average 
 yearly rainfall in Central Ohio is only 39 inches. Thus 
 there fell four months' rain in four days. At Zanesville 
 there was a depth of water fifteen feet in excess of any- 
 thing ever previously experienced there. 
 
 Before the arrival of the main storm, a windstorm, 
 March 21st, struck the western terminals early in the 
 morning, and traveled eastwardly over the entire lines. 
 The gale blew all day, but as night approached mod- 
 erated considerably. Poles w^ere blown down, trees 
 were uprooted and hurled against the telegraph lines, 
 breaking them down, or limbs of trees were carried 
 into the line, breaking and crossing the wires ; and at 
 a number of places roofs of cars were whisked into 
 the wires. In fifty-five places all the wires in the line 
 
 11 
 
were broken and communication totally disrupted for 
 several hours. Where the pole lines were weakened 
 the wind, swaying the poles, caused the wires to swing 
 and cross intermittently, rendering them of practically 
 no value as communication mediums. Sleet, loading 
 and weighing down the wires, added to the trouble. On 
 top of all this came the flood. 
 
 In the days that followed there were many in- 
 stances of individual heroism and ingenuity. With about 
 160 telephone and telegraph line repairmen in the field, 
 never a complaint was received from one of them as to 
 what was expected of each during the crisis. In some 
 cases it was necessary for the men to travel all night and 
 then work for twelve or fifteen hours in drenching rain, 
 facing hardships of other and more dangerous kinds. 
 But every lineman grasped the situation and worked 
 with vim and willingness and disregard for self. 
 
 * ^ -x- * 
 
 The Pennsylvania Railroad, on its lines west of 
 Pittsburgh, has some 3103 miles of line. This is divided 
 for operating purposes into three systems — the North- 
 west, the Southwest and the Central — with, respectively, 
 1004 miles, 1423 miles and 676 miles. The Southwest 
 System is known as the Panhandle. These systems are 
 subdivided into sixteen divisions. For all practical pur- 
 poses each one of these divisions is a separate railroad, 
 fully organized and equipped. Each one is well able to 
 take care of itself in any ordinary condition of affairs. 
 
 Every one of the divisions suffered from the flood 
 except the Chicago terminals. In bridges alone there 
 were seventy-four steel structures either entirely de- 
 stroyed or rendered unsafe for the passage of trains; 
 there were thousands of washouts, ranging from com- 
 paratively small breaks to sections of roadbed two miles 
 in length. 
 
 On Monday, March 24th, while the rains that were 
 to cause the floods were increasing in vehemence, there 
 was no real trouble on the P^ennsylvania Lines. 
 
 12 
 
On Wednesday morning, March 26th, the three 
 great systems of the Pennsylvania Lines west of Pitts- 
 burgh were paralyzed — the flood was at its height. Wire 
 and telephone communications were cut to pieces as 
 well. No such condition of affairs had ever before 
 existed in the railway history of this country. A rail- 
 road army of 61, COO men was set back on its haunches, 
 its companies, regiments and divisions isolated. 
 
 Because of the preliminary storm most of the tele- 
 graph repair gangs were concentrated at Chicago, and 
 by this Monday, the 24th, the wires were again in fair 
 working order. 
 
 There was not a great amount of reserve material 
 on hand, since so much had been rec[uired by the lines 
 affected to repair the breaks. The superintendent of 
 telegraph, who had been in Chicago in personal charge 
 of operations, had gone to bed this Alonday night thor- 
 oughly tired out, but happy in the thought that his poles 
 were again in place and his wires in order and working 
 
 Bridge No. 83, Over Kokosing River. Steel Work of Both Spans 
 Gone Out. One Pier and One Abutment Destroyed 
 
 13 
 
properly. His rest was a very short one. He was almost 
 immediately ordered back to Pittsburgh, and had great 
 difficulty getting there. 
 
 The General Superintendent of the Southwest Sys- 
 tem, too, was in Chicago. He wrote a letter on the 24th 
 to the general offices in Pittsburgh, saying that he was 
 glad that matters were now running so smoothly after 
 the recent western troubles. That letter was not re- 
 ceived in Pittsburgh until Saturday, March 29th, five 
 days after it was mailed. Such was the paralysis of 
 mail service. 
 
 On this same Monday a dispatch to Pittsburgh 
 announced a heavy storm over the Richmond division — 
 which runs from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Logansport, Ind. — 
 but contained the news that the "rain had cleared in 
 the north" and that though still raining on the south 
 "don't anticipate any further trouble !" 
 
 With the advent of Tuesday, March 25th, hQwever, 
 there was a sudden change for the worse and the day's 
 dispatches read like the wrecking of a road. Through 
 the messages received in Pittsburgh — the headquarters 
 of the Pennsylvania Lines west of Pittsburgh — from 
 twelve divisions the serious character of the disaster 
 became apparent early. 
 
 It was a curious fact that the one division report- 
 ing itself in running order was the Zanesville division 
 which was to turn out later as the one hardest hit. The 
 Zanesville division runs from Trinway to Morrow. 
 Zanesville is not many miles directly south of Trinway 
 in the Valley of the Muskingum River. The floods were 
 to cause frightful havoc from Trinway, both north and 
 south. The waters rushed over Trinway at such a depth 
 and with such force that many cattle — both cows and 
 sheep — were caught in the telegraph wires, driven along 
 the wires to the cross pieces and there securely wedged. 
 
 14 
 
Franklin Bridoc, Xew Castle, Pa., Alarch 27th, 2 p. m. Old 
 Black Bridge Lodged Against It 
 
 Franklin Frids^e at the ]\Ir)nu'nt h l-\'ll 
 
 Franklin Bridge, 6.30 p. m.. Showing Total Collapse 
 IS 
 
Bulletins of Devastation 
 
 A brief summary of just a few of the dispatches 
 received during the early hours of Tuesday, March 25th, 
 may give some idea of what was happening to the 
 country covered by this railway system on which there 
 are rather more than twelve hundred stations, both great 
 and small. 
 
 On the Pittsburgh division, running from Pittsburgh 
 to Columbus, Ohio, there were landslides at three dif- 
 ferent points. This is the main line for the fast 24-hour 
 Limited between New York and St. Louis. It is an old 
 seasoned roadbed in fine condition, and over it could be 
 safely made as fast time as on any track in the country. 
 There was to be a lake fifty-one miles long stretching 
 over a portion of this division. 
 
 The Indianapolis division, which runs from Colum- 
 bus, Ohio, through Piqua to Indianapolis, reported 
 trouble at seven points : A bridge under water ; a bridge 
 washed out ; an unsafe bridge ; water over tracks ; tracks 
 washed out; landslide and bank slipping. A train from 
 this division detouring over the Big Four was wrecked 
 at West Liberty, Ohio, and three trainmen reported 
 killed. A Big Four pilot, who had gone ahead to note 
 the conditions of a bridge, was walking on it when a 
 span went out and the last seen of him he was on this 
 span as it was swept down the river. There was no 
 way in which aid could reach him. 
 
 The Richmond division had three landslides and 
 high water. The Cincinnati division had a culvert 
 washed out, water over the tracks and water up to a 
 bridge. Incidentally, it was reported that it was rain- 
 ing hard. Dayton is on this division. 
 
 On the Louisville division, which runs through 
 Indianapolis, the reports from two points read: "Heavy 
 
 16 
 
wind; water over tracks; trains cannot move," and ''Still 
 raining." 
 
 From Logansport, dispatches announced that there 
 were six inches of water over the station platform; a 
 concrete bridge was out, and nothing could be moved 
 between Logansport and Chicago. It concluded : "River 
 rising fast; still raining." 
 
 On the Eastern division, which runs from Pitts- 
 burgh to Crestline and is substantially the eastern half 
 of the main line from Pittsburgh to Chicago, in one short 
 stretch between Perrysville and Lucas one bridge was 
 washed out; one other was covered by water, with this 
 additional information: "Don't know whether it is still 
 there;" while a third had sagged three feet in the center, 
 and a fourth was "in bad shape." Tracks to either ap- 
 proach of these four bridges were badly washed. 
 
 % 
 
 
 William Street Bridge, Delaware, Ohio 
 17 
 
Delaware, Ohio, After Water Began to Subside 
 
 Between Mansfield and Toledo all the culverts were 
 weakened and unsafe. There was water over the tracks 
 in the Mansfield yard and in the passenger station. On 
 the Cleveland and Pittsburgh division there were land- 
 slides, washed tracks, washed track sidings and stations 
 blocked with rubbish. .On the Erie and Ashtabula divi- 
 sion, between Pittsburgh, Erie and Ashtabula there was 
 trouble at fourteen different points. 
 
 The Toledo division, which connects Columbus with 
 Toledo and Sandusky, had reports of damage from five 
 centers ; three of which were washouts and the other 
 two water over the tracks. Bay Junction sent the news : 
 "Water over tracks. Cannot get into or out of San- 
 dusky." And Delaware wound up with : *'No wires south 
 of Toledo." 
 
 Before the flood subsided Delaware was to gain the 
 high-water record. Here the 1913 flood exceeded in 
 depth of water anything previously recorded in that city 
 by fifteen and seven-tenths feet, thus surpassing Zanes- 
 ville's fifteen feet by seven-tenths of a foot. It was at 
 Delaware that a Big Four bridge was washed out; and 
 so terrific was the force of the current that a great sixty- 
 foot steel girder was carried down stream more than 
 two hundred yards, and when the waters subsided it 
 was found on a hillside on high ground, well removed 
 
 18 
 
from the bed of the stream. A man was on this bridge 
 when it went out. He was swept into the branches of 
 a tree and managed not only to hang onto them, but to 
 climb a little higher out of the water. There he remained 
 for forty hours, and was eventually rescued after many 
 unsuccessful attempts had been made to get to him. 
 
 Strange to say, as has been already remarked, the 
 Zanesville division reported that it was all right. Its 
 turn was quickly coming. The waters that tore out the 
 bridge between Perrysville and Lucas — the Mohican 
 River — was on its way to join the Muskingum and es- 
 tablish a new flood record in the city of Zanesville, 
 fifteen feet in excess of anything Zanesville had hitherto 
 experienced. The fact that the flood reached Dayton 
 before Zanesville was attacked accounts for the greater 
 prominence of the former city in the first dispatches. 
 
 It is like piling Pelion on Ossa to give in detail the 
 separate messages of destruction which followed one 
 another in quick succession this Tuesday. A small frac- 
 
 '1 
 
 Winter Street, Delaware, Ohio. X Marks P. R. R. Depot 
 
 19 
 
tion of them may help to an appreciation of what was 
 happening to the country generally — the cities and their 
 inhabitants, the country side and its inhabitants. 
 
 The message announcing ten feet of water in the 
 passenger station at Dayton was sent the 25th, but re- 
 ceived in Pittsburgh at ten minutes after twelve o'clock 
 Wednesday morning the 26th. This was followed 
 eighteen minutes later by a telegram from Columbus, 
 Ohio : 'Tt is reported that Lewistown reservoir, Logan 
 County, Ohio, has broken, which, if true, will put a 
 tremendous body of water in Great Miami River, affect- 
 ing Sidney, Piqua, Troy, Dayton and Hamilton." Lewis- 
 town reservoir covers a tract of country five miles long 
 by three miles across. There was yet to be received the 
 telephonic message from Columbus in which the speaker 
 at the Columbus end of the wire said that while he was 
 
 telephoning he had 
 seen and counted ten 
 houses slip into the 
 river. He was look- 
 ing from the windows 
 of a tall building on 
 the side opposite and 
 in full view of the 
 section flooded. 
 
 One may conjure 
 up a picture from this 
 telegram : "At Bridge 
 141, near Perrysville, 
 Eastern division, 
 there is a house 
 lodged against the 
 bridge. Eastern divi- 
 sion reports, a few 
 minutes ago, there 
 was another house 
 floating down the 
 stream and right back 
 
 lirid.ue Xo. 3. I'^our and One-quarter 
 
 Miles West of Co1uiti1)us. Note 
 
 Cleavage in Pier 
 
 20 
 
Bridge No. 141, East Division. East Abutment Partly \\ ashed 
 Out. 100 Feet of Embankment Washed Out 
 
 of it was a covered bridge floating, too, and that Bridge 
 141 is very liable to go out. It is a 94-foot deck plate 
 girder bridge, 8 feet deep." It went. 
 
 At 9 A. M. a telephone message from Zanesville 
 reported a 5-inch rainfall, and that the IMuskingum River 
 was due at flood stage in twelve hours. The rise came 
 so quickly that the superintendent of the Zanesville 
 division was marooned in his own house for two days. 
 
 At 9.36 A. M., from Akron, Ohio, after a list of 
 damage done, including the grounding of wires, the dis- 
 patch concluded : "Unable to detour on account of other 
 lines out of business. Water higher than flood of 1898. 
 Still rising and raining." After the flood of 1898, which 
 before this year was a record, the Pennsylvania raised 
 the level of all its tracks and bridges at least one foot 
 above the flood line. It was then never expected that a 
 flood equal to that one would be seen again in this 
 coimtry. 
 
 21 
 
Dayton in Distress 
 
 At Dayton the railroad bridge over the Miami was 
 already unsafe. There were 2 feet of water in the pas- 
 senger station there, and a passenger train standing in 
 the station was surrounded by water. The passengers 
 on this train had a very exciting experience. Before 
 the train was stalled there was a great ringing of bells 
 and blowing of whistles all over the city. This was the 
 warning to the people of the coming of the flood — and 
 rumors had it that the city would be engulfed. The 
 streets were filled with excited men and women running 
 hither and thither. The water rose so rapidly about the 
 train that it was necessary to lift the passengers to the 
 roof of the depot porch and thence into the second story 
 of the depot through the windows. More than 190 
 
 persons there were, 
 all told, and their 
 only food for two 
 days such as the 
 depot chef and his 
 assistants could 
 save. From the 
 high tower of the 
 depot, when the 
 flood was at its 
 height, one of the 
 marooned passen- 
 gers said that the 
 only dry spots in 
 sight were the 
 
 Nat 
 
 o n a 
 
 Cash 
 
 Second and Main Streets 
 Dayton, Ohio 
 
 22 
 
 Register buildings 
 and grounds and a 
 few other buildings 
 and grounds in 
 that section of the 
 town. All the rest 
 
was a waste of water. It boiled past and around the 
 depot, littered with debris. There were many horses in 
 the flood. The only light that night was supplied by 
 burning buildings in the different sections of the city. 
 
 At 12.47 p. M. came information that "Our train 
 No. 3 is surrounded by water, with 2000 feet of track 
 out behind the train. The Big Four pilot is on the bridge 
 across the stream, but cannot be reached on account of 
 the swift current. One of our brakemen, who was also 
 on the bridge, has disappeared. Big Four trainmaster 
 on the ground, and says he will arrange to feed pas- 
 sengers, but I do not understand how, neither does super- 
 intendent of Big Four. In the meantime, we are trying 
 to secure a motor boat to reach passengers." 
 
 This was a passenger train from Columbus for 
 Chicago. It left Columbus Monday night, but on ac- 
 count of a damaged bridge it was detoured over the 
 Big Four Railway from Urbana. While running over 
 the Big Four its engine went through a bridge at West 
 Liberty and the sleeping car "Eaton" into the Mad River. 
 There were about fifty-five passengers on the train, 
 mostly for Chicago and points farther west. Seven 
 received slight injuries. A physician on the train ren- 
 dered aid to the injured by means of the First Aid boxes. 
 The electric lights held out well and saved a panicky 
 condition. Passengers breakfasted on confiscated express 
 consignments. 
 
 The relief train could not get within two miles of 
 the place where the accident took place on account of 
 a bad washout, but sent two doctors, who reached the 
 passengers at 4 a. m. By noontime the women and chil- 
 dren had been carried around the break in wagons, while 
 the men had climbed over the undermined tracks. All 
 this was accomplished in a driving rainstorm. The relief 
 train was backed into Urbana, where the passengers were 
 made comfortable. 
 
 23 
 
Zanesville Terminal Railroad, Licking Bridge 
 in Background 
 
 At 6.15 p. M. there was this telegram from Chicago: 
 "In the absence of anything like definite information 
 from points on the Southwest System, we have arranged 
 for two cars of piling, which is now being loaded, and 
 also for several cars of bridge material, which are also 
 being loaded. We have borrowed a pile-driver from the 
 Western Indiana Railroad, together with a full crew for 
 same. We are fitting up two commissary trains, which 
 will be able to leave Chicago late this evening — one of 
 these trains to go with the Western Indiana pile-driver. 
 We are getting all the heavy slag we can, and in addition 
 to this we have already started a train of cinders east. 
 We assume, from the meagre information we have been 
 able to get, that the most serious damage between here 
 and Columbus is at Piqua, and that Piqua is where the 
 pile-driver, filling and other material will likely be needed 
 first." 
 
 At 6.30 p. M. from the same source came notice of 
 an arrangement with the Pullman Company for ten 
 
 24 
 
tourist sleepers for use, if needed, at washouts. The 
 telegram concluded, "This is all we can get." The trans- 
 portation of the United States Army to the Mexican line 
 had stripped the territory about Chicago of tourist 
 sleepers. 
 
 At 6.48 p. M. news was received that a work train 
 had gone into a creek: "Four Italians and the extra 
 gang foreman were drowned." These, with the death 
 of a foreman killed by the overturning of a pile driver, 
 were the only serious casualties to workmen in the entire 
 flood period. 
 
 At 7.45 p. M. the operator at Morrow telegraphed 
 that he had lost all wires to Cincinnati, and that the 
 water would be in the Morrow office in an hour. 
 
 At 9.35 p. M. the town of Morrow, southern terminal 
 of the Zanesville division, was under water. 
 
 In the late afternoon the main office of the Penn- 
 sylvania Railroad at Philadelphia sent this telegram to 
 Pittsburgh headquarters : "Can we be of any assistance 
 sending either men or material ? Call on us for anything 
 you may require." 
 
 "May call upon you to-morrow," was the answer. 
 "On account of wire trouble we have not been able to 
 get full details of our damage, but so far as we can now 
 see will probably be able to provide men and material 
 enough to take care of ourselves. It looks now as 
 though bridge material and pile-drivers will be what we 
 will need the worst. Have you any you could let us 
 have ?" 
 
 "Can you advise us," was the reply, "where you 
 want the pile-drivers, and what bridge material shall 
 we send?" 
 
 The last record of Tuesday, March 25th, was 
 laconic and typical of what was to follow in the succeed- 
 ings days: "Muskingum River bridge at Tyndall, main 
 line, Pittsburgh division, went out at 10.15 p. m. Entire 
 
 25 
 
bridge, 600 feet long, is gone." This bridge was to be 
 the objective point of the construction forces, working 
 from either end of the Pittsburgh division. Fourteen 
 hundred men were to join hands here when the trestle 
 was completed that would again give direct connection 
 between Pittsburgh and Columbus. But the line was not 
 to be opened until the night of April the 13th, and the 
 task required 1400 men, working day and night for 
 almost three weeks. 
 
 The bridge at Tyndall was a point in the 51-mile 
 lake, with water 33 miles to the east and 18 miles to the 
 west. A little 4 horse-power motor boat, the Ora May, 
 made the 33-mile trip overland — in water. For many 
 days after the flood had partially subsided, the Ora May 
 supplied the means of crossing the Muskingum River at 
 Tyndall. Her original objective was the rescue of a tele- 
 graph operator, marooned in his tower near the bridge, 
 where he spent some forty hours without food to eat 
 or drinking water. 
 
 From this day's beginnings matters went rapidly 
 from bad to worse. No such flood had been dreamed 
 of as possible in this section of the United States. In 
 Montgomery County alone — Dayton is in Montgomery 
 County — there were swept away and destroyed more 
 than 500 bridges, great and small. This' record of a 
 single county may help to an adequate conception of 
 this flood and the magnitude of the disasters attending it. 
 
 And still the rain kept falling and the waters rising! 
 
 II 
 
 The Fight for Existence 
 
 By Wednesday morning, March 26th, the battle was 
 on in deadly earnest. And it was a battle. It mattered 
 little that the enemy was a natural force instead of a 
 body of armed men. Armed men would not have waged 
 war so relentlessly — they might have had some regard 
 
 26 
 
27 
 
for the weak and defenseless, for the women and chil- 
 dren. The flood's object was plain destruction, animate 
 or inanimate objects — toward both its enmity was 
 equally implacable. 
 
 The plan of campaign was simple. The first duty of 
 the Pennsylvania Lines was to extend relief, relief to 
 its marooned passengers — men and women who had 
 intrusted themselves to its care; relief, too, to the 
 stricken cities. Then, it must open up to traffic its main 
 lines, and afterward the branch lines. 
 
 Every minute lost added to the sum total of human 
 misery. Those in the cities who had escaped drowning 
 were suffering and in danger of starvation. 
 
 On this Wednesday, not only was the Pennsylvania 
 Railroad west of Pittsburgh a wreck in the sense that 
 every division was affected, but all other roads in Ohio 
 were in equally bad shape. There was the Erie Rail- 
 road, with its double track of main line; the Baltimore 
 and Ohio, likewise; the Wabash, with its single track, 
 and the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie, and all their branches. 
 Telephone and telegraph wires were down almost uni- 
 versally. Conditions could not have been much worse. 
 The flood seemed to be in complete control. 
 
 No railroad knew or could find out what sections 
 were available for use; but by roundabout methods, by 
 "feeling," for want of a better term, or "smelling," some 
 sort of connection was always possible. A wire would 
 work so far, if only intermittently. This point reached, 
 feelers would be put out, and in the end there would be 
 made some sort of a means of communication. Of 
 course, the different sections of the railroads, with all 
 their possibilities in the way of freedom from flood 
 damage and quick rehabiliment, were known, and with 
 these as a foundation the work of relief began. 
 
 "Whatever railroads we have left, crippled though 
 they are, are at your disposal ; use them," was the mes- 
 sage carried in person by the division superintendents 
 
 28 
 
to Governor Cox, of Ohio, and Governor Ralston, of 
 Indiana. They did use them. The railroad's officers 
 were in daily and more than hourly communication with 
 Government officials. Whatever requests were made 
 were acceded to without a word. Cars and trains were 
 hauled, troops and supplies were moved. It was just a 
 matter of hitching on engines and doing it. They loaded 
 the wires with messages locating relief and supply trains 
 and keeping the officers of the Government posted as 
 to the movement and location of these trains. There 
 was no suggestion of commandeering railroads. Every- 
 thing was offered immediately, and absolutely without 
 price. For any relief or Government w^ork there was 
 no suggestion of a pecuniary return. The predominant 
 idea was to relieve human suffering and to save human 
 life. 
 
 And, when the waters had subsided, the Pennsyl- 
 vania went to Governor Cox and said that many people 
 with a curious turn of mind, or with worse intentions, 
 might wish to buy railroad tickets to Dayton, Zanesville 
 and other cities. The company would have no option 
 but to sell this transportation. It was suggested, there- 
 fore, that the Governor take into his hands the decision 
 as to whom tickets could be sold, and thus protect the 
 demoralized communities from any additional and un- 
 necessary burdens. This suggestion was immediately 
 acted upon. Nobody could go to Dayton or Zanesville 
 unless the Governor said so. 
 
 Logansport and Fort Wayne had asked the Govern- 
 ment for life-saving crews. The Pennsylvania, having 
 these stations on its road, and knowing the necessity for 
 prompt action, had two of these crews with their boats 
 and full equipment on a special train, and started for 
 the flooded cities before the Government had even asked 
 the Pennsylvania for transportation. These crews ar- 
 rived in time to do great service. 
 
 29 
 
A Railroad *s Organization for War 
 
 To understand what was done in the campaign 
 against the flood and how it was done, it may not count 
 as a digression to explain generally the organization 
 which fought the battles. 
 
 As early as Tuesday night the Board of Strategy 
 was in session in Pittsburgh. From that time until Sun- 
 day, April 5th, it was in continuous session day and 
 night. The ''Board of Strategy" was made up of the 
 higher general officers of the road and their assistants, 
 with their consulting staff of engineers, motive power 
 and transportation men. 
 
 Everything was done in the name of the General 
 Manager. What was going on in the sixteen divisions 
 of the road was reported to this Board, and it was thus 
 in absolute control of and in touch with the situation. 
 Its information was made possible by the work of the 
 Superintendent of Telegraph, who had moved his offices 
 next to that of the Board of Strategy, and was there 
 carrying on his campaign of wire restoration. For the 
 first thirty-six hours every one was on duty; after that 
 they averaged eighteen hours a day individually. 
 
 The three general superintendents of the three sys- 
 tems — the Northwest, the Central and the • Southwest — 
 established headquarters where they could be in touch 
 with their own divisions and with headquarters at Pitts- 
 burgh. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Now, the general organization of the road is very 
 simple, and it may be interesting to the lay reader to 
 explain it, beginning at the bottom and working to 
 the top. 
 
 At the foundation are the laborers and trackwalkers. 
 The trackwalkers are continuously on duty patrolling 
 the tracks. If a trackwalker finds anything amiss he 
 immediately notifies his section foreman, who gets out 
 his gang and repairs the damage or reports to his imme- 
 
 30 
 
Track of Main New York-St. Louis Line Near 
 
 Ncwcomerstown, Ohio 
 
 31 
 
diate superior officer, the supervisor, if the job is more 
 than he can take care of. The supervisor, who has many 
 section foremen under his control, orders out as many 
 gangs as are necessary, or, in the event that this is not 
 sufficient, notifies the division engineer, who has under 
 him a master carpenter and his forces, a master mason 
 and his forces, a work train foreman and his crews, anu 
 a body of assistant engineers. Should the job transcend 
 the ability of a single division engineer, he so reports 
 to the superintendent of the division, who can double 
 or treble or quadruple his forces. 
 
 How the Work Was Overseen 
 
 The Division Superintendent has the General Super- 
 intendent, with his several divisions, to draw upon. And 
 in the event that the matter is of sufficient importance, 
 the General Superintendent has the General Manager 
 behind him, with control of all the resources of the other 
 General Superintendents. And finally, if the matter is 
 big enough, there are the vice-presidents and all the 
 resources of the great Pennsylvania Railroad System 
 east and west of Pittsburgh. 
 
 Thus the General Manager's office receives the 
 reports, and as soon as there is really widespread and 
 extended trouble he organizes his office forces and 
 divides the work up among his staff officers. He first 
 assembles men and material. In a case such as the 
 present sufficient material is not available, so he must 
 put in orders for this material and place it where it can 
 be used to best advantage. The extra-labor market, too, 
 is affected, because the cities along the damaged lines 
 needed all the labor that they could get for themselves- 
 The other roads were equally hard hit. There could be 
 no assistance from them. 
 
 The division officers never wait for orders. They 
 collect their men and material and hasten to the trouble. 
 It is the extra material that is wanted. Their general 
 
 32 
 
superintendents step in and furnish them with what they 
 will need in addition. This they would do generally, by 
 ordering the superintendent of another division to gather 
 up his men and tools, go to the stricken division and 
 there work under the home officers to the best advantage 
 in accomplishing the task at hand. It usually happens 
 that there are two ends, and they work toward each 
 other, to close up the trouble. 
 
 Where washouts are long and deep, the most essen- 
 tial tool is a pile-driver. It is known as the repair tool 
 par excellence. It is quicker to build a trestle across a 
 big break than to fill in. In fact, a filling cannot be 
 made if a bank is gone, and so a trestle has to be built 
 anyway. Thus, it is necessary to get a sufficient number 
 of pile-drivers. It is almost impossible to buy them, for 
 they are only made as ordered — and this takes time. It 
 is well to remember that the better the condition of a 
 road, the fewer repair tools of this nature it possesses. 
 It is the poorly constructed roads that must carry the 
 greatest proportion of capital in their repair outfits. 
 These are their stock in trade, so to speak. 
 
 It falls on the engineering department immediately 
 to prepare a complete list of steel bridges lost or dam- 
 aged, and to make full and detailed estimates for re- 
 placing these structures, together with the plans which 
 the bridge-material makers require when a bridge is 
 ordered. It takes some months to build a steel bridge, 
 and therefore long before the temporary repairs are 
 made all plans for new work must be completed. This 
 was more than ever necessary in the present crisis, since 
 two whole States were involved in the flood and many 
 railroads, and because the road which first got in its 
 orders would have its work done first. The broken 
 bridges must be replaced by permanent steel structures 
 before the winter and spring freshets come again. The 
 temporary work will not hold when the ice goes out in 
 the rivers again. The day after the big 600-foot, four- 
 
span bridge went out at Tyndall a contract was placed 
 for an entire new bridge of larger dimensions than the 
 one destroyed, and the same day the mills had begun on 
 the order. 
 
 The Commissary 
 
 The very foundation of protracted repair work is 
 the establishment of a line of commissary. An army 
 travels on its stomach, and it must be well fed and well 
 housed. The men can Work the first night or two with- 
 out sleep, but a long-drawn-out fight requires rest and 
 relief. So it becomes necessary for the division ofificers 
 who are out on the job — that is, in the field — to so 
 organize that they can work night and day, and always 
 have fresh men. An army moving as this one is cannot 
 
 Pennsylvania Yard at Zanesville, Ohio 
 34 
 
live in towns and return to and from its work each day. 
 It is on the march. As fast as one break is fixed up it 
 moves on to the next. The work never stops. A section 
 of the men are either working or sleeping all the time, 
 day and night, until the job is completed. - 
 
 All this presents the really great problem. Food, 
 rest, warmth, comfort. Warmth was an easier matter 
 in the old days when each car had its own stove. Now 
 there must always be a live engine at hand to send its 
 steam through the car pipes, for the weather is no more 
 solicitous for the comfort of the men than the flood. 
 Rain and sleet and a freezing temperature do not wait 
 on the job; they attend it. If it so happens that the 
 materials for the carpenters' work, say, runs out for the 
 minute, the carpenters go in the warm cars, dry their 
 clothes and get what rest they can, ready to be up and 
 out again when their material shall have been brought 
 up. Time is the essence of the contract, and none of 
 it can be wasted. Thousands of men are at work in 
 different detachments at many widely separated points 
 — and each man has his own bunk. 
 
 The Motive Power Department is the one called 
 upon to fix up the temporary camp cars for the men. 
 The nucleus of this in time of peace is the wreck train, 
 which, as it must be ready to move any minute, day or 
 night, of course, has always a commissary. The bridge 
 carpenters, too, have a camp car, and these can be 
 enlarged at once by the cooking force available. With 
 these as a beginning, there is added all the additional 
 commissary necessary to supply the army, no matter how 
 large it is. 
 
 For the sleeping accommodations old cars are 
 taken, the seats removed and bunks built in. For the 
 dining cars, long tables are set in lengthwise of th.e 
 cars after the seats have been taken out. Besides, so 
 far as the discarded equipment of the road will supply 
 dining cars and sleepers, they are utilized. The Penn- 
 
 35 
 
sylvania has many of these, which have gone out of 
 regular service to make way for modern steel ones. 
 
 The unit, then, with the campaign under way, is 
 a four-car one — the supply car, with a kitchen car 
 between two diners, each of the latter capable of seating 
 fifty men at a time. Sleeping accommodations are added 
 according to the number of men at work. 
 
 Meals are served four times in each twenty-four 
 hours — at 6 a. m., noon, 6 p. m. and midnight. As the 
 meals always must be warm, nourishing and appetizing, 
 it can readily be seen what a proper handling of the 
 commissary department means. Fresh food must be got 
 to each one of these trains each day, and that alone was 
 a tax on a system which in the first days after the flood 
 was using to the utmost all its available trackage for the 
 forwarding of supplies, construction material and such 
 other trains, passenger and freight, as had to be moved. 
 
 These trains, too, supply the men with extra shoes 
 and other articles of wearing apparel — trousers or shirts 
 — and tobacco as well, and always without any charge 
 for them. The commissary is the life of the effort to 
 reopen rail communication, and on it depends, in great 
 measure, the speed and general efficiency of the work. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Caring for Passengers 
 
 Wednesday morning, March 26th, the Pennsylvania 
 had some nineteen marooned passenger trains in the 
 flooded territory. The officers of the road made it their 
 first business to look after their passengers on these 
 trains. Every train, except the one caught in the Dayton 
 station, was either backed or pulled onto high ground 
 and the passengers fed and housed either on the trains 
 or, if their locations allowed, were taken care of in hotels 
 or private houses. The company paid all the bills. 
 
 The passengers passed the time in any way they saw 
 fit ; and several men on one train that was held in Brad- 
 
 36 
 
Bridge No. Zl , One Mile North of Rockford, Ind. 
 
 ford — as there was a printing office near by — amused 
 themselves by getting out a newspaper which they called 
 *Tan Handle No. lO/' in honor of the official designa- 
 tion of their train. 
 
 The Passenger Department in Pittsburgh, early this 
 Wednesday morning, sent agents to Altoona to board 
 each incoming passenger train. All passengers for 
 points west of Pittsburgh were personally and indi- 
 vidually interviewed and offered a choice of the follow- 
 ing alternatives: 
 
 Their tickets would be immediately redeemed in 
 cash ; 
 
 They might return to their starting points free of 
 charge, and the company would also refund them the 
 
 Z1 
 
money paid for tickets between their starting points and 
 Pittsburgh ; 
 
 They could hold their tickets to points farther west 
 and have free transportation home, returning when the 
 railway to the west was opened; or 
 
 The road would take them as far as it could, and 
 then, if any other line of railway was open, the road 
 would see to it that their tickets were honored on these 
 lines — no matter how roundabout the route. 
 
 The passengers were not asked for an immediate 
 answer, but were allowed the time between Altoona and 
 Pittsburgh — three hours — in which to come to a decision. 
 
 Generally speaking, those who were on their way 
 home decided to keep on going, while the others took 
 free passage to their starting points. 
 
 The cashier's office ran twenty-four-hour sessions, 
 and a passenger was delayed only so long as he would 
 have been to cash a check in a bank. There was a rate 
 clerk in attendance to figure up the amount of money 
 due on a ticket. When this was done, the passenger 
 handed it to the cashier and got his money. In every 
 city on the system the same process was in vogue. 
 
 Messages were forwarded to various passenger 
 agents in the flooded districts two or three hours before 
 the wires went down, telling therri to go ahead and use 
 their own judgment, without instructions, to make the 
 passengers comfortable. Men were sent from these 
 offices to the marooned trains, so that each train had 
 some department official to look after it. In these last 
 messages sent was this warning: ''Be careful to notify 
 all passengers before and after boarding all trains of 
 the exact situation." 
 
 There was little difficulty in providing for the pas- 
 sengers in the seven trains marooned at Columbus, Ohio. 
 They were on high ground on the opposite side of the 
 river to that section of the city which suffered from the 
 flood. There were many sleeping cars and diners in 
 these trains, and a city to draw upon. They were pro- 
 
 38 
 
vided for by the company just the same, and were for- 
 warded either east or west at the first opportunity. 
 
 Quite different were the experiences of the pas- 
 sengers on the three trains which were marooned at 
 Bradford, Ohio. The first of these trains, consisting of 
 five cars, left St. Louis at 7 a. m.^ March 24th. It had 
 managed to get two miles east of Bradford at 8.45 p. m., 
 when it was ordered back to high ground. 
 
 The second train left Chicago for Pittsburgh at 7 
 o'clock Monday evening, and at half -past 5 Tuesday 
 morning was safely moored at Bradford. The third 
 train was a Chicago-New York train of eleven cars, four 
 of which were sleepers. This train had pulled out of 
 Chicago at 9.45 p. m. ^londay, and had arrived at Brad- 
 ford at half-past 10 Tuesday morning. 
 
 As many of the passengers as could be cared for 
 lodged in the sleeping cars. The others slept in the rail- 
 way Y. M. C. A. at Bradford. This Y. M. C. A. fur- 
 nished meals for every one up to Saturday morning, 
 which was the limit of the Bradford visit. 
 
 -M 
 
 
 '1 
 
 
 ^K 
 
 .^JM 
 
 Vkiffel 
 
 y^«^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 Four and One-half Miles West of Coshocton. Bridge No. 100 
 
 Destroyed, Breaking Main Line Between 
 
 New York and St. Louis 
 
 39 
 
On Saturday a special train was made up to take 
 all the marooned passengers of these three trains out of 
 Bradford. The road had been repaired as far as the 
 bridge at Piqua. Over this bridge, which, though it was 
 still in place, was unsafe for the passage of trains, the 
 travelers proceeded on foot. A plank walk had been 
 laid, railings raised on each side, while the whole bridge 
 was lighted by electric lights. It was a rather cheerful 
 procession that moved east across the Great Miami 
 River. 
 
 The passengers then boarded their second special 
 train, which carried them to another unsafe bridge which 
 crosses the Scioto River, about four miles west of 
 Columbus. Here another transfer was made on foot, 
 also over a boardwalk between the rails, though this time 
 light was furnished by oil torches, which added to the 
 weirdness of the scene. There were plenty of trainmen 
 here, who carried the wanderers' grips. A third special 
 pulled these travelers into Columbus, arriving there 20 
 minutes before midnight, and such of them as desired 
 to took their fourth special for the east, at 10 minutes 
 to 2 Sunday morning. 
 
 The single sheet, two-paged "Pan Handle No. 10" 
 is dated Thursday, March 27th, from 'The Isle of Brad- 
 ford." The poet, who is very active throughout the pub- 
 lication, then contributes : 
 
 "Little drops of water, falling through the air. 
 Puts the Pennsy Railroad on the bum for fair." 
 
 There follows a list of fifty-three names and 
 addresses of passengers on the train, who own 1 per 
 cent, or more of the capital stock of this corporation, 
 which purports to be sworn to before a notary public, 
 who adds after his signature, "My commission expires 
 as soon as these dog-gorie waters go down, as I am 
 moving to the mountains." 
 
 40 
 
Cincinnati — Smith Street Freight Station when the Ohio River 
 was at its Highest Stage 
 
 Under the headline, ''The Excursion from Bradford 
 Isle," there is much more of truth than of fiction. It 
 makes interesting reading and also throws some light on 
 the situation: "At 2.30 the welcome news of a trip to 
 Piqua was announced." Welcome news it was, notwith- 
 standing the horrible drizzle that continued to pour 
 down. The idea of a train that actually moved appealed 
 to all. 
 
 "Anxious to take the trip, we were the first to 
 arrive on deck, and were greeted by a vigorous pull from 
 the engine which gave us the appearance of real rail- 
 roaders. We started slowly, to be sure. If anything 
 was ever beautifully said, it was 'Water, water every- 
 where.' The entire country seemed immersed. Finally 
 Piqua was reached. We shall probably never forget the 
 sights that greeted us — the swollen river, the broken 
 bridges, the floating houses and trees ; such havoc as we 
 had never imagined. We were marveling at the awful- 
 
 41 
 
ness of the scene when it was suddenly announced that 
 our boat would return in 30 minutes. We waded back, 
 fully reconciled to the fact that our visit in Bradford 
 was to be of some duration. But what did we care, if 
 Bradford was still willing to welcome and entertain the 
 passengers of the fated No. 10?" 
 The poet speaks again : 
 
 'Twenty good men in No. 10, 
 Each with a wooden fountain pen; 
 Each with a pipe or cigarette. 
 Sat in a Pullman, watching the wet. 
 
 **The driving rain kept coming down, 
 It hit the tracks, it drenched the town; 
 And then the rain gave place to snow. 
 But still the train refused to go. 
 
 "We're here because we're here, you see; 
 Excuse this weak hilarity." 
 
 And the poet concludes that, though they were at 
 first worried over the delay, still there is a heap of people 
 homeless and worse, and the Lord is with them at 
 Bradford. 
 
 Getting Out Marooned Trains 
 
 Exactly 329 marooned passengers passed over the 
 bridge four miles west of Columbus Saturday night. 
 
 The train that left Cleveland at 9 o'clock Monday 
 night on the Akron division, for Columbus and points 
 farther south and west, carried 114 passengers. About 
 4 o'clock Tuesday morning this train had arrived at a 
 little station called Brink Haven, 106 miles from Cleve- 
 land. It had been due in Columbus two hours earlier 
 than this — and Columbus was still 60 miles to the south. 
 But the going had been very bad and great care had 
 been necessary, particularly over a bridge between 
 
 42 
 
Millersburg and Killbuck, some 14 miles north of Brink 
 Haven. This bridge later went out. 
 
 The conductor's orders at Brink Haven had a 
 finality to them: "Tell (the official name of the train) 
 they're stuck. Keep out of water, if they have to use 
 the main track." 
 
 There was high ground about Brink Haven, but 
 around about was the worst of the flooded district. The 
 track to north, whence they had come, was an ascending 
 grade. 
 
 The conductor remained in the station for further 
 orders or information after he had told the engineer to 
 back away from the water as it approached. The water 
 rose very fast and threateningly about the station itself, 
 and the conductor busied himself in assisting the station 
 agent to remove his tickets, books and papers to a safer 
 place. The ticket agent assured the conductor that he 
 could get a boat whenever he wanted it. The pair 
 worked along until well after daylight, and then, with 
 the water knee deep over the platform, they whistled 
 
 Bridge No. 83, Akron Division, Over Kokosing River. 
 Later View of Bridge Shown on Page 13 
 
 43 
 
 This is a 
 
for the boat which didn't come. So they captured some 
 railroad ties as they floated past, nailed cleats across 
 them, and on this improvised raft started for the train. 
 It was a t>vo-hours' job to reach dry ground, and once 
 during the trip the conductor fell off the raft in water 
 over his head. He managed to clamber back again, none 
 the worse for his ducking. He finally reached his train 
 and informed his passengers that, as the tracks were 
 gone on both sides of them, they would have to make 
 up their minds to defer further traveling for a while. 
 
 There were two houses in this town which the con- 
 ductor rented. At these houses breakfast was served 
 from 9 to 11 a. m. and dinner from 4 to 6 P. m. The 
 farmers in the neighborhood soon heard of this tem- 
 porary addition to the town's population, and they 
 brought eggs and butter and chickens and farm produce 
 generally. Just to pass the time, two of the lady pas- 
 sengers said that they would prepare the meals at one 
 of the houses. 
 
 There were six telegraph operators marooned at 
 Brink Haven. They installed instruments in the baggage 
 car and sent all the messages which the passengers 
 desired. There were plenty of them. The wire service 
 between Akron and Brink Haven was never entirely out 
 of commission, which gave a few of the passengers the 
 idea that they were being detained longer than was quite 
 necessary. They came to that conclusion early in the 
 week. They changed their minds later. When the water 
 had gone down and the train was backed up to Killbuck 
 on Saturday, where every variety of conveyance, from 
 antiquated surrey to a plain farm wagon, had been col- 
 lected to carry them over the six miles of an awful road 
 necessary to be traversed to get to the special on the 
 Millersburg side of the break, several lost their desire 
 to get home, and decided to enjoy a little longer the 
 hospitality of the train. It was Monday night before the 
 last passenger decided to travel north. They saw then 
 
 44 
 
Bridge No. 68, Brink Haven, Ohio 
 
 what the flood really amounted to and how tremendously 
 severe the damage had been. 
 
 As early as Monday night at 8 o'clock word was 
 received in Pittsburgh of a washout at Mile Post 167, a 
 point eight miles east of Mansfield, Ohio, and on the 
 main line of the Fort Wayne to Chicago. The report 
 stated that the tracks were washed out in a cut for a 
 distance of 60 feet, with an average depth of 20 feet. 
 
 A wreck train was started at once from Pittsburgh 
 with the bridge carpenters. Just this injury to the road 
 was of sufficient importance so that not only the super- 
 intendent of the division, but the General Superintendent 
 of the Northwest System, left at midnight on a special 
 train. It was raining hard. 
 
 There was no delay for the first 115 miles, when 
 the special train ran into water — a foot and a half of 
 it on an average for almost two miles. They got through 
 this all right by running slowly while one of the train- 
 
 45 
 
men walked ahead looking out for ties and other float- 
 ing obstructions. In another ten miles water was again 
 encountered, and when the train arrived at Wooster it 
 was almost up to the floors of the cars, and so deep 
 and swift as to make further progress west impossible. 
 Killbuck Creek runs through the Wooster bottoms, and 
 it had covered the country as far as the eye could reach. 
 The roadbed through this section is seven feet above the 
 ground level and no water had ever before got over the 
 tracks. Now, with the embankment as a dam, the water 
 was shooting into the air, making a wonderful spray, 
 so great was its force and so swift was the current. 
 Killbuck water rose all day Tuesday, but began to fall 
 that night. Wednesday morning the pile-driver was put 
 to work as soon as the track was in sight. The pile- 
 driver had headed the procession from Pittsburgh. In 
 the meantime the Tuscarawas River had got going in 
 the rear, and the wreck train and special were thus cut 
 off on both sides of Wooster. All three tracks were out 
 for a mile and a half at Wooster — great chasms every 
 few feet. 
 
 Some time on Tuesday night Governor Cox had sent 
 out a call for the National Guard to proceed immediately 
 to Dayton, on account of the great loss of life reported 
 there. One company of the Fourteenth Regiment hailed 
 from Wooster. This company was assembled by the riot 
 call, but when the men were ready to move they found 
 that there was no way for them to get out of Wooster, 
 as all the railroads, county roads, and electric lines were 
 washed out. 
 
 The General Superintendent was cut off all Tuesday 
 and Wednesday from wire communication with head- 
 quarters. He received word, however, that in addition 
 to the washout first reported, which was still many miles 
 to the west of him, three steel bridges and one stone arch 
 were badly washed at either end for from 40 to 60 feet 
 in length, and from 10 to 15 feet in depth; that three 
 
 46 
 
North of Bridge Xo. 123, North of Warsaw, Ohio. Track was, 
 
 Before the Flood, on a High Embankment 
 
 47 
 
steel bridges were completely swept away, leaving chasms 
 300 feet in length and 20 feet in depth; another steel 
 bridge was damaged and two steel arches entirely gone; 
 one about thirty feet in width, with embankment ap- 
 proaches twenty feet high, left a hole 600 feet long and 
 25 feet deep. 
 
 The bridge forces, 500 men and one pile-driver, had 
 succeeded by Wednesday morning in reaching a point 
 four miles west of Wooster, where the trains were 
 again stalled by water over the tracks. Two telegraph 
 operators were rescued here after a two-day maroon- 
 ment in their tower. There had been no means before 
 to get assistance to them. 
 
 By Thursday this force had left Wooster 18 miles in 
 the rear, when they found the roadbed washed out in 
 two places 800 feet ^long and 8 feet in depth, with the 
 rails and ties entirely swept away. All day was re- 
 quired to build a temporary track on the ground to 
 enable them to reach Loudonville, where they arrived 
 Friday evening, only to find themselves confronted with 
 another 600-foot break. 
 
 Many men had been met who asked transportation 
 to various places. Only one met with success. He had 
 been refused, along with the others, when he finally an- 
 nounced that he was the Loudonville baker^and Lou- 
 donville's only baker. He said that if they would give 
 him a lift he would bake all the bread that the outfit 
 needed — in Loudonville. As his case seemed to fall 
 under the head of either necessity, charity or mercy, he 
 got his ride. And then he baked the bread. 
 
 IV 
 
 Rescuing the Railroad 
 
 In the meantime other gangs had been organized 
 and were putting the track in safer condition pending 
 the arrival of material from the east to make the final 
 repairs. Before the General Superintendent left Pitts- 
 
 48 
 
burgh he had arranged for complete commissary trains, 
 including a hospital car, a doctor, and all necessities for 
 caring for the sick. 
 
 Emergency material trains followed in quick suc- 
 cession. 
 
 The end of the washouts was only 15 miles west 
 of Loudonville, and between this point and Wooster 
 all the bridges above referred to were located. Thus 
 the greatest damage was done within a space of 33 
 miles. The emergency trains carried a complete tele- 
 graph and telephone outfit. There was a telegraph re- 
 pair train, too. By Friday evening there was full tele- 
 graph and telephone connection with Pittsburgh. 
 
 While this work was going on from the east, other 
 pile-drivers and their gangs were working from the west 
 end of the washouts. By noon of Thursday, April 3d, 
 they met. There was, too, at the same time, work going 
 on by half a dozen other organized gangs at different 
 places on the division, each in charge of a responsible 
 engineer. For the first two days every one worked night 
 and day, soaking wet most of the time. After the rain 
 ceased, the themometer fell below the freezing point. 
 
 Heretofore two days — and that happened only once 
 — was the longest period of time the main line of the 
 Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railway was ever 
 blocked. 
 
 The General Superintendent of the Central System, 
 whose headquarters is at Toledo, Ohio, had an appoint- 
 ment with the Division Superintendent of the Akron 
 division for an inspection trip over this division (which 
 runs south to Columbus, Ohio), on Tuesday, March 25th. 
 He left Toledo on Monday and spent the night in Cleve- 
 land. At midnight he received a message from the 
 Akron Division Superintendent saying that the very 
 hard rains and high water were causing so many wash- 
 outs that the trip would have to be postponed. The 
 
 49 
 
General Superintendent immediately came to Akron ; and 
 there he remained through the campaign, as Akron was 
 better suited strategically for control of his territory. 
 Besides, his wire communication was better. Toledo was 
 shut off for six days. 
 
 Upon his arrival in Akron his first efforts were di- 
 rected to finding out the extent of the floods, not only 
 on the Akron division, but on his other divisions as 
 well — Zanesville, Toledo and Marietta. There was such 
 a general breaking down of the lines of telegraph and 
 telephone communication that it was difficult to get any 
 sort of a comprehensive notion of the extent of the 
 floods. Altogether it was early apparent that his sys- 
 tem had never suffered any disaster approaching this 
 one. 
 
 The Akron division superintendent, after spending 
 this Tuesday in receiving reports of the situation and 
 vainly endeavoring to ascertain the real conditions, de- 
 cided to get through his flood territory personally, by 
 any means that might be possible — on foot, by boat, by 
 train or what not. 
 
 So at 5 o'clock Wednesday morning the division 
 superintendent and his engineer set out. They made 
 the first seven miles by train, when they came upon a 
 five-hundred-foot washout, through which the water was 
 pouring with such a strong current that a detour of 
 three miles on foot was the only way to get around it. 
 The next six miles were also made on foot, which in- 
 cluded a climb along the hillside for about a mile, as the 
 tracks for about this distance were five feet under water. 
 At Warwick, fourteen miles from Akron, they managed 
 to get a boat, which carried them seventeen miles and 
 enabled them to reach a switching engine which had 
 been sent out from Orville to carry them to Orville. 
 
 The Akron division crosses the main line at Orville, 
 and it was only 10 miles to the west of Orville that the 
 General Superintendent of the Northwest System was 
 
 SO 
 
Bridge No. 120, Over Killbuck Creek, Akron Division 
 51 
 
fighting his battle at Wooster. Next, a work train was 
 overtaken and the journey continued 18 miles to Holmes- 
 ville, where the heavy washout district began. There 
 was no going by the railroad or on the roadbed any 
 farther, so they secured a wagon and took the hill road 
 to Millersburg, a distance of six miles. They arrived 
 here after dark, having covered a total of 51 miles since 
 5 o'clock in the morning. 
 
 The water fell somewhat in the night, and in the 
 morning the first means of conveyance used was a hand 
 car. Their progress was very slow, because the water 
 was generally over the tracks in the washed-out sections, 
 and the track itself covered with debris, which had to 
 be removed to permit the hand car to proceed at alL 
 A good part of the way the hand car had to be poled 
 along. Between Millersburg and Killbuck, a distance of 
 six miles, several miles of track were actually washed 
 out, generally to a depth of five or six feet. It required 
 the entire morning to cover this stretch. 
 
 The Cleveland train, marooned at Brink Haven, was 
 visited. After that the trip was continued, meeting 
 trouble at short intervals. It was over the road that the 
 Division Superintendent had just come that these 
 marooned passengers would be taken north in two days. 
 And it had to be repaired in the meantime. 
 
 Traffic was not restored over the entire Akron divi- 
 sion for ten days, and that in the face of a force of 
 more than 1200 men working near their base of supplies 
 — ?*^d at high pressure. 
 
 The Central System alone lost nine steel bridges 
 and had four others so damaged that they must be re- 
 constructed. The washouts were so numerous that it 
 is the literal truth to say that hundreds of sections of 
 track had to be repaired before any engine or train 
 could pass over them. 
 
 52 
 
At Jeffersonville, Ind., the water on one side of the 
 "Panhandle" fill was twenty feet higher than on the other 
 or city side. Hard work by the road's employes kept this 
 bank from caving in or giving way. Tarpaulins were 
 used to prevent the bank from washing and sandbags for 
 filling purposes. More than 17,000 bags of sand and 
 cement were dumped at the weak places. Had the bank 
 given way it meant a depth of water exceeding twelve 
 feet in various parts of the city. The Common Council 
 was so impressed by the work of the road's employes 
 that they passed a resolution thanking the Pennsylvania 
 for saving the city ! 
 
 The resolution was approved and signed on the 7th 
 of April, 1913. The preamble reads: 
 
 "Whereas, The fill of the P. C. C. & St. L. Ry. Co., 
 in Clarksville, Indiana, saved this city from being flooded 
 during the recent high water; and, 
 
 "Whereas, The citizens of this city owe the P. C. 
 C. & St. L. Ry. Co., and its officers, a debt of gratitude 
 
 Jeffersonville, Ind.— General View of the Fill. Water on One 
 
 Side About Twenty Feet Higher Than on the Other Side. 
 
 If this Bank Had Given Way it Would Have Flooded 
 
 the Whole Town of Jeffersonville 
 
 53 
 
that it will be impossible to pay because of the building 
 and maintaining of said fill, and preserving the same 
 durinef the recent flood." 
 
 * * H= * 
 
 At Cincinnati, the passenger offices were kept open 
 from 7 A. M. to 10 p. M., from March 25th to April 13th. 
 Of course, there were thousands of inquiries there as 
 to what railroad conditions were, not only by the trav- 
 elers held up there, but by others who wanted to get to 
 various cities as soon as they could rely on means of 
 transportation. The Pennsylvania adopted a novel and 
 very effective way of imparting this information at the 
 least inconvenience to the traveling public. At 6 o'clock 
 every evening, as soon as the officials had learned what 
 the service next day would be, a bulletin was published 
 giving full and correct information without the least 
 regard to securing business. Of these bulletins there 
 were published from 80 to 100, and they were sent to 
 the other railway ticket offices, the hotels, clubs and 
 newspapers. They came to be regarded — and properly 
 — as the official railway time table. They saved an im- 
 mense amount of annoyance and extra labor to the trav- 
 eling public. 
 
 The Destruction in Figures 
 
 To go into detail of the Pennsylvania losses will 
 hardly furnish an adequate idea of the losses as a whole, 
 but it may be interesting to give a few totals, only sug- 
 gesting that the problem met would not have been a 
 simple one had the damage been concentrated instead of 
 being widely scattered, and consequently very difficult 
 to get at efficiently. 
 
 Number of bridges lost 24 
 
 Number of bridges damaged 50 
 
 Number of spans lost 39 
 
 Number of spans damaged 48 
 
 54 
 
Bridges lost — Length in feet of road 3597 
 
 Bridges lost — Length in feet of single track 4318 
 
 Bridges damaged — Length in feet of road. 4189 
 
 Bridges damaged — Length in feet of single track. 6239 
 
 The estimated cost of replacing these bridges 
 is $1,027,116. 
 
 Length of trestle built for single track, in miles. . L94 
 
 Length of trestle built for double track, in miles. . 0.96 
 
 Length of trestle built for three tracks, in miles. . 0.02 
 
 Length of trestle built — Miles of road 2.92 
 
 Length of trestle built equivalent to miles single 
 
 track 3.92 
 
 The estimated cost of these trestles is $336,144. 
 
 Length of single track road requiring repairs, in 
 
 miles 88.7 
 
 Length of double track road requiring repairs, in 
 
 miles 4L1 
 
 Length of three-track road requiring repairs, in 
 
 miles 2.5 
 
 Length of four-track road requiring repairs, in 
 
 miles 2.8 
 
 Length of road requiring repairs, in miles 135.1 
 
 Length of road requiring repairs, equivalent to 
 
 miles single track 189.6 
 
 The estimated cost of these repairs to the 
 road is $1,396,290. 
 
 Li addition to the above, damage to stations and 
 other buildings was $70,900; to equipment, $84,285; and 
 to telegraph lines, $107,505. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 The direct property loss to the Pennsylvania is esti- 
 mated at $3,600,000 in round numbers, and it pro- 
 vides the most pertinent of arguments for allowing the 
 railroads to so fix their rates as to provide for a surplus. 
 The cost of repairment, under the ruling of the Inter- 
 
 55 
 
state Commerce Commission, must be charged to oper- 
 ating expenses. So heavily have low compulsory rates 
 weighed on many of the public utilities companies that 
 the damage done by the flood has wiped out the surplus 
 of many of them and they are now in the hands of re- 
 ceivers. Others have been very badly crippled. 
 
 Typical Troubles 
 
 Where all did so well in the face of unexampled 
 disaster, it seems almost invidious to select one division 
 for more extended treatment than another. But there 
 are reasons why the Pittsburgh division, the main line 
 of the Pan Handle from Pittsburgh to Columbus, may 
 be selected as typical. In the first place, it is a main 
 line ; in the second place, it got an awful man-handling ; 
 for a third reason, its damage was late and not wholly 
 
 Zanesville, Ohio. Pennsylvania Bridge Over Muskingum River 
 
 56 
 
I 
 
 expected, and finally, its tracks were under water sub- 
 stantially for a distance of 51 miles — from Tuscarawas, 
 94 miles west of Pittsburgh, to Black Run, 45 miles east 
 of Columbus. Zanesville is only 16 miles to the south 
 of this line, and the big lake drained into and through 
 Zanesville. 
 
 It was Tuesday morning, March 25th, as the 
 officers of the Pittsburgh division were starting on their 
 spring inspection trip, that they received news of trouble 
 on other parts of the system. As the heavy rain con- 
 tinued to fall and the storm increased in intensity, it 
 was decided to postpone the trip and return to head- 
 quarters, where they would be in better position to extend 
 assistance to other divisions, or even to help themselves 
 in case their particular line of railway should suffer. 
 
 They reached Pittsburgh at 5 p. ai. Tuesday and 
 soon received reports of damage to their own division, 
 though nothing serious. There was a washout near 
 Black Run — eventually the lake's limit to the west — but 
 this news wasn't received until a quarter after 9 o'clock. 
 In a little more than an hour came the report of the 
 destruction of the big bridge at Tyndall. This meant 
 that the line was cut in two, and that conditions with 
 them were very serious. And, as it turned out, the 
 attacking forces from the east and west were not to 
 reach and complete the trestling where this bridge had 
 stood, and thus open up the line again, for almost three 
 weeks — with 1400 men working from the east and from 
 600 to 800 men working from the west! The Musk- 
 ingum River rose 13 feet in the darkness of Tuesday 
 night and Wednesday morning. And that was only the 
 beginning. 
 
 The trackwalker immediately east of the Tyndall 
 bridge stuck to his job until the water was well over the 
 tracks and actual danger menaced any approaching train. 
 Then he walked down into the water to the shed tele- 
 phone and made his report to his father, the section 
 
 57 
 
foreman. He was standing in water breast high to tele- 
 phone. "All right," his father answered; "now, you get 
 for the hills." And that was about all he could do. 
 
 To the west of this bridge a couple of miles the 
 trackwalkers, with their foremen, were about to follow 
 others down to the bridge. The water then was so high 
 here as to be almost up to the tracks, although the 
 embankment is a very high one. This portion of the 
 road in any previous flood had always been easily able 
 to take care of itself. There was no fear for the bridge 
 either, though it was closely and continuously watched. 
 By this time the Big Four was detouring its trains over 
 the Pittsburgh division, as some of their lines were 
 already out of commission. 
 
 One of the trackwalkers decided that he needed, or 
 might need, a rope and an axe for work at the bridge, 
 so the foreman said that he and the others would go right 
 
 
 
 jf^BBMfc— ■»- '^»^ ^T""""^^ us^iijwfc 
 
 Street Bridge, Sharon, Pa. 
 58 
 
on on their hand car without waiting while this track- 
 walker secured his equipment. When he got his tools 
 he was to follow after on foot. 
 
 The hand car reached the bridge, with the track 
 under them in good condition all the way. The water 
 was just seeping over the tracks as the other track- 
 walker ploughed after them, impeded by his heavy rain- 
 coat, his lantern and his extra load, in the effort he was 
 making to overtake the hand car. 
 
 The rain was coming down in torrents. About half 
 way to the bridge he came upon a washout, where the 
 water had torn a great hole in the embankment and the 
 tracks were already sagging and without support. He 
 turned immediately, threw away his raincoat and his axe 
 and rope, and, with his lantern and one fusee, legged it 
 at full speed in the direction he had come, for he heard 
 an approaching train whistling not far away. He knew 
 that he must stop the train. The storm was so severe, 
 the rain so heavy and the wind so high, that his lantern 
 might go out at any time. The conditions, even, were 
 so bad that the engineer might not see the lantern. When 
 he saw the train he lighted the fusee and waved it as he 
 ran; and the train was stopped not far in front of the 
 washout. It proved to be two of the Big Four pas- 
 senger trains being detoured, combined as a "double- 
 header," with several hundred passengers. It backed up 
 all the way to Columbus in safety. 
 
 Conesville, less than two miles from the Tyndall 
 bridge, was this trackwalker's home. The water was 
 rising fast in Conesville. His duty to the railroad done, 
 our trackwalker's attention was directed to his personal 
 and domestic interests. He was the owner of a litter of 
 pretty well-grown pigs, which meant a good deal to him. 
 He also had a haymow not far from where the pigs 
 were kept. Through water waist deep he carried these 
 pigs and then lifted them up to an assisting neighbor, 
 who stood on the top of the mow. And to hear him 
 
 59 
 
tell the story, there was more excitement and difficulty 
 attending the Hfting of a 100-pound pig over his head 
 — even though the pig was submissiveness itself — than in 
 wondering whether or not he could flag the Big Four 
 double-header, with its dozen coaches of living human 
 freight. To fill to the brim his cup of adventure he 
 spent the night in a church pew — the church was on 
 good high ground — which was as novel an experience to 
 him as either of the other two which had immediately 
 preceded it. 
 
 The impelling cause of the destruction of the Tyn- 
 dall bridge was the lodgment of a house and two hay- 
 stacks against one of the big stone piers. The current 
 was so swift and powerful that, with this obstruction 
 to work against, the water was driven down against the 
 foundation of the pier, scoured it, toppled it over and 
 dropped the steel structure into the river. One of the 
 trackwalkers had not been off the bridge a minute before 
 it fell. 
 
 Bridge No. 146, Over Rocky Fork, Eastern Division 
 60 
 
Bridge No. 48, Three-quarters of a Mile East of Somerville, Ohio 
 
 When the Division Superintendent knew that his 
 line had been cut in two by the destruction of this bridge 
 what he particularly desired was a first-class engineer 
 on the west side of the break, to take charge of the 
 work there. He had his own division engineer on the 
 east side with him. 
 
 Executing Orders Under Difficulties 
 
 There was a headquarters engineer who had left 
 Pittsburgh late on Tuesday and gone as far as the big 
 shops at Dennison, 90 miles from Pittsburgh. From that 
 point on Wednesday, by hand car and on foot, accom- 
 panied by the master carpenter of the division, he had 
 worked his way 32 miles to Coshocton, which is only 
 5 miles from the Tyndall bridge. As the master car- 
 penter soon realized his danger of being cut off from 
 his men if he stayed much longer, he turned for home 
 while the way was still open. 
 
 Now, this engineer was a man with a reputation 
 for going where he was ordered and doing what he was 
 
 61 
 
ordered to do, no matter what were the conditions con- 
 fronting him. When he had reached Coshocton he had 
 walked to the hills, and over the waters made sure, with 
 the aid of his field glasses, that the bridge at Tyndall, 
 5 miles away, was really down. When he returned 
 to the station at Coshocton, he received a request by tele- 
 graph from the Division Superintendent to go to Fra- 
 zeysburg, 15 miles to the west of the broken bridge, and 
 take charge of repair work from that side of the break. 
 The superintendent was asked at the time how he ex- 
 pected the engineer to get out of Coshocton in any direc- 
 tion, and to cross the Muskingum in the bargain. He 
 answered that he had not the slightest idea, and that he 
 also had not the slightest doubt that he would find some 
 way to do it. 
 
 It was 6 o'clock Wednesday night, with the flood 
 almost at its height, that the request was received. The 
 engineer wasted no time. For fifty times their regular 
 fee, two ferrymen at Coshocton agreed to try and land 
 him on the hills to the south. They put out in the rain 
 and darkness and the engineer was over the river and 
 on ground — but not very dry ground — after a trying and 
 dangerous trip lasting two hours and a half. Here he 
 hunted up a farmer with a pair of stout mules, and aided 
 by a bribe of large dimensions, induced him to take the 
 night drive. They floundered along through the mud 
 for many hours, but before morning the Pittsburgh divi- 
 sion had an engineer in charge at the west end of the 
 big lake. He had "got through," as it was expected 
 that he would. And it is almost an anti-climax to record 
 that just as he was, with such extra clothes as the work 
 trains provided, he controlled the situation as engineer 
 in command until the trestle at Tyndall was completed 
 the 13th of April. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 It was on Thursday, March 27th — the matter of 
 time was a very important one in the early days of the 
 
 62 
 

 o 
 
 a; 
 U) 
 
 'u 
 
 63 
 
flood — that the little motor boat, the Ora May, was taken 
 aboard the cars at Denison, carried 4 miles and then 
 launched to go overland 33 miles to the assistance of a 
 marooned tower operator near the Tyndall bridge. There 
 was no craft nearer which it was thought could live in 
 the flood. 
 
 When the waters retreated here so that the work 
 of repair could begin, the country had the appearance 
 of a land over which an enemy had passed in force and 
 done its worst. Houses and outbuildings, farm imple- 
 ments, buggies and wagons of every description were 
 familiar objects dotting the landscape. Where there had 
 been fine stretches of roadbed on high substantial em- 
 bankments, sometimes for a distance of a thousand feet, 
 it would require a vivid imagination to conceive that it 
 was ever more than a dreary waste of land. No ties, 
 no rails, no embankments were in sight — just pits and 
 chasms. The steel rails had been torn from the ties, and, 
 like the ties, had been floated away by the flood. 
 
 The job was rather picturesquely expressed by a 
 superintendent: *'You organize your relief trains and 
 your work train gangs and your material trains and your 
 commissary and equipment. From that time you paddle 
 right through, throwing a regiment here and there like 
 an army, by boat or highway. You go as far as you 
 can — and then keep going." 
 
 There is, on this division, the second oldest super- 
 visor on the road. He is 67 years old. He took the 
 destruction of his roadbed as a personal matter. When 
 he had been driving his gangs for a week he had never 
 had his clothes off; and all his rest had been occasional 
 snatches of sleep, for an hour at a time, sitting in a 
 chair. 
 
 The regulars cheerfully worked stretches of 24 and 
 36 hours to repair breaks, and thus make it possible for 
 others to advance. This was the spirit that permeated 
 the entire organization. To have been with this army 
 
 64 
 
and to have seen what men can do and what they have 
 done in the face of every kind of an obstacle of weather 
 and nature is to get a very good idea of what real war 
 is like. War cannot produce many more hardships or 
 demand greater ingenuity, pluck, skill and spirit in facing 
 and overcoming them. 
 
 Relief Work 
 
 The Pennsylvania Railroad announced publicly, as 
 early as Thursday, March 27th, that it would transport 
 free of charge every pound of relief supplies intrusted 
 to its care for the devastated district, as well as the men 
 in charge, and all doctors and nurses. They would be 
 carried over the Company's own lines, if they were 
 open; or over other lines, if the Pennsylvania was 
 blocked; or over any known combination of lines and 
 with the least possible delay. They would have the right 
 of way under all circumstances. The city of Dayton 
 was, of course, the great objective at that time. 
 
 There left Columbus at 6.30 a. m., on Friday, a fully 
 equipped train consisting of a locomotive, tool car, com- 
 missary car, dining car and three day coaches carrying 
 a force of 65 mechanics, picked men, the cream of the 
 Columbus shops. This force was tendered the Governor 
 of Ohio to relieve the situation in Dayton, or for any 
 kind of work needed there when the city was supposed 
 to be half a morgue. The men in this party could build, 
 run, or destroy a city, from a mechanical standpoint. 
 They included car builders — that is, workers in wood — 
 blacksmiths, electricians and fitting-up men — men who 
 can put together any piece of machinery that would be 
 used under any normal conditions. There were also men 
 familiar with the use of dynamite and high explosives. 
 The tool car contained an outfit to move buildings or to 
 wreck buildings; to raise or lower bridges or any like 
 work. They brought with them rations for five days. 
 
 65 
 
On their arrival in Dayton the coaches were turned into 
 sleeping cars. 
 
 This train pulled out of Columbus in the early morn- 
 ing, passing through West Columbus, where the flood 
 had done such awful damage, and over the unsafe bridge, 
 four miles to the west, with full knowledge that it was 
 unsafe. This was the last train allowed over this bridge, 
 but the pressing nature of the errand demanded that the 
 chance be taken. The men took it willingly. 
 
 After much detouring the train reached Dayton at 
 a quarter to four o'clock in the afternoon. The fore- 
 man in charge was met by a freight agent, who, with 
 sixteen others, had been marooned for twenty-three 
 hours on the tops of freight cars in the Dayton "local 
 yard." After some hours of effort the foreman found 
 the proper official and announced to him that he had 
 with him a force of mechanics from the Pennsylvania 
 shops, which he was directed to place at the disposal of 
 the authorities, equipped to perform any service to which 
 it might be assigned. The foreman was told that while 
 the organization had not yet been perfected, the crying 
 need was water and light. Nothing, however, could be 
 done until morning, owing to the strict rules of martial 
 law. The curfew rang at 6 p. m., and no one without 
 a military guard was allowed on the streets until 5 A. M. 
 the next day. 
 
 Saturday morning General Wood divided this force 
 between the water works, power house and the two 
 plants of the Dayton Light and Power Company. Up 
 to this time the Dayton authorities had done nothing in 
 the way of reconstruction. The city was entirely with- 
 out water for cleaning purposes in the district that had 
 been flooded. There was no light at night. 
 
 Dayton at this time was covered with a deposit of 
 mud varying in thickness from 6 to 15 inches; and 
 the engines, pumps and dynamos in the power houses 
 scarcely resembled machinery at all. The men turned 
 
 66 
 
in with shovels and wheelbarrows and got the mud and 
 debris out of the way. Then they took the machinery 
 apart, cleaned it and put it together again. So rapid was 
 their progress that at 10 o'clock Sunday morning the 
 first pumps were started in the water works, and by 
 noon of the same day the capacity of the water works 
 had been reached and there was an ample supply of 
 water available for all purposes. 
 
 The men had objected to the enforced layoff at 6 
 o'clock the night before. They said that in their rail- 
 road work they were accustomed to stick at a job as 
 long as the men could stand it and then be relieved if 
 the desired object had not been obtained in the mean- 
 time. The superintendents of these plants, after con- 
 ferring with the military authorities, decided not to risk 
 a night shift, and requested the men to return to their 
 own quarters prior to the curfew, in order that there 
 might be no question in case any one was hurt. The 
 other squads had finished their work in the electric light 
 plants by Sunday at curfew time. 
 
 When this force went to Dayton it was expected 
 that it would have to do rescue work, remove dead 
 bodies, fight fire, and, if necessary, dynamite buildings 
 to check the progress of the flames. But rumor was 
 ahead of conditions, and the fires had been already ex- 
 tinguished. The sanitary conditions, though, were ex- 
 
 Marietta (Ohio) Passenger Station. Water had 
 Receded One Foot 
 
 67 
 
::S''*-', i^^-^ ^.^ 
 
 Zanesville Division, Pennsylvania Freight Yard 
 
 tremely bad. As soon as the water subsided the business 
 men began to clean out ruined stock. The contents of 
 grocery stores, meat markets and commission houses 
 was dumped on the sidewalks and into the gutters. As 
 soon as the water pressure was available they removed 
 the mud and silt from the buildings, and this, too, was 
 necessarily thrown into the streets. There was as yet 
 no organization to remove this mass, and by Monday, 
 March 31st, the air of the city was foul. Water and 
 light were then the two public utilities that had to be 
 working, if the city was to be cleaned. And they were 
 now ready at hand. 
 
 There could be given a fairly long list of Federal 
 and State government supply trains, troop trains and 
 supply trains for the Red Cross Society and other relief 
 committees handled between March 26th and April 5th, 
 including a special train for Governor Cox and his party, 
 on April 2d. Every nerve was strained and every chance 
 taken to drive the relief trains through. What was done 
 was done cheerfully and gladly. 
 
 68 
 
The largest single movement was a train of thirty- 
 seven commissary and supply cars, on March 31st, from 
 Jersey City, consigned to Captain Nesbitt, paymaster 
 United States Navy, at Dayton, Ohio. On request of 
 the Navy Department, these cars v^ere reconsigned and 
 made up into four trains, three of which were forwarded 
 to Louisville and the other to Marietta. The last of 
 these trains reached Louisville on the morning of 
 April 3d. 
 
 The Floods Subside 
 
 The flood left Ohio almost as quickly as it came. 
 
 The trouble was that there were so many small 
 breaks between the supply points and the big breaks that 
 it was very difficult to get material when it was wanted. 
 The general public — that part of it, at least, that does 
 not live in the flooded districts — could not possibly im- 
 agine how bad the conditions really were, and what 
 problems the railroads really confronted. 
 
 No cities in the United States have ever suffered in 
 a single catastrophe as Dayton and Zanesville and Co- 
 lumbus suffered — to name only three of the hundreds of 
 cities, towns, villages and hamlets, in the aggregate, that 
 were partially or wholly under water for days. Business 
 sections, the residences of the rich as well as the homes 
 of the poor, were equal before the flood. In different 
 cities different quarters were invaded and overwhelmed; 
 bui in the sum total immunity was vouchsafed to no 
 particular class or interest. 
 
 To have stood in Dayton a week after the waters 
 had subsided, either at the center of her business section 
 or in her so-called "sealskin" district, the imagination 
 could not conceive a reality of turbulent, swirling water, 
 generally 10 and 12 feet deep, rushing through her wide 
 thoroughfares and islanding her city blocks. Yet at this 
 later time, when the Miami River had retreated within 
 
its banks — and was not even half filling them — the city 
 was a picture of woe and desolation. It was stamped 
 on the face of every man and woman one met. 
 
 In the streets, on either side, were long ramparts 
 of mud and filth and broken articles of all sorts and 
 description, with a lane between these ramparts for the 
 passage of vehicles. Streams of water were pouring into 
 the gutters from the nozzles of lines of hose extending 
 into the cellars and basements. The thump, thump, 
 thump of the motor-driven pumps was the predominant 
 sound. It was steady and monotonous and far- 
 extending. 
 
 On the lawns in front of the houses, on the fences 
 or in the windows of the houses were mattresses, car- 
 pets, curtains, books and every variety of household fur- 
 niture and furnishings in process of drying — a bedrag- 
 gled collection, at best — for there was substantially no 
 artificial heat, nor had there been for ten days. Fur- 
 naces and stoves went out of commission with the com- 
 ing of the water. One looked right into the houses, for 
 there was rarely a bit of glass in the window frames. 
 Pianos were, seemingly, a very general possession. They 
 were warped and twisted, and their mud-stained keys 
 were out of line. None of them looked as though any 
 music could ever again be extracted from them. 
 
 Khaki-clad soldiers, rifles on shoulder, patroled the 
 streets — several to each block. They gave the only color 
 to the scene. 
 
 Dayton and her sisters will be live and happy cities 
 again, but then that time seemed a long way off. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Can a story be interesting without the use of proper 
 names? There are songs without words and there can 
 be stories without words. Why not without proper 
 names? If you can see what is done and why it is done, 
 why bother as to who, individually, did it? A machine 
 
 70 
 
cannot talk, but it does its task, and if you see the result 
 in its finished state, it is not of so much importance 
 just what particular parts performed the various steps. 
 In an organization or system living, thinking men form 
 the machine. The only difference is that they are ani- 
 mate beings and not inanimate parts. 
 
 This machine, too, is a delicate organism. It has 
 been built up by years of study and effort. It is a 
 machine which serves the public in all weathers and 
 under all conditions. It carries hundreds of millions of 
 tons of freight and tens of millions of passengers year in 
 and year out. "Co-operation" is the lubricant which 
 makes the machine move smoothly. 
 
 It was co-operation between all the parts of this 
 great machine of men which enabled order to come so 
 quickly out of this chaos of flood and destruction. There 
 was co-operation not only between the men of the Penn- 
 sylvania System themselves, but co-operation between 
 them and other railroads, co-operation and mutual con- 
 fidence between them and public officials. 
 
 This co-operation made things happen, things vastly 
 for the public good. Does not this tremendous experi- 
 ence show what can be accomplished in the public serv- 
 ice at all times by co-operation, by mutual confidence 
 between railroad and government ofiicials, and by a 
 consistent plan to disregard the petty and the non-essen- 
 tial, and work unitedly to achieve big results? 
 
 Noah's Ark— 1913 Model 
 71 
 
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