Folks keep asking me to write about history here, so because I had quite a history of many things from farming to flying, this story is going to be of my railroad days.
I was a fireman on locomotives running out of Brookmere in the 1940s. From Brookmere to Hope or from Brookmere to Princeton, either way was down hill.
I worked with an engineer they called Lets. He had two nicknames - Clammy Lets - or Wringy Lets. He was in a runaway train as a fireman when it went over the bank on its way to Hope. Lets would never tell what happened, so this was the reason they called him Clammy. He jumped into into a cinder pile and lived.
The engine went off a sharp curve at high speed, the engine went off a sharp curve at high speed, the coal cars on top of it and all the train on top of that; then it caught fire. There was nothing left. They showed me where it happened. On a grade such as that they told me if a large train gets over 20 miles per hour down that hill there is no way you can stop it until it derails.. There were several men as well as some transients on the train and they all died, burned in the wreckage until there was nothing left. Lets would never tell, as it could look bad for the survivors of the dead men.
Believe me those huge steam engines were something of a thrill to operate, and I have operated them back there. The power you control is phenomenal. One to three men control those thousands of tons.
My father in law and also an uncle were engineers. I was a fireman.
There were several cars carrying lead on that train and when they were building a road through the Coquihalla a while ago they ran into the lead that had melted and run down the bank from the wreck.
Wilf Miller, Keremeos