Mother's Cab Ride

The boys told her that they had a way to override the maximum speed the locomotive was set to travel using rubber bands.



Stumbling on this picture of an e-type locomotive leading a passenger train out of a station brought to mind a story my mother used to tell.  Her uncle, John Smith, a rail road engineer invited her up into the cab on a trip across the Georgia flat woods. My memories of the story didn't include engine type or even the specific date of the ride, but in all likelihood it happened in the early forties, in a slightly earlier version of this type of locomotive.

She particularly remembers that they were going one hundred miles an hour. The boys told her that they had a way to override the maximum speed the locomotive was set to travel using rubber bands.  My own memories of hearing the story as a kid, fifty five or more years ago, includes a picture of rubber bands wrapped around something, indicating that the original versions of the story included long forgotten details  about how they did it.  Likely that John and his fireman were kidding the good looking girl from Savannah.
   

Engineers controls in an e type locomotive.

Well into her nineties, mother recalled the incident recently, adding a something I didn't recall hearing before.  She had to hustle back to the coach as they approached a town.  If the train hit something with an unauthorized visitor in the cab there would be trouble.  Crossing accidents haunted guys like uncle John.  None of the stories I recall included details, but it was known in the family that he felt anxiety over this aspect of his job through unpleasant experiences.