It all began when a friend wanted to learn how to drive a train, so I said I would teach him. We climbed on board the train and set the wheels in motion, slowly at first, building up speed until we reached eighty kilometres an hour. By this time my friend was thoroughly enjoying the thrill of driving a train. Then we came to the first hill "Keep the power on full till we get almost to the top then notch back to zero!" I shouted.... "O.K!" he said and kept on talking to me.

We still had another five kilometres of hill to go down so I knew we were in for a bumpy ride. The first corner was coming up now, the speed restriction for the corner being forty, and we were just reaching ninety five kilometres an hour!! "Hang on" I yelled, the noise of the brakes trying to slow us down being deafening. As we rounded the corner the cab started to sway and we could feel the whole train trying to push us off the tracks -- we passed that corner but I knew we had two more to go and I was praying for a miracle as we sped faster and faster, now up to one hundred kilometres an hour. The next corner was not as sharp as the last one but still we might be derailed.

By now the brake blocks must have been red hot for all we could smell was something burning. The cab was filled with acrid think black smoke and I could only just see my friend cowering in the corner of the cab trying to breathe through an old rag he had found on the floor of the cab, Just coming up to the the last corner now and I can't even see the speedo anymore for the smoke is just too thick....the brake blocks must be just about worn away by now, when they go we have nothing left to even try to stop us. My goodness we will lucky to get around this one" I said to myself...

I felt the cab start to tilt to the left and tried to balance myself - then the cab shook wildly and I feared we had come off the rails. The cab was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane by now - everything was bouncing around the floor.. My friend slammed into me, knocking the wind from my lungs, the tool box came hurtling out of nowhere and struck the console just above my head spilling its contents all over the place - this was the longest twenty seconds of my life. Then the cab suddenly stopped shaking and I knew we had gotten round the corner in one piece; now all we had to do was stop the train. We had a long straight coming up that has a slight rise so with any luck the brakes will stop us there.

I could feel the brakes, or what was left of them, trying to slow us down. Slowly we lost speed as the end of the straight came into sight, only doing fifty kilometres now and losing speed all the time with the end getting closer and closer. "We just might make it y'know" I said to my friend. We finally came to a standstill just feet from the end of the straight. After the next corner there was another twelve kilometres of down hill run which the train, and us, would not have survived.

So here I sit an old man telling his kids stories of my thirty something years as a train driver, and in all the years on the job that was the worst accident I have ever experienced.

What happened to my friend? Funny you should ask that because he is still driving trains today! ( JS* LOL <G> )