245 246 247 C. Lockwood, for Pltf., Direct. could switch down there then. I am pretty sure they left the car down there. They didn't bring anything else down except their engine unless it was this car. As soon as the tools and men were loaded on they started right away. We got on to go on to the other job, up above there, to put in some pins. The boss over us, Albert Anderson, says you want to hurry up and get on there and we can get them pins in to-night up above there. The men got on. I didn't observe whether some of them got on to this running board. I didn't pay no attention to where they were getting on. This flat car was pretty well filled up. I don't know whether some of them got on to the running board or not. I don't recollect that. Albert Anderson got on in the cab, in the engine. I couldn't say as he got on last. He didn't stand on the running board behind. From where he stood he could see the man that stood on the running board is all. He was on the left hand side. The engine and car went along. When we got up there half a mile or such a matter the car jumped the track, just jumped 248 right off, the front end, then the back end dropped off. There wasn't any ballasting, any earth, in between the ties at all. So if they jumped down off the rail it was quite a fall. I should say the front end turned around and jumped off 18 inches. The other end of the car jumped off the rail. The head end of the car turned to the right. Booth was standing there. I observed that he got his foot pinched. I couldn't just say how it was, because we hustled out to get him out. I could see that his foot was on the C. Lockwood, for Pltf., Direct. 249 running board and pinched him so he couldn't move. It was held there like in a vise. He appeared as if he was hurt pretty bad. He hollered enough. I know he was faint afterwards, but at the time before we got him out I didn't notice. We were all hustling to get him out. After we got him out we took him into the cab 250 and up to Ischua and got a doctor and eventually took him home. I was at his house assisting him three days. His foot was swollen bad, it wasn't so red, it was kind of a bluish color like. I put on the treatments the doctor prescribed and continued it during the three days. After that I don't think I was in there for a month. After a month I saw him from time to time. He was sitting in the house all the time I ever saw him. After he got out of the house he went around on crutches. That is all the way that I could see that he could get around. I didn't see him for quite a while after the operation. He has been considerable lame ever since then. It was the next place below Pettingill's where he was hurt. The track at substantially the place where the accident happened was awful 252 rough. I couldn't describe it at the point because I didn't examine it. All the time that I was up there I never noticed that the track was ballasted all along at the point where the accident happened, on either side. Q. Was you there all along in the neighborhood of the time of the accident other than the time you were there at the time of the accident? A. Not within a month. 251 253 254 255 C. Lockwood, for Pltf., Direct. I rode over that track the same day when I went down. It was rough, shaky, make a car jump around. Q. How about the rails as to their being properly jointed, so that the joints come together, how did they look to you? A. They were far apart, the joints were. They would be very tight together, and they would be two or three or four inches apart, the rails. That was universally true along the road there. These places were quite frequent where those rails were two or three or four inches apart. They had two different size rails at this point, which would have the effect of making a jump-down off from one rail to the other. With one big sized rail and one light rail you couldn't get the joint tight together because the fishplates would not let it. Some of them call them spliceplates. That is what fastens the two rails together. There are holes made in the fishplates. And they must come together and meet the holes in the rails. Because of the difference and inequality in size and height they would not match, 256 they would not come together. The track wasn't straight, in a straight line, the rails, it was crooked. The track was uneven and rough and the joints far apart, and the track was crooked, and it wasn't ballasted up. The track was laid right on top of the filling. It hadn't been filled in between the ties at all. There was nothing to retain it as a stationary track. The ties were an unequal distance apart. They would be different widths apart all along in that section. The ties were far apart at this place, different widths C. Lockwood, for Pltf., Cross. all along. When the company desired to move the track the Kerbaugh men took a line of bars and threw the track over. There was a gang for that purpose. They would just simply take and move the track one way and another with crow bars. They would take and put their line of bars under the rail and throw the track over in the direction in which they desire to move it. I couldn't swear that the track had been down there at that place in substantially the same condition, from a month to six weeks. That was the way they moved the track out of these places. whenever they wanted to move it. After it was moved the traffic would go over it. I couldn't say how many trains they ran over that every day. There was a good many. 257 258 259 CROSS EXAMINATION by Mr. Hastings: I went to work for Kerbaugh in August in the carpenter gang. Went to work somewheres around the middle of August and worked up until the first of December. Up until the time Booth was injured I worked in the same gang that he worked all the time. So that he and I 260 were together substantially all the time in our work, from the time I went to work the middle of August until the 25th day of September when he was hurt. We worked at the same places together. Still some days we would not be right together. Maybe we would go out in another gang. We worked together at substantially the same places. We didn't ordinarily go to our work together in the morning. I started to work in the morning at 7 o'clock. He and I didn't 261 263 C. Lockwood, for Pltf., Cross. meet at the tool house or supply house. We met sometimes on the job. I frequently went to work with Booth, met at the same place and went to work together. When we got through at night we would sometimes go home together. We lived in the same direction from the job. I lived in 262 Suicide Hollow at that time. Booth lived a mile and a half or two miles above Suicide Hollow. If he was working below he had to go by the point where I lived when he went home from his work. He would go with me as far as I went some of the time. I had ridden on this dinky engine before this Sunday, I couldn't tell you how many times. Whitey Kantz directed me to ride on the engine. When he would want us to go for anything he would tell us to get on the engine. He sent us to the supply house for a rope one time. I don't think there was any car attached to the engine at that time. Booth wasn't with me. I am pretty positive that Straight was with me, but I don't just remember now. I hadn't seen a notice posted up on any of the engines there that employed couldn't ride on them. I never saw such a notice posted there. I never looked for a notice. I have been all around these engines at different times. They were passing back and forth where I was working. I never saw any such notice. I was a neighbor of Booth's. He and I are very friendly. I went there and took care of him after he was injured. I am not any more anxious to have him succeed in this lawsuit than one neighbor for another. We are friends. On the morning that Booth was injured I went down on the train on the car 264 |