Porter Who Saved Lives Is Remembered After; Called 'Altoona Hero'

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Porter who saved lives is remembered 70 years after he was called an 'Altoona hero'

 

Tuesday, February 28th 2017

 

 

ALTOONA -- Tuesday was the 70th anniversary of a train crash that historians said could have been much worse, had it not been for the brave actions of one man.

On Feb. 28, 1947, less than two weeks after the Red Arrow tragedy, trains continued to travel through Altoona.

"You could get a train every 15 minutes coming out of Altoona. That's how the nation moved -- by train," Gary Clare, a local railroad historian, said.

One of those trains was the Sunshine Special, which was en route from New York to Fort Worth, Texas that day.

"After it left Altoona, right near the Summit at Gallitzan, the train ran out of steam pressure, so they had to stop on the side of the mountain to build up pressure in the steam engines," Clare said.

The train had 13 cars, and was stopped at the top of the mountain, when the coupler that connected the 12th and 13th cars broke loose, leaving the thirteenth car, which was called the Cascade Mirage, to freewheel down the mountain, according to a Department of Transportation record.

"It hurtled down the mountain for over 3.5 miles coming into Bennington Curve, which was the site of the train wreck just 10 days earlier (the Red Arrow crash)," Clare said.

"You're talking about a mountain where as soon as the train gets out of control, it almost doubles its speed in moments, and you can't stop it," said railroad historian John Meise.

Records show that it was 4 a.m., and the car's passengers were sound asleep with no idea they were headed for disaster.

"A porter by the name of Lee Keys from Houston Texas went through the car helping to aid passengers to get down from their bunks. He went to the rear vestibule of the car, and tried to reset the hand brake, which was the only way they could stop the train," Clare said.

That hand brake was on the outside of the car.

"He was trying to turn the wheel, and get the car slowed down or stopped, but unfortunately it reached a point where it derailed because of speed and slammed into an embankment," said Dave Seidel, a founding member of the Altoona Railroaders Memorial Museum.

Records say he died instantly, but all of the passengers survived.

"He prevented it from running off the tracks or rolling down the hill and derailing, so he saved the occupants by slowing it down to where he would be a manageable crash," Meise said.

"You have to wonder, 'How did that train go all the way West, climb a 1,200-feet elevation and have all that draw bar pull on the coupler and then be sitting still when that happened? 'There's no real explanation for it," Seidel said.

Clare said another mystery is why the train ran out of steam. Record shows that it had more than enough to make it over the mountain, and had it not stopped to build steam pressure, the coupler may never have come loose.

Historians agree that one thing is certain. "Even though he was killed, he definitely saved more lives than his own," Clare said.

http://wjactv.com/news/local/porter-who-saved-lives-is-remembered-70-years-after-he-was-called-an-altoona-hero