N&W in 1910--Overheated

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Bluefield Daily Telegraph
June 21, 1910

OVERCOME BY HEAT
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Engineer Whittaker Has to be Relieved in Honaker Tunnel

    Engineer George Whittaker was overcome yesterday afternoon in the Honaker tunnel by excessive heat and had to be relieved by another engineer.  Before his condition was discovered his face was slightly scalded by escaping steam.  His fireman did not feel the effects of the heat.  This is the first prostration recorded so far this summer.
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[My grandfather was an engineer on the Pocahontas Division, starting before the electrification.  My grandmother told me that the steam engine crews on eastbound coal trains slowly climbing the grade to the tight, single-track Coaldale (aka, Elkhorn, Flat Top) Tunnel would keep a bucket of burlap bags in water on the engine cab deck and when they approached the tunnel they would wrap the bags around their heads, except for their noses, and sometimes their noses would get burned in the tunnel.]

Gordon Hamilton
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