3:38
Around curve after curve they flew . It entered Ned 's tortured mind that if his chum had wanted speed , he was getting it now ! He realized that two miles a minute was a mere bagatelle to the pace now accomplished by the runaway locomotive . The Result As Ned Newton , fumbling at the controls when he saw the fallen tree across the tracks , had jammed the brakes , the station master at Hammon , at the bottom of this long grade on the Hendrickton & Pas Alos , had stepped out to the blackboard in the barnlike waiting room and scrawled with a bit of chalk : `` No. 28 -- Westbound -- due 3:38 is 15 m. late . '' The fact , thus given to the general public or to such of it as might be interested , averted what would have been a terrible catastrophe . The fast express was late . When the babbling voice of the Half Way operator over the telephone warned Hammon of the coming of the runaway electric locomotive , there was time to shift switches at the head of the yard so that , when Number Twenty-eight came roaring in , she was shunted on to a far track and flagged for a stop before she hit the bumper .