There has been a recent awful train wreck, here’s one that didn’t happen.
My great aunt, then, a young woman worked alone in a country radio
shack in Wisconsin. She listened in to the Morse code though against the
rules, she discovered a train was coming on the wrong track and would
collide with another train near her shack. She rushed out and with great
physical effort moved one track on to a siding while the engineer cursed
her out his window. Moments later, the other train rushed by and
a collision was averted. Did she ever get praise for this act of heroism?
Of course not. She was a woman, and whoever’s fault it was that
two trains would have surely collided and did not want it to be known.
But I imagine the engineer sent to the siding breathed a silent
prayer of thanks. Is this story true? Why would my great aunt
have made it up and told it to the family? Who else would believe it if she had?
2026 Jacqueline Jackson
This article appears in January 29-February 4, 2026.
