“KIDS ON THE TRACK!"
Monday, May 1,1989 was a pleasant morning in Ramsey, N.J. Kate Pritchard bent over her car trunk and struggled with the bags of groceries she 'd just brought home. She heard the distant cry of a locomotive horn. The trains of Conrail passed less than 300 feet from the Pritchards' house. No fence separated their backyard from the track—only a thick row of trees. But, her sons, 3 ½ -year-old Todd and 18-month-old Scott, were nearby, playing on the driveway.
“Stay right there," Kate said, “while Mommy puts the groceries away. Then we'll go inside and have lunch, okay?"
“Okay!" said Todd, giving a thumbs-up gesture he 'd seen his father make.
"Kay!" echoed Scott, trying to copy his older brother.
They watched their mother enter the house with several bags.
Kate shut the refrigerator and hurried outside. Good. The boys were playing right where she 'd left them.
As she lifted more bags from the trunk, Kate heard a train race past—a passenger express, she judged from its speed. She carried more bags into the house.
The sounds of the train apparently drew the boys' attention to the track. After making their way through the trees, they climbed to the top of the steep roadbed, knelt down along the railroad and began to play.
A few thousand feet west, a freight train rolled slowly toward the children. Overhead lights signaled to engineer Rich Campana that the passenger train ahead was out of the way, and they could resume their normal speed of 40 miles per hour. The engineer adjusted the accelerator, then turned to conductor Anthony Falzo, a man, medium in height and strongly built, who had worked for Conrail for almost half of his 35 years.
“So what 'd you do over the weekend, Anthony?”
“Oh, not much. Mostly messing around—a little TV, then bed. What else?”
Campana smiled. “Hey,you 'd better cool down, Anthony—you 're getting to be a real party animal!”
The two men laughed. They were still laughing as the train began gathering speed, moving at 21 miles per hour.
Rich and Anthony spotted something ahead at the same instant.
“What's that up there?" asked the engineer. Anthony didn't answer. Staring intently, he was trying to identify the curious shape on the track ahead. A box? Old rags?
Suddenly both men realized what it was. Rich threw on the emergency brake and pulled on the air-horn handle with all his strength.
The horn 's blast and Anthony 's words exploded at the same time: "Kids on the Track!”
Anthony sprang through the cab door onto a narrow running board six feet above the wheels and raced to the front of the swaying train. Climbing quickly down a steel ladder, he paused at the bottom, two feet above the roadbed flashing by.
Now he could clearly see the two little children. They were sitting alongside the rail. Anthony waved wildly and shouted, “Get away! Get away!”
He mentally calculated the train 's deceleration rate and groaned. We' II never stop in time.
Absorbed in play, Todd and Scott did not hear the train. Finally, as the sound became thunderous, Scott looked up and froze.
Though the train was slowing, Anthony knew it was still going faster than he could run. So he forced himself to wait until he would be close enough to leap off and grab the boys. With perhaps ten feet left between them and the sharp-edged snowplow blade at the front of the train, Anthony sprang forward from the ladder. Landing on the loose, fist-size stones along side the track, he had to struggle to keep his balance. In two giant steps he almost reached the children. They stared up at him in wide-eyed shock. Anthony, throwing his body into space, flew toward them.
The unending blast of the train horn struck Kate Pritchard like a hammer blow. “The boys!" she cried, and raced out the door. They were gone!
The track, she thought. I must get to the track!
As his body crashed nearbydownward, Anthony covered Todd while reaching out with one arm to grab Scott and pull him clear of the track. But the train had caught up to them. Anthony saw the black steel edge of the snow-plow blade hit the young child under the chin, driving his head back and scraping over his face. Instantly, blood flashed across the boy 's forehead.
Part of the train then punched into the back of Anthony 's work jacket, tearing the nylon fabric. Still, Anthony managed to pull Scott completely under him.
He's dead, Anthony thought. He felt sick with horror. Burying his face in the stones, he pushed downward on the two boys with all his strength as the train passed inches above them.
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