John G. "Jack" Weir was an accomplished Southern Pacific engineer at the top of his game in April, 1928 when, with company's blessing, he allowed a San Jose Herald reporter to ride in the cab with him on one of the Coast Division's premier trains, the Shore Line Limited. His experience dated back to 1891, when he first began firing a locomotive, ten years before being promoted to engineer. He was #25 on a seniority list of 300+, and his record was spotless.

Sixty-plus years later, when I first began running engines on his old territory, I learned of "the curse", from a senior engineer, and it soon became evident that many of my fellows, old and young, subscribed to it. Essentially, it was the railroad version of the Sports Illustrated Cover Curse, except that in addition to being a career killer, enginemen considered such like exposure to be potentially life threatening.

The curse certainly must have arisen out a sad incident, but it was only recently that I began to suspect that Engineer Jack Weir was its original victim. Otherwise, I do not recall anyone else subsequently being bit by the curse, something that railroaders would consider irrelevant.

Jack gave quite an interview that day in April when Herald reporter Norman Waldorf accompanied him in the cab of the Shore Line Limited from San Francisco to San Luis Obispo (see page bottom). His main point was that, as Waldorf wrote, an engineer "has his hands full" in maintaing his vigilance of the road ahead, despite the distractions of other routine duties, and frequent near misses - especially with "senseless automobilists" - that the article describes at length.

What gave me pause, though, was what appeared in the very first paragraph, "Upon his vigilant watchfulness and care depends the safety of the lives of men, women and children on the train; constantly be must be on the lookout for interlocking signals, which he has to pick out while traveling 60 miles an hour…" Gad, it was the curse!

On July 4, 1928, a bit more than three months after the article appeared, as usual Jack took his southbound Shore Lime Limited out of San Francisco's Third & Townsend Depot on time at 8:00 am for the quick one-hour first leg to San Jose. It being a holiday, he would not have to deal with the normal rush of westbound Commute trains that competed with his for occupancy of the many Peninsula stations. The only northbound passenger trains that he should encounter were the Sunset Limited shortly after leaving the depot and the Lark somewhere south of Mayfield.

He had clear signals all the way to Bayshore, or so he thought. As his engine emerged from Tunnel #4, a few hundred feet north of Bayshore station - RED SIGNAL! right in his face. The vicinity of Bayshore station was typically quite congested, where an interlocking tower operator controlled the switches and signals that directed movements along the main line, or to and from the yard, as the situation warranted. Weir instinctively threw the brakes into emergency, but this had little immediate effect. A safety appliance called a derail did its job, but the train now off the tracks continued on for another 540, with the engine lying on its right side, and the first car sitting atop a freight car on the other main track. Jack and the fireman were both badly injured and a few passengers less so.

The combined Federal and State investigation that immediately followed firmly established that Weir was at fault. Although he claimed that the signal preceding the stop signal was clear, the investigators found that the signal system was working normally, and that the preceding signal had displayed a warning ("approach") to approach the Bayshore signal prepared to stop short. What makes Jack's oversight so perplexing is that he and group of other union officers had delivered a formal complaint to management about the Bayshore signal's invisibility from within the tunnel.

Knowing the potential hazards that lay at Bayshore, it is inexplicable as to how he overlooked the preceding signal, especially given his experience.

It just HAD to have been the newspaper curse!

Currently, we do not know exactly what happened to Jack after the wreck. His name appeared in a 1929 seniority list, so it is possible that Jack's otherwise exemplary record afforded him disciplinary measures short of losing his job. Whatever the case, he died at the Southern Pacific Hospital in San Francisco six months short of retirement age in 1936, three years after the death of his wife, Katherine.

Honest engineers will tell you that avoiding Weir's fate is a combination of skill and luck, but skill will only get you so far. When I climbed off an engine for the last time, my first thought was thank goodness that my luck had held out. Jack's did not.

click on the image for a larger rendition

The Curse of the Hoodoo Engine

A universal railroad curse is that of the "hoodoo engine", a locomotive that carries bad luck with it. All railroads have hoodoos. In my time, one was Southern Pacific #7347, a GM-built diesel that SP painted in a special scheme to hype the company's sponsorship of the 1984 Olympics.

The loco was on the head end of my train at Santa Rosa, NM in the spring of 1984 when we discovered the crushed body of a transient in one of our gondolas full of ties. About a year later, #7347 was on the head end of an uphill train out of Dunsmuir, CA, while I was running a mid-train helper. Although the engineer on the head end knew that the train had a "dynamiter" - a car that would throw the whole train into emergency whenever the engineer braked - he nevertheless applied the air going UPHILL to slow down for a known speed restriction. I cannot fathom to this day why he did this instead of simply throttling off and letting gravity do the job. It must have been the voodoo engine fiddling with his mind. As a result, our train broke in two, and we spent an hour changing out a coupler knuckle, but at least we did not derail, which was a bit miraculous given the heavy curves where this took place. Fate was not so kind a few months later, when #7347 took its curse to Burlington Northern, where it was in the consist of a train that met another in a fiery head-on crash that killed five crew members on August 2, 1985.

Turning to Jack Weir's engine #4355, according to 50+ year Bayshore Shop machinist Fred Boland, a series of difficulties plagued the loco during the decade following the wreck, earning it hoodoo status. Fred's extensive writings about 4355's troubles, along with more photos of the Bayshore wreck, can be found on Wx4 HERE.

Of note, one of the three extant SP 4-6-2 steam locomotives was known during its career as the worst kind of hoodoo, a "crew killer". Luckily for future crews, #7347 was scrapped after its collision.

San Jose Evening News
April 20, 1928

While a trip in the observation car of a limited train may be a limited joy ride to the people sitting there, reading their papers or watching the landscape fly by, the engineer in his lonely cab at the front end of the train is experiencing very different emotions. Upon his vigilant watchfulness and care depends the safety of the lives of men, women and children on the train; constantly be must be on the lookout for interlocking signals, which he has to pick out while traveling 60 miles an hour: he must see that water is constantly running into the boiler, since the engine evaporates water at the rate of 6000 gallons an hour; he must pay close attention to his running orders: time being measured by seconds and be neither 30 seconds ahead of time nor 30 seconds late in arriving at his destination.

Although in the discharge of the above duties it can be seen that the engineer has his hands full. there is still one more great anxiety weighing upon him—the fear that some automobile may be about to drive over the next crossing. Despite the fact that he has blown the warning whistle. the engineer knows that sometimes people do not hear it: and The also knows that sometimes they hear and do not heed.

SERIOUS PROBLEM
J. G. Weir of this city. locomotive engineer on the Southern Pacific Railroad for the past 30 years, has found through experience that the grade crossing menace coupled with the carelessness of some drivers. constitutes a very serious problem. He says: "All railway Crossings are dangerous, and there is no exception to this statement. The many blind crossings are even more dangerous than main highway crossings. When a man goes upon a railroad track he knows he goes to a place where he will be killed if a train comes upon him before he is clear of the track."

Mr. Weir's run is from San Francisco to San Luis Obispo, between which points there are approximately 70 main crossings and hundreds of other crossings. Leaving San Francisco at 8 am.. the limited train of which he is engineer, arrives at San Luis Obispo seven hours later.

A TYPICAL TRIP
Believing that the public doesn't understand what the engineer has to contend with. Mr. Weir tells as follows of a typical trip on his run:

"Before leaving San Francisco we examine the engine. It has already been inspected by roundhouse men. but must be passed upon by the engineer before being taken out. We make sure that the air pumps and air compressors are working correctly: the worst thing that could happen to us would be failure of the air to function. It is as essential to have the brakes in first class condition as to have steam in the boiler to pull the train.

"We leave San Francisco with a clear track and expect to make about 60 miles per hour. At South San Francisco we see a street car passing just ahead of us and reduce our speed, barely missing it. Fog conditions make it bad. At the stations we have to watch out not to blockade the way of commuter trains on the other track, which are going toward San Francisco.

"At Broadway a machine dashes across the tracks in front of us and at San Mateo a driver slams on his brakes just in time to bring his car to a stop a foot from the tracks. At Palo Alto a big truck pulls across ahead of us and escapes by a few feet.

CHILDREN ON TRACK
"Near Mountain View a group of Japanese children are walking along the right-of-way. They do not step in front of the fast train and we pass with a sigh of relief. At Santa Clara a crowd of young women have a close call. They come up from the fireman's side and we only miss them by about 20 feet. After crossing over they stop to wave at us as we go by.

"At the Lick crossing south of San Jose a conductor pulls the air on the train. We stop and find that a young man has run his automobile into the rear portion of the train, not having stepped on the brake soon enough. He is not hurt, although the wheels on his machine are broken, and we proceed on our way.

"At Madrone a man runs his machine into the cattle-guard fence to keep from getting hit. Entering the Salinas Valley, where we had expected clear sailing, we find cattle on the track, kill several and keep on going. At Paso Robles a car stalls on the tracks and the driver leaps out just in time before we demolish it.

"We start up the mountain at Santa Margarita. After reaching the summit we have 14 miles of downgrade and our airbrakes play an important role. We enter San Luis Obispo without further mishap."

Mr. Weir believes that the grade crossing accident is, in almost every instance, due to carelessness, and urges automobilists to lighten the burden of the anxious engineer by using caution at all crossings.