ALTON - Eight empty box cars and an empty coal car escaped from a switch on upper Piasa Street just before 10 p.m. on September 17, 1924. The driverless cars came careening down Piasa Street on the Chicago & Alton Railroad tracks to Union Depot in downtown Alton. Fred Elsner, traffic cop at 3rd and Piasa, was on duty at the time. He saw the cars racing down the steep incline and frantically waved his signals for all automobiles and pedestrians to clear out of the way. It was due mainly to his efforts that no one was seriously hurt when the train cars sped past the busy corner at Broadway and Piasa.
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The northbound 10 o’clock Chicago & Alton passenger train was on its way up the same tracks, but a railroad worker who happened to be nearby saw the danger and, fearing that the empty train cars would collide with the passenger train, leaped on one of the front cars and set the brakes. Gradually, the train cars slowed down and stopped near the Union Depot in time to avert a collision. Luckily, the cars were empty, otherwise the speed would have been greater and the collision unavoidable.
The fact that the cars ran out of the switch without an engine seemed to indicate that someone loosened the brakes while the cars were standing on the switch tracks. Sometimes, small boys played in the train cars, and they were most likely the ones who released the brakes.
Fred Eisner Entered Alton Police Service In 1923
After a 35-year career blowing glass for the Illinois Glass Company plant in Alton and Nester plant in East St. Louis, Fred Elsner entered police service on September 7, 1923, and was employed as a patrolman for about 15 years. He retired in the spring of 1938. For most of his career with the Alton Police Department he was a traffic patrolman on the downtown Piasa street crossings. There he became known as the “smiling traffic cop.” “For all who passed he had a smile, and traffic jams on his intersection never caused him to lose his temper. When he had necessity to reprimand a motorist it was gently done, and his smile removed the sting.”
Sources
“Runaway Train Threatens Traffic on Piasa Street.” Alton Evening Telegraph (Alton, IL), September 18, 1924.
Fred J. Elsner, Former Police Patrolman, Dies.” Alton Evening Telegraph (Alton, IL), November 18, 1941.
Old Alton Views - Third and Piasa, circa 1880 . (Illinois Digital Archives), 2024-09-09,http://www.idaillinois.org/digital/collection/p16614coll61/id/792
Sanborn Map Company. 1926. “Insurance Maps of Alton, Illinois.” New York: Sanborn Map.https://digital.library.illinois.edu/items/4564b1f0-2652-013a-7ba8-02d0d7bfd6e4-9#?cv=0&r=0&xywh=-4635%2C-223%2C12568%2C4444
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