The Bravery and Sacrifice of Billy Westall
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- Опубліковано 5 сер 2024
- William "Billy" Westall was a train engineer for the Denver South Park & Pacific Railroad who made a steep sacrifice to protect the train passengers under his charge.
00:00 Introduction
01:01 How I found out about Billy Westall
02:01 A railroad through Platte Cañon
03:54 An introduction to Billy Westall
04:31 A train into Platte Cañon
05:38 The heroes take their places
07:42 A message before he moves on
08:27 A monument to a hero
11:00 Closing
11:30 Bloopers
Thank you for sharing this story of Duty, Courage and Honor.
Stories that IMO need to be shared.
There are a lot of bygone heros who fall nearly forgotten to time... very sad.
Thank you for this, it's a very interesting piece of American history.
I remember this marker sitting at the edge of the North Fork of the South Platte. I was glad to see that it was reset to a better location.
Thank you, lovely story, well told. "Tell my wife I died thinking of her" - doesnt get any better than that does it!😙😙
Hero.❤️
"Greater love has no one but to lay down his life for his friends."
John 15:13
P.S. Love the bloopers.
Great video, I must say, it is HALLOWED ground, not HOLLOWED!
Understood!
While this is a neat account, I do not understand how riding the train to the end saved lives, the engineer cannot steer the train, all he can do is hit the brakes.
Once I saw the distance between the blind curve and the wreck spot, I got it. There were only seconds to get the brakes applied. Once the fireman hit the valve to release the steam, he was done. But Billy Westall needed a little more time to get the brakes applied. He’d probably just had enough time to hit the brakes and check the boiler pressure when the engine hit the obstruction.
The driver (engineer) had responsibility for the running and safety of the train and its passengers - and good engineers took their responsibilities very seriously. Many men chose to put that responsibility for others in their care before their own safety, risking and giving their lives.
A train weighing several hundred tons cannot stop on a sixpence (or dime). As the narrator says, Billy chose to apply the brakes and shut the regulator before hitting the obstruction, rather than jump. From the photograph, had he not done so the ensuing pile up, with the coaches over riding the wrecked engine could have seen many casualties.
The cab on Billy's engine was largely filled with the firebox, leaving a fairly narrow space for the driver to move; sadly this fate befell a lot of US drivers. To quote one old time engineer on the C&O "You have to have a lot of faith to pull that throttle, when you can't see what's waiting round the next curve".
RIP all the brave men who served the railroads, in every country. We owe them.