The perfect example of this was the most prevalent method of dispatching trains until the 1980's - timetables and train orders. A simple description of this Byzantine system is that trains and engine crews used timetables in conjunction with written instructions addressed specifically to them - train orders - to figure out how to get over the railroad without colliding with other trains. The beauty of the system, and the reason that it prevailed for so long, was that it was cheap, not that it was foolproof.

It's fundamental flaw was that it was complicated. It took a typical employee several years to get a basic understanding of the ins and outs of train orders, and how they jived with timetables and the lengthy rule books that laid out the basic framework of the system. Inexperience and misinterpretation were deadly components, and some railroaders spent their entire careers as firemen or brakemen simply because they never understood train orders well enough to pass conductor or engineer promotion exams.

A case in point is what would have been termed a "minor" accident in its day, for it resulted in but a single fatality at a time when thousands of people died in railroad mishaps every year, sometimes several dozen at once. On October 27, 1902, two trains collided head-on in the fog between Campbell and San Jose, California, killing the engineer on one of them. The engineer on the other train admitted that he was at fault - He had "misread" his train orders.

There used to be a short, unremarkable branch line of the narrow gauge South Pacific Coast Railroad that ran from near the tiny burg of Campbell, southwest of San Jose, California to the vicinity of the extensive quicksilver mines at New Almaden. In the long run, the branch did not pan out as much of a traffic source, and after a time its trickle of freight and passengers were combined into what was known as a "mixed" train. One 'up' train ran to San Jose in the morning, then returned in the afternoon.

By 1902, the quicksilver mines that accounted for most of the branch revenue were in decline, and the Almaden Mixed likely ran most days with only an engine and coach. (Six years later, business was so dismal that the trains began running only once a week.) On October 27, things were a little different, as the morning train was larger than normal: two coaches spliced between at least two freight cars (see photo at below left). The flat car tucked between between the lead coach and the locomotive tender carried a load of grapes (presumably packed in stacked wooden lug boxes), likely picked-up from the vineyard spur at LeFranc and destined for the cannery near the SPC "Narrow Gauge Depot", where today's Diridon Caltrain depot stands today. Also out of the ordinary were the patches of tule fog scattered about the valley floor. Usually, such weather was confined to winter.

The train continued in good order through the branch junction and onto the main line just south of Campbell at a spot called Loveladys. Since the mid-90's, the main line between Los Gatos and San Jose had been laid with three rails to accommodate both the diminutive South Pacific Coast narrow gauge trains and the ever-more-massive standard or "broad" gauge Southern Pacific (SPC's owner) trains that would totally replace the former ones in five years hence. It nevertheless remained a straightforward railroad to operate because most of the trains that ran on its tracks were regular trains which operated on schedules listed in the timetable, and the overall traffic was moderate, at most. Additional trains, known as "extras", simply stayed out of the way of the regular trains, unless otherwise instructed by their train orders.

A mile past Campbell, about where the tracks crossed Hamilton Avenue, the Almaden Mixed running at fifteen m.p.h. entered a particularly thick bank of fog that limited visibility to fifty feet. A few feet beyond the Hamilton crossing was a "whistle post" marking the spot where the engineer should have begun blowing for Infirmary Road (now Bascom Avenue) the next crossing a quarter-mile away. Whether Almaden Mixed Engineer Bob Maxwell immediately complied with this requirement, or dallied a bit in deference to his slow speed, is as unclear as the fog that surrounded him. Regardless, it was only when SP Engineer FM Armstrong heard Maxwell's whistle that he became aware of the Almaden train's presence ahead in the gloom. Armstrong's more-massive standard gauge engine was not only headed towards the mixed train, it was already past Infirmary Road! Armstrong immediately placed his engine in reverse, but Maxwell and his fireman were unwary of the situation until an instant before the two locomotives collided in a thunderous clap that was heard two miles away.

Robert J. Maxwell seems to have been not particularly fortunate in life (see: Jinxed Engineers, below), and his ill-luck held on this day. Despite a likely closing speed of less than twenty m.p.h., the two engines met with such force that the train's coach push the flatcar forward, telescoping it underneath the tender, causing the latter to come to rest at an approximate thirty degree angle. Maxwell and fireman Herman Walker were pinned unconscious in the cab, sprayed by steam escaping from broken fittings.

Back in the train, the crew and the five passengers were shaken but unhurt. The train crew climbed through a cab window and extricated their engineer and fireman, who were subsequently treated at the scene by a Campbell doctor. Both men were severely scalded. Maxwell's face was lacerated by glass and he may have inhaled live steam. Walker suffered a broken jaw. They were soon transported to the SP hospital in San Francisco where Maxwell soon died.

Fireman Walker was reported as having "bright" prospects for recovery, but his tale abruptly ends there. A "minor" collision involving a single fatality was not newsworthy enough to command much detailed follow-up.

The crew of the SP engine, which included a fireman named Smith, fared better. Neither suffered any injuries. Their "light" (i.e., pulling no cars) engine was running backward, causing the locomotive's tender to absorb most of the impact with only a few dents. The engine itself , 4-6-0 #2056, was undamaged. SPC narrow gauge 4-4-0 type engine #2 - the tiniest locomotive on the railroad's roster and half the size of the SP engine - was a near-total loss and was retired the next month. Its boiler, however, was found to be serviceable enough to assume a second career providing steam for an Oakland dock hoisting engine.

No line-side signals were in place to protect trains from smashing into each other on the route. All that remained to keep trains out of each other's way was the crews' proper application of the aforementioned Byzantine system of timetable/train order operation. The thing was, on the day of the crash, the situation was not all that complicated. Armstrong only had to run his engine a few miles down the line to the south end of Campbell after waiting for the Almaden Mixed to arrive in San Jose, which he did not do. Why not?

Immediately after the wreck, Armstong admitted that he was at fault, claiming that he had "misread" his train orders. This did not ring true. In that case, he and the Almaden Mixed crew would have received orders requiring the Almaden train to hold back for Armstrong's engine, orders that clearly were not given. During the subsequent coroner's inquest and SP company investigation, Armstrong made a more understandable, if still somewhat inconceivable, admission. He had transposed AM and PM while checking his timetable for conflicting trains. He probably possessed a train order stating something akin to regular trains due San Jose on October 27 before [his approximate departure time] have arrived and left, but this statement was effectively useless to somebody who had misread the timetable.

So, Armstrong had made a simple human mistake of profound proportions. Perhaps there were mitigating factors that accounted for Armstrong's error, perhaps not, but in the long view of the mishap, this is almost beside the point. The entire system under which the trains operated could be taken down by Armstrong's elementary human and the failure of his fireman to catch it. It is clear that neither man had much experience on that particular piece of track, for otherwise they would have expected the Almaden train's presence as a matter of course, despite fatigue, distractions or bloody hangovers.

Apparently Armstrong was never prosecuted in court, and the record of SP's findings is absent. Perhaps Superintendent Montgomery, the officer who conducted the company investigation, found the matter too cut-and-dried to pursue inquiry into contributing factors, including the question of whether Maxwell was running his train at a judicious speed and was making sufficient whistle warning noise in light of the foggy conditions. Undoubtedly, Armstrong would have been dismissed, though his fireman may have escaped with a lesser punishment.

What we shall never know is if the superintendent's report pointed out the absence of lineside signals that otherwise would have alerted the two trains' engineers of each other's presence. Though hardly fool-proof, signals were a tremendous advance in safety beyond the sole protection of train orders.

By way of postscript, the wreck of the Almaden Mixed continued to be regularly duplicated in the future, sometimes with worse results. (The incomplete tally of major near-by Southern Pacific accidents in the period surrounding 1902 is shown elsewhere.) The collision was by no means the last one that the narrow gauge would experience. In 1907, as the last of the narrow gauge tracks were being converted to standard gauge, two other collisions took place within a month of each other. The first occurred on April 12, within three miles of the Moulton incident, near the San Jose Narrow Gauge Depot, when broad and narrow gauge trains met on a blind curve at San Carlos Street (see inset at left, below)). Exactly two months later, narrow and broad gauge trains came together on the SPC segment still isolated by the '06 Quake tunnel collapses. Only four days after SP broad gauge trains began running to Boulder Creek, SP and SPC work trains collided head-on near Big Trees Station with the same results as the Mouton accident - veteran narrow gauge engineer Dad Forrester was pinned in his cab and killed.

A few years after the Moulton crash, Southern Pacific installed the block signals that might have prevented the tragedy. A primary motivation for most signal installations was the increase in traffic capacity that they afforded, but E.H. Harriman, who had recently purchased control of the SP/SPC from the widow of Collis P. Huntington, was outspoken amongst his contemporaries in his advocacy of increased safety. Given Harriman's concerns about SP's dismal safety record, one can assess that part of management's due consideration towards signal installation was based upon the line's accident history. In such case, Bob Maxwell's death was not totally in vain.

(San Jose) Evening News, March 25, 1886, page 3

Engineer Bob Maxwell's first strike under the "rule of threes".

It seems that, today, almost nobody in Campbell has ever heard of Stillman Augustus Moulton. It may have been the ill-timing of his existence that has caused historians to overlook him, but whatever the case, he was highly regarded in his time as a man of integrity, charitable compassion and high accomplishments. "Dad" or "Sam" to his family and friends - or alternately "S. A." to his business associates - was quite the opposite of his pretentious-sounding name. His was one of those Horatio Alger success stories that so appeals to American egalitarian sensibilities. His process of self-transformation from a farm boy into a respected community leader and businessman was characterized by deep religious convictions and strength of character, supplanted by an affable and generous nature that carried him through bumps in life that would have crushed other men. Likewise, a lifetime of personal growth led him from racial prejudice to charitable acceptance of all people.

Moulton was born into a Somerset County, Maine farming family on April 18, 1835, named after his father and one of six brothers and three sisters. Nothing is known about his childhood, but his older brother Levi's youth is vaguely documented, and it appears that they led a typical backwoods farm life, educated by their parents and themselves. Levi headed to California at the tail-end of the Gold Rush, but Stillman remained on the farm until 1856, when a wave of idealism carried him off to Bloody Kansas on a mission to help insure that Kansas would enter the union as a free state. For all intents and purposes, the Civil War started there and in Western Missouri with a series of guerilla skirmishes, which occasionally escalated into full-fledged pitched battles, between pro-slavery Bushwhackers and "Free-Stater" Jayhawkers. John Brown got his violent start in Western Kansas and the conflict was characterized by depredations on both sides. Stillman served as a guard and a patroller for one of the ad-hoc anti-slavery bands, but stayed at this for only six months, probably because the violence went against his nature. He went to Chicago in January, 1857, and in the spring landed in Delta County, on Michigan Upper Peninsula, where he became a lumberman.

In 1861, he headed to Colusa, where Levi had settled and was in the process of acquiring thousands of acres of swamp, which he tried with moderate success to reclaim for farm land. Restlessness overcame Stillman the next year, so he headed off to the timber tracts of Humboldt Bay, only to find the situation there not to his liking, either. Finally, in the spring of 1863 he found a more agreeable home in the vicinity of Carson City, Nevada. There he again took up lumbering and milling timber under contract, and soon expanded into the cattle business both in Nevada and New Mexico. In the process he entered politics and spent two terms in the Nevada State Assembly, a remarkable record for a man barely breaking thirty years old who had started essentially with nothing.

During the late 1860's, Stillman began wintering in San Jose, and was recorded as planting a Eucalyptus tree there in 1870.

A couple of years prior to embarking on the horse railroad venture, Stillman seems to have married a young woman, as evidenced by the birth of a son, Edward "Eddy" Stillman, born on January 19, 1874. Her identity is unknown, and she must have passed away during child birth, or shortly thereafter. He married again on October 18, 1876 to Lydia F. Dudley. From then on, the Moulton family remained in Santa Clara County. Initially they lived in San Jose, where Stillman pursued his old line of work as a lumber dealer and later, a broker. Stillman and Lydia's first child, Mary came along the next year, followed by Dudley (1878), Josephine (1880), Lina (1881), and Stillman Moses (1883). Dudly became a nationally-known horticulturalist; Eddy a well-respected member of the fruit packing industry; Josephine a school principal in Long Beach; Mary a local school teacher; while Lina stayed at home with her parents. The record is nearly blank in regard to Lydia, who circulated within church and temperance groups. Stillman Moses is a question mark. He did not survive his parents, but when he passed away is unknown.

The year Lina was born, 1881, Stillman began planting 500 apricot trees in early winter on a fifteen acre parcel of former wheat land that he had acquired on Johnson (today: Bascom) Avenue, near the intersection of Campbell Avenue , the road that led to Campbells Station. As the name implies, Campbells (possessive words sans apostrophes were the norm then) was a railroad stop, and the "station" was not much larger than a broom closet, as was the town. Even though namesake Benjamin Campbell had settled there three decades prior, the locale was still only farms and a few orchards. When Stillman finished planting, he proceeded to build a house for his family, which was completed in early November, 1882. Within two or three years he began drying fruit, understanding that it would sell for twice the price of fresh, as well as better withstand storage and shipment. As his business began to flourish, he found the need to develop new technology to help his business along, which led to four 1885 U.S. Patents, for a fruit drying tray, a road leveler and two different types of cultivators. His need for a dependable source of packing boxes led him to join others to found the Eureka Box Company, but the corporation only lasted about a month before it collapsed amid the bickering of its shareholders. In 1887, his own 500, still-juvenile apricot trees produced fifty tons of fruit, but he was purchasing much larger amounts from neighbors. Fruit drying trays, such as he had invented, took up lots of space - acres of space - and his Johnson Avenue property needed augmenting to allow for continued growth of his operation. He purchased 12 more acres next to the South Pacific Coast Railway tracks on Infirmary Road, the extension of Johnson Avenue on the other side of Hamilton Avenue. There in 1888 he laid out drying yards and constructed a packing plant, which were served by the spur that would only acquire the official timetable name of Moultons Spur after he had exited the fruit business.

By 1890, Moulton's was reportedly the largest private dried fruit concern in the valley, but his products suffered the disadvantage of being located on a narrow gauge railroad that only ran from Alameda to Santa Cruz. Products destined for elsewhere had to be drayed into downtown San Jose for placement on standard gauge cars, an expensive proposition. This was a problem-in-common with other West Valley concerns, so during the process of forming a fruit dryers association that year, Moulton instigated the forming of a committee to approach SPC / SP about laying a third rail to handle standard gauge cars. The group successfully planted the seed, since five years later SPC undertook the improvement, the first effort towards broad gauging the entire railroad.

Moulton's tenure at the location continued throughout the 1890's, with 1897 being a particularly good season. He claimed that he could have used 100 more men that year. In 1898, he began to see a reversal of his fortunes, beginning with a judge pointedly telling him to get out of town for awhile after Moulton threatened a neighbor with a gun. It is unclear if his dryer operated that summer, or in the summer of 1899. In 1900, things worsened, however, after he found out that the partner that he had taken-on in 1897, fruit-buyer E.B. Howard, was a crook. Moulton was forced to sell his packing plant and drying yard to pay off his debts.

During the 1901 fruit season, the Mirando Wine Company winery occupied the majority of the site, with the rest used as a packing house for the "Romer drier" [sic]. In the following off-season, the buildings sat largely unused, but were nonetheless occupied as winter quarters by tramps. Moulton once drew the wrath of his neighbors for posting a help-wanted sign on the front of his dryer proclaiming "Tramps are welcome here", so it was an ironic twist that they were suspected of causing a fire that broke out shortly after midnight on April 20. After two hours the main buildings were gone, but neighbors managed to save outbuildings and a large pile of fruit trays.

Some sort of activity apprently resumed that summer, for a standard gauge SP boxcar was spotted on the spur at the time of the wreck. Perhaps it was after the fire that Henry Booksin, Jr., son of the locally well-known Willow Glen orchardist, purchased the site and established his San Thomas Drying Company there. By 1904, the Campbell Visitor reported that the company was doing "a large drying and packing business". It appears that Booksin Junior quickly fell prey to the whims of weather, markets, or perhaps even slicker fruit buyers like E.B. Howard, for San Thomas vanished by 1910.

The record of what was done by whom with the buildings during the next decade is largely blank. The only thing to turn up thus far is a 1919 ad (see image, below) that indicates the place was being used as a commercial outlet by agricultural chemicals supplier O.A. Harlan & Co. By the following spring, Harlan had retrenched to its main location off the SP main line at Fourth and Margaret Streets in San Jose. There the record ends.

In dead center of the 1889 map below (click for larger version) is the location of S.A. Moulton's spur property / wreck site, across the tracks from the San Jose Brick Company's clay diggings, as well as his home / apricot orchard to the south of Hamilton Avenue on San Jose & Los Gatos Road (a.k.a Johnson Avenue) - Parcel #2 of 15.01 acres below S. Newhall's 40 acres. Today's McBain Avenue runs through the west-east length of the Moulton parcel, while Ridgeley Drive, this writer's boyhood home, runs parrallel through Parcel #1 on the north side of Molton's property. The two parcels became housing tracts after World War II (the last Moulton holdings were sold-off in 1951, the year before Campbell incorporated), and, the Newhall property north of parcel #1 has been a strip mall since the late 1950's. Dougherty spur (later, Foyle), and San Jose Brick Company (after it moved from Moulton), were along the SPC to the northeast of Moulton, on the inside of the triangle formed by the tracks and the north / west sides of the 97 acre Blackford property. (see also Branch Lines to Almaden map further below). Map courtesy of Library of Congress Geography and Map Division. An earlier map dating to ca 1882-87 shows Moulton's home acreage and the wreck site prior to his ownership. See Hamilton/Cambrian map in the Braninard Agricultural Atlas at the San Jose Public Library online website.

The last known record of activity at Moulton Spur: San Jose Mercury-News, December 21, 1919. By the following spring, Harlan had retrenched to its main San Jose location.

Moulton, as it appeared in 1907

That summer Moulton employed 100 employees, all white, and utilized women and children "whenever possible". In California "white" was code word for "non-Chinese". Chinese immigrants had become white California's great bugaboo when economic stagnation settled-in following the boom years of early statehood. With down times came a scarcity of unskilled jobs, which placed Chinese laborers in direct competition with working class whites. Beyond that, whites regarded Chinese as "a race so different from our own" (as U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Harlan put it) that suffered from a host of moral and theological ills. Like most white Californians, Moulton had favored freedom for black slaves in the South, but found no moral conflict between this and participating in the harsh treatment of the people who had been imported to help build California. In the convoluted racist logic of the times, he believed that he was doing a good deed in protecting the more economically insecure of his Campbell neighbors. It also was good public relations.

His "protective" sentiments towards whites may have figured into his politics as well, for in 1894 Moulton mounted an unsuccessful campaign as the local People's Party (a.k.a. Populists) candidate for the state senate. Populists drew most of their support from the working class and labor unions, both of which in California were viscously anti-Chinese. Just a few years earlier Moulton had been described as a "conservative Republican", which begs the question, What precipitated such a radical charge to the political left? Conservative Republicans were no friends of the Chinese, either, although their dislike generally was less visceral.

Possibly Moulton, as a practical man, turned leftward partly out of business concerns. Like most California agriculturalists, Moulton felt that he was a victim of the Southern Pacific Railroad's. SP's arbitrary freight rate policies were rightfully regarded by most people back then as favoring large shippers and long hauls at the expense of everyone else, particularly agriculturalists. Moulton had a nice spur, but SP may have charged him an arm-and-a-leg to ship out of it. That he still had no access to a standard gauge railroad also must have galled him, because SP had not yet laid a third broad gauge rail down the tracks to Campbells.

If he was down in spirits over his string of ill-fortune, it did not last for long. Friend and editor of the Campbell Weekly Vistor Elgin C. Hurlbert later editorially remarked about how Moulton had, "kept sweet, not letting reverses get the best of his generous nature and pleasant disposition..." Though financially embarrassed, Moulton was not broke by any means. He largely was able to keep his Johnson Avenue ranch and home - Dudley occasionally traveled down there from San Francisco to maintain things - and his other real estate holdings, including the ever-more valuable Moulton Tract on North Central Avenue in the heart of downtown Campbell. Stillwell remained active, though now more from a posture of retirement, since he was 65 years old. While the Howard affair was unfolding he served on a coroners jury, and in 1902 he continued his interest in politics, this time in the Democratic Party as a delegate to their state convention. In mid-1903, he moved his family back to Johnson Avenue. He traveled in Mexico in early 1904, then that summer accompanied his daughters Josephine and Mary to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. He continued his periodic service as a Santa Clara County grand juror, as he had done since at least 1885. For income, he sold livestock at Johnson Avenue, collected rents and occasionally parted with some of his real estate.

He returned to his old love of inventing things. In 1903-04 he patented three devices, one a "Chest protector" of questionable utility, but the other two - oral inserts to prevent snoring - are cited in similar patent applications to this day. He spent a considerable amount of time up in Colusa, where his brother Levi had become the major land baron after Stillman's departure in1861. Levi was ready to sell-out; perhaps in ill-health. During the month before his Mexico trip, Stillman brokered the sale of Levi's 18,000 acres and five-story mansion, earning himself a hefty commission on a reported one-third-of-a-million-dollar sale price. This ended his concerns over cash flow. Two years later, both Levi and their sister Esther, who apparently lived with Levi and his family, passed away.

If Moulton slowed down in his later years, there was no indication of it. While he was lumbering in Humboldt County as a young man, he joined the Freemasons, and later became a founding member and chaplain of San Jose's Charity lodge, and likewise a founder of the Mason's local Scottish Rite group, where he the Almoner, the dispenser of charity. He later noted in a letter to the San Jose Mercury that when he was installed in the latter, he received instructions to "… give aid and relief to suffering humanity regardless of creed or color…", a concept that he thoroughly embraced, and by all reports practiced, in his last two decades of life.

His politics evolved again at the very last, as before prompted by his sympathy for the needy. Herbert Hoover ran for President in 1920, in good part under the banner of his humanitarian accomplishments as director of Federal food relief agencies for war-torn areas in World War I. Moulton, who had forsaken conservative Republicans first for the Populists, then for Democrats, again found himself supporting a Republican. His enthusiasm for Hoover's good works was so great that he was elected president of the Campbell Hoover Club.

After returning home on the night of his election his election, the bouts of angina that he had been suffering from for the prior two weeks grew worse - so much so that the lodge began sending members over to sit with him at night. The angony of the episodes pushed him to the brink of insanity, but when he came out of them, he was as jolly and convivial as ever. During one respite, he was even able to write a letter supporting Hoover to the editor of the San Jose Mercury News. His son Eddie began coming over to the house during the daytime, and during the good moments. He and his sisters Mary and Lina, who both lived with their parents, enthusiastically discussed his dad's upcoming birthday with him. It appears that Lydia remained outside of the conversations, raising further questions about her post - "committal" relationship with her husband.

After four or five nights of pain and sleeplessness, Stillman was exhausted, but nevertheless came out of a particularly bad attack in good spirits about four one morning. He excused himself from the lodge friend who had been looking after him, and headed up to his bedroom. There, Dad Moulton picked up an ancient sawed-off shotgun, placed the barrel in his mouth, and pulled the trigger. He had several times told unbelieving friends and family that he would rather end his life than suffer endless pain, and, and, like always, he was a man of his word. His daughter Mary, who had long managed his affairs after quitting teaching at an early age due to ill health, took his death particularly hard, and passed away two weeks later.

At about the moment that Stillman Augustus Moulton took his life on April 14, his letter to the Mercury supporting Herbert Hoover hit the newsstands. In part, he wrote:

All church people that pray for suffering humanity, all lodges that direct their members by the aid of the Bible, all foreign-born citizens whose friends over the seas have received aid and cheer from American charity which was distributed by this soul-visioned man Hoover, who is one of God's engineers that knows knows how to handle and direct big things and who works without salary - none doubting his sincerity - among all of these is there one with heart so small or conscious so dimmed by a cross-eyed vision that he will not vote for Hoover?

Though in politics he was thoroughly left-wing, Moulton supported a political conservative because he believed that humanitarianism trumped all else, a conviction that he lived during the last years of his life. A Chinese proverb states, There are two good men; one of them is dead, the other unborn. Like all men, Moulton was imperfect, but at least he was headed in the right direction as his life went on. That is about the best that any of us can do.