From the Cortland Standard of Cortland, NY
Tuesday, March 2, 1875

Preposterous Untruth

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We copy the following ridiculous paragraphs from the Dryden Herald :

   "On Friday, as the U.I.& E. train was making its way to DeRuyter, so much snow was encountered that it became necessary to return to Cortland and attach a second engine. The Superintendent had a gang of Irishmen that he desired to take to a certain point on the road, that they might clear the track, and so placed a coal car in front of the forward engine, and loaded his men.

   " It appears that a few miles east of Cortland there is a long and high trestle about 200 feet in length and 65 feet in height. Just before reaching the trestle a huge snow bank was dashed into, and both engineers put on full steam, and away the train went across the trestle at lightning speed.

   " The two rear wheels of the car in which the trackmen were loaded, got off the track, and the bumping and jostling and horrified feelings of those men, expecting every moment to be dashed into the abyss below, can be better imagined than described. It seems miraculous that the car passed over so long a stretch of track on two wheels, and no harm resulted. Hereafter this gang of trackmen will walk across trestles."

   What could have possessed the Herald to publish such a ridiculous untruth as the above, is more than any man can find out. If he had been in the habit of going to sleep just before issuing his paper, we could see how such a preposterous account could have got into his paper. But that a young man of exemplary habits and a common school education, who sees a railroad occasionally, could deliberately write and publish that a coal car placed ahead of an engine to break through snow drifts, is more than ordinary intelligence can understand.

   The truth is that the snow-plow was placed ahead, as it should have been, then the caboose for the shovelers, then a second engine and a passenger car. The master mechanic and his assistant were alone upon the snow-plow, guiding and managing it. At the place mentioned, two wheels of the snow-plow did go off the track - nothing very wonderful - and the blade of the plow simply dropped flat upon the rails, and in this way the trestle was passed, as it was not safe to stop on it.

   Everything was done with judgment and discretion and just as it should have been done. That the Superintendent of this road, who has kept his trains running more regularly with less accidents than any road in the State where as much snow and drifts are found as here, should do such a foolish and disgraceful thing as to put a parcel of men into a coal car ahead of a train, and rush them into snow banks, would never have entered the head of any man in his senses - and we ask the Herald to wake up and let us know what it means by such publications? Somebody has grossly imposed upon it.