The Narrow Escape of the Portland Express
When armed bandits flagged down a Northern Pacific passenger train near Roy, the engineer made a split-second decision to keep the throttle open.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Mounted bandits made a futile attempt to hold up Northern Pacific passenger train No. 4, from Portland, at Roy this morning. The station is 21 miles south of Tacoma, at the edge of the prairie which stretches for miles in a southern direction. One of the bandits flagged the train with a light. He did not exhibit it, however, until the train was so near that the engineer could not stop. He slackened the speed of the engine and noted that the men who were trying to stop the train were armed with rifles. He could not stop as he passed them, and they called to him to do so, at the same time leveling their rifles. When the train had passed and the engineer saw that an attempt to hold up the train had been made, he again put on all steam and arrived in Tacoma a short time later. Seeing that their attempt was foiled, the bandits quickly mounted their horses and rode away. Near Roy is a pine grove, and it is supposed that the would-be train robbers took advantage of this to get away. The engineer claims to have seen only one clearly, and would probably recognize that fellow if he should see him again. When the train arrived in Tacoma, Sheriff Denholm was notified. This afternoon, with Special Agent Cummings of the Northern Pacific and the engineer of the train, he left for the scene of the attempted hold-up.
“He could not stop as he passed them and they called to him to do so, at the same time leveling their rifles.”
The town of Roy remains a quiet hub south of Tacoma, but the dramatic era of train robberies—a common peril for early 20th-century rail travel—has long since passed into local legend. The 'prairie which stretches for miles' is now largely comprised of the Joint Base Lewis-McChord training grounds.
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