Ah, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, the trains. They were the devils and the angels that September day in 1894, weren’t they? Sure as my name’s McFly, I’ll tell you the tale of the Great Hinckley Fire, and how those iron beasts brought both hellfire and salvation to the good folk of Minnesota.
It was a summer so dry you’d think the clouds had forgotten how to cry. The forests around Hinckley were standing there, all innocence, not knowing they were nothing but kindling waiting for a spark. And who brought that spark? The trains, of course, those great huffing, puffing monsters of progress.
They came screaming through the woods, spitting embers like an angry Catholic priest spits sermons on a Sunday. Little fires, they were at first, nothing to worry about, said the people. Ah, but if only they knew.
The wind came next, as if God Himself was blowing on the embers, and before you could say “Holy Mother of Mercy,” the whole world was ablaze. The flames danced higher than the trees, higher than the church steeples, higher than hope itself.
Now, you’d think the story ends there, with the trains having doomed the poor souls of Hinckley and the surrounding towns. But no, for in this tale, the villain becomes the hero, like in those penny dreadfuls my da used to read.
Two trains, two blessed trains, came to the rescue. They were like Noah’s Ark on wheels, those trains were. The engineers, brave men with faces black as coal and hearts pure as gold, they drove those trains through the inferno. The flames licked at the wheels, the smoke choked the engines, but still they pushed on.
Hundreds piled onto those trains, men, women, and children, all clinging to each other and to life itself. As the fire roared behind them, consuming everything in its path, those trains carried their precious cargo to safety.
But och, for all the lives saved, many were lost. The fire was greedy, you see, and it took its toll. They say over four hundred souls perished that day, though some whisper the number was far higher. In the end, it was the rain that finally doused the flames, as if the angels themselves had finally taken pity and wept for Hinckley.
And so, there you have it. The trains, the bringers of destruction and deliverance. They say that to this day, if you stand in the forests around Hinckley on a quiet night, you can still hear the whistle of those trains, a mournful sound that reminds us of the day when fire ruled the earth and iron horses raced against the flames.
Aye, it’s a strange world, where the thing that nearly kills you becomes the thing that saves you. But isn’t that just the way of it? Like my ma Lorraine always said, “Marty, life’s full of fire, but there’s always a train if you’re brave enough to climb aboard.”