Oh no

[highlyeccentric]

Asyouknowbob, I am a SUCKER for disaster logistics and Mediocre Acts of Sacrifice.

I have just learned (courtesy of The Longest Johns' song Fire and Flame) about Patrick Vince Coleman, a railwayman who died in the Halifax Explosion of 1917 (also new news to me) because, as he and his colleagues fled the harbour railway yards in expectation of the blast from the wharves, he realised there was an inbound passenger train approaching on the other side of the city. So he bolted back in to the railway yards and spent his last minutes frantically telegraphing 'stop the train, ammo ship at pier six will explode, goodbye boys' or words to that effect. (He did leave the telegraph station, but too late)

I am especially a sucker for disaster logistics stories when I'm on a deadline. Sigh. Back to the proofreading.

Comments

[monksandbones]

Wow, okay, obviously I have not posted/retweeted enough links about this to date! Here's a thread from this year talking about Boston's Christmas tree from Nova Scotia. The Vince Coleman Heritage Minute is embedded in the thread, but also here!

However, I had not yet encountered this song in my Longest Johns youtube spirals, which I am about to remedy!

Edited to add: Though I shouldn't be surprised the Longest Johns have written a song about it, because they are remarkably heavy on Canadian Content (see also: The Last Bristolian Pirate/The Last Saskatchewan Pirate, them singing Northwest Passage and other Stan Rogers standards, etc)!

[highlyeccentric]

According to Wikipedia the Vince Coleman Heritage Minute is wrong on key particulars, such as the number of people on the train!