Traumatic Train Vengence
To recognize a truly despicable character one must first have access to a railway track, rope, or strong guffer tape, and one train.
It matters not how fast the train is traveling, what matters is the train is moving in the right direction. In movies, there is nothing eviler than an onrushing train about to take apart its helpless victim, usually female, tied to the tracks.
How do you get yourself into such a pickle? For an evil crime as bad as this, there is surprisingly very little train-related violence. In 1874, a Frenchman by the name of Gardner was recorded as the very first.
Gardner had failed mathematics and barely spoke English. In the Americas, he sought his fortune. Coming from a long line of Frenchman not named Gardner, the ill-suited peasant with the forged identity made history. On August 31st, The New York Times reported his death.
Gardner was a mild-mannered entrepreneur. He traveled across the midwest searching for a fortune that never quite arrived. Gardner longed to be the first in something.
He was the first to reach San Fran when the Gold Rush had ended. He was the first to discover Oklahoma long after millions had called it home. And Gardner was to become the first for an achievement nobody wanted.
Gardner, no second name, had been robbed one fateful night.
Fearing the advent of security cameras or at least one witness sympathetic to the French, the robbers decided to eradicate this Gardner in the most absurd manner possible. It was a plan so convoluted that it would take days for a passing train to take Gardner's life.
Naturally, the plan failed. You can’t tie a man to a railroad line and expect the trains to run on time. Gardner managed to loosen all but one of the ropes as the train approached, an hour late to its destination. In that hour, Gardner made plans for his funeral. It would be an open casket and he would be decked in a twee suit and beret. He quite liked the English country style. His oldest friend, Jacques would play fiddle, and everybody would cry. Gardner had come to terms with his imminent death.
He had failed to properly untie his leg. The one appendage he couldn’t untie was promptly squished below the knee by the wheels of the slow-moving locomotive. Wheel after wheel slowly rolled over the mangled leg.
His screams were heard for miles.
When the train finally stopped, the conductor promptly threw up before enquiring about Gardner's health. Gardner spluttered and wheezed as he slowly lay dying, relaying in broken English a sordid tale of robbery and unrequited sadistic pleasure. Thus Gardner became the first man to be tied to a train track and survive as well as the first man to be tied to a train track and die. Viva la France.
Sexist to say, but rescuing a man tied to a railway track doesn’t seem as gallant as rescuing a woman. Nor as wicked. Children, however, that’s another level of evil.
In 1881, A thirteen-year-old boy was kidnapped and tied to a track. One presumes it was for the ransom. Had the villains been watching too many movies at that point? A man with a mustache stands over the heroine as a fast train approaches. Must twirl mustache he thinks sadistically to himself. No better villainous trope than that. The old-fashioned tour-de-force for evil.
A fraternity in 1905 tied a freshman unwilling to pledge allegiance, to a track. The ultimate prank they told each other. What a wheeze they said as the boy struggled to come to terms with his mortality. Drunk preppie mate preferred to see more bottom and suggested they tie him naked. “Who has time for that?” replied the ringleader.
Apparently they had, as they left him alone to continue their debauched drinking back at the fraternity house. Only in the morning did some wag remember the freshman and his freshly faced hell.
The fraternity initiation was scrapped for a more robust routine involving feathers and nudity.
How can a crime that almost never happens become THE crime of the (19th) century?
And why hasn’t anyone tied a woman to the tracks?
The other cases both feature males. An (unwanted) ten year-year-old boy in 1906 and a man ten years later, both survived their fate of deathly train crushing.
One can only conclude that steam trains were no good at killing. Perhaps it was finding a utility store that sold strong enough rope that killed the dream. Perhaps it was a lack of a mustache that made it all so unsatisfactory. If you take the effort to tie someone to a track, then the least you can do is twirl your ‘tache. A maniacal laugh is also a prerequisite to torturing women with locomotive death.
A henchman, unnamed, from Queens, declared he didn’t get his jollies annihilating people with a slow train death. He preferred a quick pistol-whipping or an axe. The man lacked facial hair AND an evil laugh.
All the above is true except for the made-up parts.