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Can anyone confirm the train incident 
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Joined: Thu May 26, 2011 7:12 pm
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Post Can anyone confirm the train incident
... in which a "tramp" and a couple were killed by a train while trying to free a woman whose shoe was trapped in the switch. Heinlein refers to it as an example of heroism; a friend of mine in Kansas City has been searching the newspapers for the year Heinlein offers and can find no record of it. Any other clues?
:?:


Sun May 29, 2011 10:36 am
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Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2011 9:53 am
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Post Re: Can anyone confirm the train incident
I believe Robert Patterson wrote about it in the biography.


Sun May 29, 2011 5:30 pm
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Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2008 12:40 pm
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Post Re: Can anyone confirm the train incident
Some Kansas City newspapers have been digitized at Geneaologybank.com. I've gone through them with every search term I can think of and haven't found any reference to the tramp story. That may just mean that it wasn't reported, though, or the OCR was off on that story, or any of a dozen other reasons.


Sun May 29, 2011 7:34 pm
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Heinlein Nexus
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Post Re: Can anyone confirm the train incident
You gotta typo above that leads to a deadend site. See instead http://www.genealogybank.com/gbnk/newsp ... SA/Kansas/ .


Sun May 29, 2011 8:37 pm
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Mon May 30, 2011 7:53 pm
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Heinlein Nexus
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Post Re: Can anyone confirm the train incident
I tried searching too, came up snake eyes. Hmm.


Mon May 30, 2011 8:59 pm
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Post Re: Can anyone confirm the train incident
The story may be apocryphal, but it sounds like one of those incidents that often happen to young people, that influence them for life. I had one such incident occur when I was about six, and I remember it and reflect on it to this day - not a heroic death but a vision of a deity in a rainstorm (weird, I know) outside the Grand Canyon - and I know intellectually that it probably didn't really happen, but it still feels real fifty years later and helps to keep me believing in a higher power despite my doubts.

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Tue May 31, 2011 7:40 am
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