I Found a 15-Year-Old Boy Hiding in the Nose of My Locomotive, 200 Miles From Anywhere in the Rocky Mountains. He Said If I Stopped the Train, He’d Jump

The conductor opened the nose door of the locomotive and said a word I won’t repeat.

“Tom. There’s a kid in here.”

We were twenty miles west of Denver, climbing toward the Moffat Tunnel, at forty miles an hour, pulling a hundred and twelve cars of coal and a long dark night.

I’m Tom Wexler. I’m 48, divorced, and I’ve been a locomotive engineer for the railroad for twenty-three years. Denver to Salt Lake, mostly. Through the Rockies. Through canyons and tunnels where there are no roads, no towns and no cell signal.

The nose of a locomotive has a tiny compartment in front of the cab. A toilet, a cabinet, a space about the size of a closet.

A boy was curled up in it.

Fifteen, maybe. Skinny. Hoodie, jeans, a backpack held tight against his chest. A black eye, purple and yellow, a few days old.

He looked up at us like a cornered animal.

“I’m not going back,” he said.

“Back where, son?”

“Anywhere.”

I picked up the radio to call the dispatcher. That’s the rule. Trespasser on the train, you stop and report.

The boy saw me reach for the radio.

He stood up. Fast. He pushed the outside door of the nose compartment open, the one that leads to the front walkway of the locomotive, and the cold mountain wind came roaring in.

He put one foot on the walkway.

Below him, the track was flying by at forty miles an hour. On the right, a drop of four hundred feet into South Boulder Canyon.

“If you stop this train,” he said, “I’ll jump.”

I put the radio down.