A runaway freight train is running wild toward Benbow; the night mail-train is heading in the opposite direction on the same railroad tracks; and The Midnight Limited, carrying 300 men and women passengers, including his sweetheart, is on the parallel track, with all three coming together at the same point. What's a poor dispatcher to do?—Les Adams <[email protected]>

Alan Morse, vagrant and sometime crook, stops off at a lonely wayside railroad station and attempts to rob the safe. He is caught in the act by the stationmaster, Sam Foster, who suffers a paralytic stroke brought on by the excitement. Alan then meets Mary Foster, Sam's daughter, and is overcome by both love and pity for her. Alan, who was once a telegraph operator, stays at the station to help the Fosters, and assumes Sam's duties and responsibilities. Some of Alan's old bandit friends show up, but Alan foils their attempts to rob a gold shipment. The bandits then release the brakes on a line of freight cars left on a steep incline, and Alan is forced to blow up a bridge to prevent the cars from running into the Midnight Limited. Alan is forgiven his previous trespasses, and he and Mary make plans to be married with her father's consent.