Transfer To Passenger Trains
Jones soon got his chance for a regular passenger run. In February 1900, he was transferred from Jackson, Tennessee, to Memphis, Tennessee, for the passenger run between Memphis and Canton, Mississippi. This was one link of a four train run between Chicago, Illinois, and New Orleans, Louisiana, the so-called "cannonball" passenger run. "Cannonball" was a contemporary term applied to fast mail and fast passenger trains of those days, but it was actually a generic term, much like we would use the word "rocket" today. This run offered the fastest schedules in the history of American railroading. Some veteran engineers doubted the times could be met and some quit.
Engineer Willard W. "Bill" Hatfield had transferred from Memphis back to a run out of Water Valley thus opening up trains No. 2 (north) and No. 3 (south) to another engineer. It meant moving his family to Memphis and separation from his close friend John Wesley McKinnie and No. 638 as well, but Jones saw the move as a good one, and had bid for and got the job. Jones would drive Hatfield's Engine No. 384 until the night of his fateful last ride on Engine No. 382.
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—Willa Cather (1876–1947)