Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 May 1884 — ROASTED TO DEATH. [ARTICLE]

ROASTED TO DEATH.

Terrible Accident on a Pennsylvania Railroad— Fifteen Live* Sacrificed. I* fPittsburgh Telegram.] A west-bound freight oolllded with the graveltrain on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad one mile east of Conneilsvllle. A number of laborers were killed and many were injured. The scene of the disaster is on a sharp onrve jnst west of the Speer Sand Works. Tbe frelghttsatn was heavily laden with ore. The graveltrain consisted of six cars. It contained about fifty men from tbe Pittsburgh Southern Road, and they were on their way to Ohio Pyle Falls to work on the grading for a double track on the east end of this division. Both train* were going at a high rate of speed and name together with a terrible crash, The engines re-< malned on the track and telescoped each other into the smokestacks, but the heavy tenders jumped into the air and Tell; the freight tender npon its engine, and the gravel train tender back npon the first car in tbe rear of it. Here was the rodne of death. Six men were killed outright ft) this oar, and fonr,others fastened ,dowp by th* broken timbers were roasted to deaths the car catching fire from the overturned stove and burning up before the stupefied survivors could comprehend the awfnl situation of their shrieking companions. Three men escaped from the oar, and one of them said that the fire could havQ been extinguished had water been applied in time. Tne wreck itself was a gbaptly sight At the side of the car that was burned conld be seen —pitting amid the glowing embers, twisted iron rods, and dead ashes -three grinning skeletons, one sitting bolt upright, apparently peering into the fiames that had smothered out his life as well as those of his companions. When the wreck was cleared away it was discovered that twelve persons had been injured and fourteen more Were dead or missing. The bodies of ten of the dead have been recovered. The others are supposed to have been completely consumed. Of those recovered only two conld be positively Identified. The others were so burned as to be shapeless. One of the injured died on his way to the hospital, making fifteen deaths.