Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1896 — OVER FORTY DEAD. [ARTICLE]

OVER FORTY DEAD.

FLYING EXPRESS CUTS EXCURSION TRAIN IN TWO. Awfol Disaster Occnia at a Crossing Near Jersey City—Heading Kipress Catches a West Jersey lixctiraici} Broadside—Sixty Are Injured. Scores Are Killed. A flying express train on the Reading and Atlantic City Railroad crashed into a West Jersey Railroad excursion train at the crossing of th«Ttwd roads Thursday night. At least Torty people were killed outright and about sixty injured. Of the killed twelve were women, twentyfour men and fonr children. The crash was the most disastrous in the history of eastern railroad traffic. The accident was the result of a collision between the 5:40 p. tn. express train from Philadelphia over the Reading and Atlantic City Railroad and an excursion of Red Men from Bridgeton, N. J„ aaid vicinity, returning from Atlantic City, over the West Jersey Railroad, at the crossing of the two roads a short distance out of Atlantic City. At the second signal tower the tracks of the two roads cross diagonally. The Reading train, was given the signal, but it either failod to work or the speed of the express was too great to be checked in time. It caught the excursion train broadside and plowed through it, literally cleaving it in twain. The engine of the Reading train was shattered J to pieces. Every car was jammed to its fullest capacity. As soon as the news reached Atlantic City the utmost consternation prevailed. Relief trains were dispatched to the scene, loaded with cots and bearing staffs of surgeons. As fast as the bodies were recovered they were carried into the local hospitals and undertakers’ shops. A general fire alarm was sounded, and the department promptly responded and aided in the work of digging for the victims. The worst fears ,were realized as ,the vigorous work of the relief gangs revealed the awful extent of the disaster. TJm( first Reading relief train bore into the ■ city twenty-seven mangled corpses, men, women and children. The next train, not an hour later, carried fifteen of the maimed and wounded, and two of these died soon after reaching the city. Hospitals Overtaxed. As train after train was hurried to the scene of the wreck and came back with its ghastly load the sanitarium which does duty as the city hospital quickly found its capacity overtaxed. Meanwuile others of the dead and injured were being carried to the private hospital at Ocean and Pacific avenues. Edward Farr, engineer of the Reading train, was killed outright, as was another road man who rode on the engine with him. This man saw the collision celling and leaped from the cab an instant before the crash. Almost at the same instant the engine cut its way through and caught him directly in its path. His body and that of Farr were found under a heap of debris, but the engineer lay in what remained of the cab and his right hand sti!L grasped the throttle. He had been faithful unto death and met it at his post. The fireman on the trtvin had leaped a few seconds before and escaped with trilling injuries. Not Known Who Is to Blame. The excursion train was made up of fifteen cars, the foremost of wbiek was a baggage car. This and the next two coaches caught the full fqgee of the; crash and were utterly demolished. What remained of the third car was tumbled into a ditch at the roadside. The responsibility for the accident cannot now be fixed. Charles C. Rynick, of Bridgeton, who was in the excursion party, was in one of the rear cars. “When vJ'e saw that a collision was unavoidable,” he said, "the scene in our ear was terrific. Women faiuted and men rushed in mad panic for the door. But it came almost before we had time to think. One car was cut right in two and the lower portion of it lilted bodily" from the track and tumbled over. The roof of one of the cars fell in a mass and everybody in that car was buried under it. It simply dropped on top of the people. 1 don’t know who is to blame. When we were about two miles out from Atlanfic City, If. J., we came to a stop out in the meadows and stayed there for several minutes, but Ido not know why. I think there must have been fully eighty or 100 killed. The only person with me was my 6-year-old son, and he was not hurt.” Fourteen of she injured are reported to hifve died at the sanitarium. Superintendent I. N. Swigard. of the Philadelphia and Reading Company, places the number of dead at thirty-seven and the injured at about the same number. William Thnrlow, the operator at the block toW’fcr situated at the crossing, has been placed under arrest by order of the coroner. Scene at the Fatal Place. An Associated Press reporter was on one of the first relief trains sent out by the Pennsylvania Railroad. The train was in charge of a number of railroad officials and Prosecutor Perry of Atlantic County. It drew up in the darkness a few feet this side of the fatal point. Staggering in nnd out of ditches and stnmbling over masses of broken timber, with only a few lanterns, the rescue gang set bravely to work. Axes and shovels were piled with the greatest vigor, and almost at every half a dozen strokes a mangled form was brought up and laid tenderly on the pallets. It was a terrible task, and the strongest of men turned aside, faint from the revelations of the workers. A heap of blood-stained timbers, turned aside by one of the rescuers, brought to sight a woman’s arm. It had been wrenched off at the shoulder. Not five minutes later a chance blow from «. pick revealed a human heart.