Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 November 1903 — SROKEN ORDER KILLS 81. [ARTICLE]

SROKEN ORDER KILLS 81.

Big Fonr Train Collision Hear Peoria Costs Death end Injam. Thirty-one men were jdl’ed end et least fifteen Injured In a lead-end collision between a west-bound freight end e work train on the Big Four Railroad between Mackinaw and Tremont, 111., at 2:45 o’clock Thursday afternoon. The bodies of twenty-six victims were taken from the debris, which was piled thirty feet high on the tracks. Conductor J. W. Judge, of the freight, violated rales, it Is charged, and caused the collision. All the dead and most of the injured were members of the work train’s force, the crews on both engines jumping in time to save their lives. The collision occurred In a deep cut at the beginning of a sharp curve, neither train being visible to the crew of the other until they were within fifty feet The engineers set the brakes, sounded the whistles and then leaped from their cabs. A second after the collision the boiler of the work train exploded, throwing heavy iron ban and splinters of wood 200 feet. Conductor Judge, of Indianapolis, who had charge of the freight train, received orders at Urbana to wait at Mackinaw for the work train, which waa dna there at 2:40 p. m. Instead of doing this ha felled to stop. The engineer of the work train, George Becker, had received orders to pass the freight at Mackinaw and waa on the way to that station. The work train was perhaps five minutes late and waa running at full speed to make up time. When about two milea from Minert the crash came. The collision was witnessed by Rnssell Noonan, a farmer’s boy of 14, who from a near-by house telephoned to Tremont A special train with four physicians was made np In a few minutes aud in less than half nn hour waa on the scene. At the same time another train arrived from Pekin bearing Superintendent C. H. Barnnrd, of the Big Four, and three physicians. The second train bore a lot of Turkish rugs and these were used to carry out the mangled corpses. One of the last bodies recovered was that of William BaHey, of Mackinaw, who had been thrust thirty feet into the air and held by two steel mils which had been pushed up between the engine and the tender of the work train. The workmen had been laying steel rails along the track.