Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 November 1905 — PLUNGED IT 1 BLUFF [ARTICLE]

PLUNGED IT 1 BLUFF

Frightful Dash of a Train in a Rock-Walled Cut in Missouri. THIRTEEN DEAD IS THE RESULT Thirty-Three Are Wounded and Near* ly AU Severely. Cars Reduced to Splinters Against the Cliff One Man’s Foot Roasted in the StoveCasualties List. Kansas City, Oet. 31.—Thirteen persons were killed and thirty-three Injured in the wreck of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe passenger train known as the California Express, which while running at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour struck a loose rail, ditching five cars, one mile east of Blue river, which is the eastern limits of this city. The train is a through train running between Chicago and San Francisco. It was running at a higher speed than usual, being ten to fifteen minutes behind its schedule. The Wreck occurred at what railroad men call'the Rock Creek cut. on a curve where jagged rock walls on each side of the track form bluffs almost 100 feet high. Plunged Against the Rocky Bluff, The engine was going so rapidly that it passed the loose rail in safety. The mail car jumped the track and struck the side of the bluff to the right, and the four cars following plowed through it and shot against the high stone wall at the left. The sides of the coaches were torn off by scraping against the rough stone surface, and passengers and trainmen ground against the wall were either killed outrigat or badly hurt. The cars which left the track were a mall car. a baggage and express car, the smoking car, a chair car and a tourist sleeping car. One Foot Roasting in the Stove. The unhurt passengers worked heroically under difficulties, and when the doctors arrived most of the dead and injured had been taken out of the wreckage. In many instances it was necessary to dig under the debris to extricate the unfortunate victims. One man in the smoker bad been pinioned against a hot stove with one foot in the stove, suffering untold agony as his foot was slowly burned by live coals. This was one of many agonizing scenes witnessed by the rescuers. Liats of the Dead. • Following is the list of the dead: J. B Whittemore, Carrollton, Mo.; Roy Stafford, Cleveland. O.; Lee D. Montgomery, Linnaeus, Mo.; James Seymour, Richmond, Mo.; John McGreggor, Santa Fe engineer. Fort Madison, la.; Max Schneider, New York; J. F. Capps (baggageman), Chicago; Carl Emil Tourlund, Brooklyn; Donalo Dipomazio and Rocco JDlpomazio, immigrants from Italy; Luther Richardson, colored waiter, and William Harrison, colored Porter, Chicago; Adrian Peatent, England.