Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 January 1907 — SWITCHMAN LEFT THE SWITCH OPEN [ARTICLE]

SWITCHMAN LEFT THE SWITCH OPEN

Ri-sult Is a Rad Smash-Up and a Dead Engineer and Baggageman—Man Missing. Kansas City, Mo., Jan. IG.—Two trainmen are known to be dead, another trainman is believed to be dead, a fourth is probably fatally injured and several passengers were slightly injured in a wreck at Waldron, Mo., twelve miles from Leavenworth, Kan., caused by a head-on collision between Kock Island passenger train No. 26 and a freight train. The dead: Engineer James Meof the freight train; Baggageman Charles dlart, of Kansas City, Engineer King, of the passenger train, of Kansas City, is missing and believed to be burled under the wreckage. The freight train had orders to wait for the passenger at Waldron, but the switchman there had left the switch open and the passenger, running at full speed, crushed into the freight train. Both engines were demolished ami two of the passenger coaches, the baggage ear and smoker were derailed and ditched. The other coaches were badly jarred.