Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 54, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 October 1911 — BIG RAILROAD WRECK AT DELPHI [ARTICLE]

BIG RAILROAD WRECK AT DELPHI

Through Freight on the Wabash Crashes IntoJlevator CAUSED BY A BROKEN RAIL And Eighteen Cars of Freight Are Scattered Over the Ruins, Causing $150,000 Loss. — Delphi, Ind., Oct. B.—Derailed by the breaking of a switch rail a heavily loaded west-bound Wabash freight plunged into the grain elevator owned by Donlin & Ryan this morning, tearing it from its foundations and totally de m olishing it and its contents. The loss to the railroad and the elevator men is estimated at $150,000. ' •The train was in charge of Conductor Tullis, with Engineer Dawson at the throttle. Both men, with the fireman, were imprisoned in the cab of the engine beneath a pile of wreckage, but escaped uninjured. The train was going 40 miles an hour when a rail in the switch snapped under its weight and precipitated the 50 loaded cars upon the elevator: Eighteen cars loaded to the j capacity were telescoped upon | the building, piling the debris of automobiles, pianos, farm machinery, wagons, furniture, &c., fully 40 feet high and 100yards on either side of the | track. Two wrecking crews, one _Monon and one Wabash, were summoned and by 3 o’clock this afternoon had removed the wreckage and rebuilt the track, which was torn up for a hundred yards. Two car loads of Flanders and E. M. F. automobijes were smashed into kindling wood.