Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 June 1918 — ENGINEER ASLEEP OR DUTY [ARTICLE]

ENGINEER ASLEEP OR DUTY

Causes Worst Railroad Disaster in History of Indiana. Pqrhaps the third greatest railroad - disaster in the ynited States and the worst that was ever known iff Indiana, so far as the number of lives lost is concerned, occurred at Ivanhoe, a little station on the Michigan Central railroad three, miles east of Hammond, at about 4 o'clock Saturday morning, when a westbound troop train carrying twenty-four empty Pullman cars and running about sixty miles per hour, tore into the rear end of the second section of the HagenbeckWallace show train and plowed through four tourist Pullman sleepers filled with actors and employees of the show.

The show had exhibited at Michigan City Friday and was on its' way to Hammond where it was to show Saturday. A broken axle on one of the forward cars of the show train —the train was made up ot some twenty flat cars with the four old Pullmans in the rearcaused the train to stop while the damage was being remedied. Men had been sent back /with fusee flares to warn any approaching train, but the engineer of the troop train at this writing is thought to have been asleep at the throttle, and no attention was paid to the block, which was set against him, the tower flagman nor the flares.

The big engine plowed through three of the Pultoan coaches of the circus train and stopped about midway through the fourth, leaving an indescribable horror in its path. Red hot coals from the engine set fire to the wreckage and many of killed and wounded and several of those pinioned down by the Wreckage were burned to an unrecognizable mass. The alarm was quickly sent to Hammond and Gary and ambulances and fire fighting apparatus were soon on the scene, hut owing to the inability to secure water almost nothing could be done to check the flames, and up .to Mondag evening

62 bodies had been removed from the wreckage, only 24 of which had been identified because of their charred and mangled condition. Several of the wounded will probably die, while several others are still missing, and it is probable that the death list will reach seventy-five. An inquest is being held at Hammond and the engineer, Alonzo K. Sergeant, and the fireman, Gustave Klauss, of the troop train of empty Pullmans, who made their escape uninjured and were in hiding until arrested later, the former at Kalamazoo, Michigan, have been ordered brought to Hammond to testify. A dispatch from Gary Monday said: “The list of injured in hospitals tonight was reduced, fifty-eight here and twenty in Hammond. Only three or four of these are expected to die. The gruesome task of trying to identify charred corpses continued throughout the day with the influx of relatives of victims. Little progress was made. Pitiful scenes were enacted as women and men passed between rows of bodies retaining such identification marks as bracelets, lavlieres and signet ripgs. Circus folks, swathed in bandages and many on crutches, haunted the morgue in search of relatives and many collapsed when the bodies they sought were found.” The Hagenbeck-Wallace show was in a bad wreck at Durand, Michigan, some twenty years ago, but the fatalities were not nearly so great as in this one, H. R. Kurrie of this city was one of the attorneys defending an action for heavy damages brought against the railroad company responsible for the accident. At that time the show was put out of business for several days, but in the present wreck it resumed business Monday, showing at Beloit, Wisconsin. Except for the terrible railroad disaster at Ashtabula', Ohio, nearly fifty years ago, when a high bridge went down, and the still greater disaster near Chattsworth, Illinois, a little more than thirty years ago when a small culvert had been

weakened by fire, this is said to be the w’orst disaster in the history of railroading in the United States.