People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 December 1894 — BRAKES WERE FAULTY. [ARTICLE]

BRAKES WERE FAULTY.

They Fail to Hold a Cable Train on a Steep Incline. j A Collision in a Tunnel tinder the Chicago River—Two Men Are Killed and • Number of Passengers Badly Hurt. Chicago, Dec. 12. —West side cable trains in collision in the Washington street tunnel shortly after 6 o’clock Tuesday . night caused the worst wreck and disas*er that has happened on the eet car lines of the city outsiue of the grade crossing locomotive horrors. A dozen passengers among the hundreds who crowded the two trains were seriously injured, two of them fatally, and others whose names could not be learned on account of their hurried departure from the scene, were slightly hurt by flying glass and splintered wood. Following is the list of 1 the badly injured: Morris Smith, both legs broken and internally injured, died at the hospital; George Noonan, injured internally, knee punctured, • will die, taken to county hospital: Mrs. Rolss, cut by glass and wood, became demented by fright and shock, removed to county hospital; . George Newman, legs broken, hand cut; Wm. Joice, leg broken, fingers crushed; Mrs. Vietnam head injured; John Dononue. legs broken and internal injuries, afterwards died; Wil- ’ ham Mulrooney, chin cut open; James Mc- ; Ginty, leg broken. i A Milwaukee avenue grip car with two trailers descended the sharp grade of the tunnel going west with nearly ' 250 homeward-bound West-siders close behind a Madison street train made up of a grip and two trailers. When half way down the incline the Milwaukee avenue grip man found his brakes refused to hold to the cable and in spite of sand thrown on the track the train rushed down with terrifying velocity towards the train in front At the bottom of the grade came the crash of the collision, leaving only a few seconds’ grace from the time of warning for those passengers who were nearest the outside to jump on the clear track. The victims were penned in the two trailers of the Madison street train, which were shattered to splinters. Frantic screams of pain and terror filled the air. Fire added to the horror of the panic, and many were hurt in the frantic scramble to escape from the wrecked cars. The fire came from the stove in the first trailer, but no one was injured in that way. Doors, windows, wooden blinds and the heavy metal parts of the cars were smashed and hurled in all directions. The shattered seats crushed against the limbs of the unfortunates, and the platforms of the two trailers at both ends were forced into the struggling, wounded mass of human beings. Several of the victims had to be extricated from the debris and Smith, , who had his legs broken, was pulled over the front end of the first trailer just in time to escape being burned by the coal from the l battered stove. A few of the passen- [ gers in the first Milwaukee avenue 1 trailer were hurt and the machinery I of both grips, besides parts of other j cars were smashed by the terrible , compact. Traffic was delayed several hours, and intense excitement prei vailed after the collision.