Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 September 1890 — DOWN AN EMBANKMENT [ARTICLE]

DOWN AN EMBANKMENT

Terrible Aecldentto a Passenger Train the Reading Railway. A wreck occurred on the Reading railroad, seventeen miles above Reading, Pa., about 6:45 Friday night. If everything is borne out by subsequent developments, it is the worst wreck that has ever occurred in that section, in the history of the Reading Railroad Coffipany. The train which met with the disaster left Reading at 6:05 o’clock, ten minutes late. It is known as the Pottsville express, and was running at the rate of at least thirty-eight or forty miles an hour. It had on board possibly 125 to 150 passengers, and it consisted of the engine, tender, mail and express cars, and three passenger coaches. Above Shoemakersville there is a curve where the railroad is about eighteen to twenty feet higher than the Schuylkill river. Here, shortly before 6 o'clock, a freight train ran into a coal train, throwing several cars of the -latter on the opposite track, and before the train hands had time to get back to warn an approaching train of the danger the Pottsville express came around the curve and ran into the wrecked coal cars on its track. The engine went down the embankment followed by the entire train with its human freight. The scene vas one of great horror. The cries of the imprisoned passengers were heartrending. It was ascene never to be forgotten by those who participated and survived. Some of the passengers managed to crawl out of their prison and arouse the neighborhood. Word was telegraphed to Reading and help summoned. Physicians and surgeons and a force of three hundred workmen were taken to the spot by the company, and with the aid of a traveling electric-light ■plantrSe wort b? 1 "clearing away the” wreck was at once proceeded with. Work was slow, and the dead and dying were taken out with great difficulty At 2 o’clock a. m., Saturday, the situation wan as follows : Three hundred men were still at work, but they were makingslow progress. Fifteen bodies had been taken out. None of the bodies have been takenfioniJthe scene of, disaster. John McDonough, John Noll and William John son. Shenandoah, badly hurt, and John Strausse, Schuylkill Haven, are among the latest injured reported. It is still be lieved that twenty or more are underneath the wreck. The number of killed will reach forty it is believed. Twenty-one persons were killed and fifty injured in Friday night’s accident on the Reading railway. - -