Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 April 1891 — COLLIDED AND CRUSHED. [ARTICLE]

COLLIDED AND CRUSHED.

Frightful R.ailroad Accident on the Lake Shore. Nine Postal Clerks and Railway Employes Caged and Killed. A special from Cleveland on the 19th lays: Train No. 21, the Toledo express rest bound, on the Lake Shore railroad collided with train 14, east bound, known is the fast mail, at Kipton, 0., a small Itation some thirty miles west of Cleveland, this afternoon. Absolutely nothing but small splinters was left of the forwarej mail car, and the engines of both trains were completely demolished. Tho forceoi the collision was such that the cars reared on end as high as the little depot, and that building was shattered and crushed bj the heavy mass falling against it. N« passengers on the fast mail, which carries a parlor coach, were killed or seriousl j Injured, although tho seats were all ton) loose from the bottom ol the coach and passengers and ahairs piled in amass ai the end. The postal clerks did not escape and six of Uncle Sam’s faithful servant! were killed. The two engineers were alse killed.

A boy named Dantzig, son of a sectior boss, sitting on the depot platform, wai struck by the cars and fatally injurei The fireman of No. 21, named Staley, ri Biding at Toledo, was fatally injured anii died to-night. * i The scene at the wreck is indescribable Iron rods, splintered fragments of lumbei and debris of mail are scattered in ail directions. The engineer of No. 14 stud bravely to his post and was found with hit hand on the throttle, blackened and mangled, after the shock. His fireman jumped As near as can be ascertained there was a conflict In orders. A dispatch was first sen! that the trains should meet at Oberlin,seven miles’ ettt. and almost immediatelj afterward it was followed by another announcing Kipton as the meeting place but the latter was too late. No. 21 ha< come almost to a stardstill when the collision occured, while the other train w a running at the fate of forty miles an hour The. track was cleared some two hour: after, and the passengers on train 1: brought to this city. Not-a passengei coach-on the west-hound train left th' track. The bodies of the dead were hor ribly mangled. Limbs were tom off, anl the bodies crushed out qf almost all sem bianco to human beings. The accidcn Is the most frightful that ever happened o» that division of the Lake Shore road, an* the first serious disaster to the fast mail.