Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 October 1891 — CRASHED INTO A WORK-TRAIN. [ARTICLE]

CRASHED INTO A WORK-TRAIN.

Blunder of a Telegraph Operator Results in the Death of Fifteen Passengers and Thirty Injur ed Tn Sprain. r A terrible wreck occurred on the Pittsburg & Western road at McKim siding, Penn., a station a short distance on the other side of Zelenople, Butler county, on the 24th. At this point a work-train with a force of fifty men was engaged in putting down a new track. About 8 o’clock in the morning the work train got out of the way of a freight train going west, but the crew did not know that a second section of the same number was following five minutes later. The work train again pulled out on the main track and when the men Were engaged hi throwing off dirt the second section struck the work train with great force. Cars were piled up in a shapeless mass. The engines were a mass of broken iron and wood, and the hot steam and boiling water poured over tho unfortunate ones caught in the jam.. For a moment after the collision there was a silence. Then the air was broken by the shrieks of the dying, making the scene so terrible that one of the trainmen who had escaped injury fainted with horror. Tho trainmen and laborers who were not injured began at once, to assist those imprisoned in the debris. Several arms and legs were found in different places, and the head of an Italian was picked up away from the body. The engineer. John Houghton, who had bravely done his best, to stop his engine attached to the freight train, was found wedged in between the broken and' shapeless iron. By 11 o’clock the bodies of eight Italian laborers had been taken from the wreck, and with the killing of En'neer Houghton this swells the number to nine. There were at least twenty men injured, several of whom cannot recover. All the bodies were terribly mangled and disfigured. Assistance was telegraped for at Zelionople and in a short time physicians and citizens were at the scene rendering all the assistance to their power. Theexact cause of the disaster cannot be learned, but it is said that a mistake was made by the trainmen, who did not correctly Interpret the signal. .. ■ . ■ ;..