Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 February 1874 — A BROKEN RAIL. [ARTICLE]

A BROKEN RAIL.

Train Wrecked on the Northwestern Railroad—Six Cars Thrown Off an Kmbankmeht and Burned Forty Persons Seriously Injured, hat Wo Live* Lost—Total Destruction ot Their Bmggmge. ■■■* On the morning of the sth of February the Green Bay night express, due in Chicago at 6:45 a. m., came thundering along at the rate of forty miles an hour, and had reached a steep embankment a few rods west of Kish* waukee Creek, between Harvard and Woodstock, Illinois, when the engine struck a broken rail. The locomotive and tender, followed by the mail and express car, passed the point in safety, but the baggage car was thrown from the track, and was followed by a secondclass car, three passenger eoaehes and* Pullman sleeper, and before It was possible for any one of the passengers to realize what had occurred, the whole were tumbling pell-mell down the precipitous steep, and only came to a full stop when they reached the bottom, which was fully thirty feet below the main track. Almost simultaneously with the fall a Are broke out, caused by the overturning of the stove in the baggage car, which lit up the scene and added to the horrors of the calamity. The passengers quickly recovered from the almost paralyzing effect# of the accident, and set about releasing such of their fellow-travel-ers as were yet confined in the debrii, with such success that within ten minutes of the time of the accident every living person was conveyed to a place Of safety. The train and everything inanimate it held, except that portion which safely passed the obstruction, were utterly consumed, and in half an hour there was nothing left but a confused mass of iron wheels and twisted rods. About forty of the passengers were more or lesS injured, some of them seriously, but none it is thought fatally. The baggage wss entirely consumed, the position of the car being such that no effort* could be made to secure it. In the baggage car was the corpse of a lady en route from Appleton, Wls., to Canada, which with everything else was burned to It was a miracle that an accident Involving such extraordinary risk resulted in so comparatively few serious cases. Had the passengers been as numerous as on ordinary occasions, or had the accident happened at an earlier hour in the night, the result could not have failed of being infinitely more disastrous. The loss to the Company is about 940,000, without counting the moneys paid to pssaen- . gers for the destruction of baggage and damages for personal injuries. v : • Thkke Is no place where the real nature of a boy is more readily determined than when he is in charge of a horse. If of an irritable disposition there will be fro. quent outbursts of passion; but if possessed of a gentle nature the affection manifested between himself and the animal will be unmistakable. The horse soon learns to lore a kind master and enjoys his presence, and will acknowledge this pleasure by obedience. The management of horses affords an excellent opportunity to practice patlence,gentleness and humanity; and this practice will be t>f lasting value. m ' - ’ ' -Mr. Thomas, aged ninety-one, who died in Vermont the other day, said that i he’d worried more over buttonless shifts than all his buslnsss affhirs put together.