Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 November 1901 — WRECK ON THE GREAT WESTERN [ARTICLE]

WRECK ON THE GREAT WESTERN

One Passenger Is Killel and Six Are Serious'y Injured. • The “Minneapolis Flyer” of the Chicago Great Western Railway, three hours late, crashed into the rear end of the De Kalb milk train near Bt. Charles, 111., killed one passenger, badly injured six others and destroyed the last car of the local. The rear coach of the wrecked train was literally tossed into the air by the oncoming flyer. It fell iu a tangled mass upon the top of the engine of the fast train and at once took fire. The switch at the west end of the siding should have been thrown to let the flyer go past. But the rushing engine was crashing into the rear of the slowly moving milk train almost before the fast train’s fireman and engineer saw what hn<l happened. They leaped simultaneously into the ditch, and when they regained their feet the engine was piled with a tangle of twisted steel and splin tered wood, flames were bursting from the wreckage, and the few passengers of the wrecked local, injured and terrified, lying unconscious or suffering by the roadside.