Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 84, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 July 1906 — A BIG RAILROAD WRECK. [ARTICLE]

A BIG RAILROAD WRECK.

Fast Trara Wrecked Near Fair Oaks, But Very Few Persons Were Injured. The most remarkable railroad wreck that ever occured within or near the limits of Jasper county happenned about six a. m. 'last Friday, about two and a half miles north of Fair Oaks, and three quarters Of a mile north of Pembroke, or the Halleck nursery, and just over the Jasper county line in Newton county. It was the fast northbound Indianapolis to Chicago passenger train which goes through here at 5:41 a. m. It does not stop either here or at Fair Oaks, and was running at a speed of about 60 miles an hour, when the engine suddenly went off the track and the whole train followed it. It is a very level place where the wreck occured, and with sand on. both sides of the track, and no embankments to speak of. The engine plowed along on the ties and in the sand for about eight car lengths, and turned clear over im the operation, coming to a stop on its side. The engineer was still in the cab and crawled out of the wreckage. The’ fireman, whose side of the cab was torn clear off, was naturallyjipilled off, and alighted in some manner, he hardly knows how. The engineer, J Howland, of Indianapolis, escaped with a few bruises and a pretty badly scalded ankle. The fireman, O. L. Graves, of Monon, got one of his hips pretty badly hurt, the bones of the upper part being somewhat broken and splintered. He also had some bruises. Both men

were able to walk, however, and spent a considerable part of the day here. The tender landed close behind the engine, and crossways of the track, and also turned over, land ing on the tracks. The baggage car went the other way, turned over landed crossways and well over to the side of the right of way. The mail car, the combina tion car, the ladies car aud one Bleeper all went off the track into the ditch, but all came to a stop right side up. Two other sleepers never left the tracks and one had its rear trucks still on the tracks. The wrecked engine lays ou its side half buried in the dirtit plowed up, and the full extent of its damage could not be seen until it is dug out and righted up. The dummy or through baggage car is pretty nearly smashed to kindling wood. There was no person in this car at the time. The mail car went clear over the fence near a cornfield, where it stood up perfectly straight, but with its wheels so deep in the soft ground that the car seems not to have any wheels under it Next behind the mail car was the combination smoker and express and local baggage car. That and all the other derailed cars stand on the embankment, and lean over more or less.

Chas. Grow, of our city was in charge of the mail car and he got early to a telephone and sent word to his people here thkt he was not hurt. There was 80 passengers on the train and only three or four were hurt, and their ( injuries were not serious. Dr. I. M. Washburn, the company physician, was notified here, and was taken up by the engine of the north bound local freight which left its train here. When this engine came back it brought the engineer and fireman here. The milk train went up to the scene of the wreck and hooked on to the two sleepers not derailed and took on (11 the passengers, including the injured one, and then ran back to Fair Oaks, and went around by way of the Eastern Illinois to Wheatfield, and over the Three Ito Shelby, Where ft again ■truck the Monon. Dr. Washburn and the'compaoy’s attorney, H. E

Kurrie went into Chicago with the passengers. The track was torn up for about 400 feet. The cause of the wreck was probably a broken rail. The engine was No 356, being one ot the big new ones just put into service. It is very badly damaged but perhaps not beyond repair. All the other passenger trains went around by way of the Michigan City division, cutting cut the towns on this division entirely. The wrecking train went up about 10:30, and it was supposed had about ten hours work cut out for it before the track could be cleared and repaired. H. F. Parker, the photographer, went up on the work train and got several photographs of the wreck. The names of only three injured passengers could be ascertained and they seemed to comprise the entire list. They were J. W. Alderman and Mrs.* Mary Boland, of Chicago, and Bernard Hansfield, of Milwaukee. Their injuries were all slight, and that of Mrs. Boland said to have been mainly a nervous shock.

Wrn Douglas, a fqriper night operator here, with his wife and two children, were on the train, going to lowa. They were not even shaken out of their seats, though Billy said if he had remembered it was Friday and the 13th of the month, he would never have left home today. But he surely was not very badly hoodoo ed. J. B. Workman the well known tax ferrit, was also a passenger who suffered no injury nor hardly inconvenience, in the accident.

MORE ABOUT THE BIG WRECK. The tracks were cleared and rails laid around the wreck north of Fair Oaks by about five o’clock Friday afterubon. and the 6:32 p. m. train went through on time. The milk train was several hours late from having delayed leaving. Chicago longer than was necessary. Quite a number of our citizens visited the scene Friday, some going on the work train and local and others by the automobile route, while all day a large crowd was present' from the surrounding country and Fair Oaks. One man was a direct eye-witness of the wreck. That was Felix Parker, a jvell known former resident of east of town, but who now lives on a farm close to where the wreck oc cured. He was out in his yard at the time and was looking at the flying train, about two or thne hundred yards away, and saw it when it was piled up. He hurried down to the place expecting to find a terrible scene of death and injuries, but instead found a lot of scared but unhurt passengers piling out of the cars. In cases of one or two of the foremost cars the doors were jammed shut and the people were crawling out of the windows. Persons who have carefully looked at the wreck think all that prevented a terrible lose of life was the fact that the engine went off the track to the west while the cars behind it, instead of following the engine, turned to the east and went off on the opposite side from the engine. The blind baggage car is off its trueks and has one of the rails from the track run clear through it and sticking out through its roof. Had anyone been in this car they would certainly have been killed. The mail car is also clear off its trucks and way over in the adjoining field, but still standing upright. The combination smoker and baggage car is also off its trucks and all these cars have their ends smashed in, more or less. A curious fact of all the wrecked cars is that hardly a window was broken in any of them. The track was entirely obliterated for a long distance, and a circumstance which showed the force

in which the track was torn up, was that one flying rail struck a large telegraph pole near the track and cut and broke it entirely off. The pole was fully eightor ten inches through where it was cut off.