Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 77, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 May 1907 — FIENDISH WRECK PLOT. [ARTICLE]

FIENDISH WRECK PLOT.

Coast Line Limited Hurled from Trestle Near Los Angeles. A fiendish train-wrecking plot was perpetrated near Los Angeles, Cal., that resulted in the death of one man and the Injury of twenty-two persons. Train No. 20, one of the Southern Pacific’s coast line flyers, Tuesday night was hurled from the tracks on a trestle at West Glendale by the deliberate work of murderous train wreckers. Seven cars plunged off the trestle, while the train was making forty miles an hour, falling sixteen feet to the bottom of a gulch. In accomplishing the wreck of the train, which was the “Coast Line Limited,” a devilish ingenuity was exercised. At a point on a trestle over the Arroyo Seco the fishplates and bolts of two connecting rails on the south-bound track had been removed, and in the apertures whence the bolts were taken strands of heavy wire were fastened at the end of each rail. From the appearance of the track after the wreck it was evident that some person hidden on a hillside close to the trestle 'had pulled the wire as the train approached and spread the rails outwhrd toward the edge of the trestle. The train, three hours late, was traveling at a rate of between thirtyfive and forty miles an hour. The engine wheels were first to leave the rails and the engine took to the ties, traveling nearly 100 yards before it was brought to a standstill. [illegible] the buffet, mail and baggage cars plunged, over the edge of the trestle, falling a distance of sixteen feet. The buffet car, the express car, and one of the Pullmans were turned upside down and the others landed on their sides. All were badly crushed and splintered.