Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 93, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 July 1907 — THIRTY PERSONS DIE [ARTICLE]

THIRTY PERSONS DIE

KILLED IN WRECK ON PERE MARQUETTE RAILWAY. — , . 1 ' 1 - ' 5 1 Passenger nnd Freight Trains Crash Together Near Salem, Mich.— Seventy Are Injured Accident Dne to Blonder of Freight Crew. Thirty people are dead and more titan seventy .njured, many of them seriously, as the result of a head-end collision Saturday morning between Salem and Plymouth, Mich., when a Pore Marquette excursion train bound from lonia to Detroit crashed into a west bound freight in a eut located at a sharp curve about a mile east of Salem. The passenger train of eleven cars, carrying the Pore Marquette shop employesnf their families — 1000 In all—to the Michigan metropolis for their annual excursion was running at high speed—said to have been fifty miles an hour—down a steep grade. It struck the lighter locomotive of the freight train with such terrific force as to turn the freight engine completely around. The wrecked locomotives a few hours later lay side by side, both headed eastward. Only a few of the freight train’s cars were smashed, and it was only a few’ hours’ work to remove all traees oUtliem from~UuL scone. -7

Coaches Are Shattered. Behind the two wrecked locomotives six cars of the passenger train lay piled In a' hopeless wreck. Four of the passenger coaches remained on the track undamaged and were used to convey the dead and injured to lonia. One conch was undamaged, with only Its forward truck off the rails. These were the rear five care. The two coaches next ahead of these were telescoped. One of these was the smoker, where most-of the victims-were riding.— The next car forward stood almost on end after the wreck, its forward end resting on the roadbed and the rear end high in the air upon the two telescoped coaches that had been following it. Two coaches were thrown crosswise of the track and lay suspended from bank to bank of the cut high above the rails. Of the baggage car not enough re mained to show where it had been tossed. Portions of the baggage car and of the locomotive tenders and freight cars were piled in an indescribable mass of debris. Enjytne Crew Jnmps) One Dies. The freight train was moving slowly up the grade in the cut when the excursion flyer bore down on it. L. B Alvord, engineer of the passenger, saw the crash was inevitable, and after setting the air brake jumped, with his fireman, Knowles. Alvord escaped se rious injury, but Knowles died of his hurts. After the first frenzy of terror subsided the uninjured passengers begat: to give succor to those who were hurl and remove the bodies of the dead which were seen on all sides, pinned down in the debris. Fear that the wreckage might take fire lent speed to their efforts. - Bodies Taken, from Wreckage. The dead were placed in a row alongside the track, and the injured were made as comfortable as possibli until the arrival of wrecking trains from Saginaw, Detroit, and Grand Rap ids made it possible to send them tc lonia and Detroit The twenty-eight bodies first taken from the wreck were sent to lonia and the Injured were placed on two trains one of which deaded for Detroit, and the other for lonia. There were about thirty-five injured people on each train Later in the day the body of Ed Corwan, the head brakeman of the passenger train, was taken out of the wreck. Fireman Knowles died In the relief train en route to Detroit, making tha list of dead thirty, with a possibility that several of the injured may die. Freight Crow It In mod j Mlatlnf, Responsibility Is put squarely on to the crew of the freight train by officials of the mad. One of them, who arrived at the scene of the wreck soon after the accident, took from the crew of the freight the orders under which it w-aa running. They clearly showed the position of the passenger excursion train and that the freight had encroached on the other train’s running time. The special train was due at Salem at 9:10 a. m. and at Plymouth at 0:20 a. m. It passed Salem on tlmo. The time card of too special waa telegraphed to the freight crew in the form of a train order, and this order, with the signatures of the freight train crew attached, was recovered by the officials. The freight crew disappeared Immediately after being Interviewed by the rail chiefs. They explained tlmt they “forgot about the special. ’’ -