The Fremont weekly journal. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County, Ohio) 1867-1877, 1870-05-20
FRIGHTFUL COLLISION ON
THE PACIFIC RAILROAD.

AAViiA AilC tots 1lOulS ut puhAltill
Tho accident was collision between the
east-bound express train, due at St Louis at
SIX o'clock on Wednesday morning. lth inst,
and west-bound extra freight train that
left this city during the night previous. The
express train had five passenger and IA bag
gage car, and the freight train was q long
heavy one, drawn by powerful locomotive.
At the point of collision mile and half east
of Eureka, there is an uembankment fifteen feet
high, where the road curves so sharp that two
approaching trains can not see each other
until close together. 1t was at this perilous
spot, Of all others, that the approaching trains,
each unconscious of the others presence and
each laundering forward at u rapid rate Of
speed, were doomed to meet. There was but
one instant's warning OF the terrible danger
to which the express train was rushing, too
short to permit It 10 be averted. A boy stand
ing by the engineer of the train, Mr.. jackson,
was the first 10 descry the smoke stack OF the
approaching freight engine entering the curve
at the east, and directed the attention of Mr.
jackson to the danger at the same moment.
Jackson instantly reversed his engine, and gave
the two sharp, quick whistles that call for the
application OF the brakes. The brakesmen
promptly responded to the word OF command,
and put up the brakes close and tight. This
broke the force Of the express trains speed,
somewhat, but not sufficiently No applica-
ton OF human power could break up the heavy
freight train and bring it to a halt under half
a mile. The two engines rushed at each other
like malign and enTaged monsters, grappled
with a tremendous crash, reared from the
track in a mortal wrestle, and fell into help
less and disjointed fragments on the ground.
The shock was terrible. The tender, baggage
car and the two forward passenger cars Of the
express train on one side, and the tender and
several box cars on the freight train on the
other rushed into the crash with their respect
i've engines, leaving at that quiet rural spot,
on that placid May morning, a disordered and
frightful ruin, splttered with the blood of forty
human beings, entrapped and mutilated be-
meath Its shapeless mass. The two engines
were driven with such force into each other
that it was impossible, after the collision, to
distinguish the parts Of one from the other.
The crushed cars were jammed together, the
cars being shiyered into long slivers, and the
seats, wheels, trucks and irons blended into an
indescubable heap, that rolled off down the
embankment. The three rear cars of the ex-
press train shared the conclusion, but escaped
the fate OF the forward ones. After the col
lision they were found standing stiff and still
on the track, with their brakes close up,
showing that the brakesmen had done their
duty well i'll responding to the engineers
whistle before they leaped from the train.
In a collision the principal loss of life gen
eraly results from wood splinters, sharp,
Jagged spears, that fly with the shock like ar
rows from the hand Of a giant. Several of
the victims OF this accident were slain in this
way, and to look close into the wreck yester-
day was to see the evidences of this. Red hu-
man blood could be seen on the fresh hue of
the newly-rent wood, or point of wood uro-
truded, stained with the life-tide Of some
dead person, whose body ives invisible In
many cases there were wounded and dead
whichit was impossible to see amid the tan
gled mass OF broken wood and iron; often,
however, the little red stream OF blood flowing
down some slanting beam or else dropping
slowly on the ground, indicated aspot Of death
or some seuseless victim still breathing More
horrible, however, than the bodies killed by
impalling wood splinters, were those crushed
by heavy masses of iron or wood driven
against them as if fired from cannon A
human body reduced almost to bloody pulp
by crushing forms frightful picture in near
vail serious railroad collisions, and was not
absent from this