Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1883-02-02
TERRIBLE~-RAILRQAD. ACCIDENT
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overturnsd Coaches ON tho south IN
Pacinc railroad Catch Fire, Burnins
the Passengers to Death-Twenty-one
Lives Lost and Fourteen Wounded.
SAN FRANCISCO, CAL, January 81.
Shortly after midnight the overland ex.
press, by the Southern Pacific, which left
here at $40 q. m. Friday, stopped near Te-
hnchepai Station to cut out an extra engine
taken on at Sumner, TO- assist in pulling up
Tehachepai grade. While making the change
the train got away and started back north
ward down the grade of 100 feet to the mile.
The train consisted of two enginessthe.ex-
press, mail and baggage cars. two sleepers,
one coach and smoker &c went down the
grade at a frightful speed for about four
miles, whenthe hindernaost sleeper jumped
the track and went over an embankment fif,
teen feet high, Carrying with it the tother
sleeper, the mail, baggage and express cars.
whichwere piled in a shattered heap, took
FIRE and were consumed. The coach and
smokeEkept on down the grade and were
stopped without leaving the track, about two
miles further on. 1o6
A Los Angeles dispatch says: 1t is now as
certainedthat at the time the train broke
loose and ran down grade, the air brakes had
hand brakes were away from their posts.
One was attending to switching the engine.
the other was relighting his extinguished
lamp. The train gathered Roadway quickly
and was soon dashing down grade at the rate
d mile minute. At sharp curve OF the
road the coach and smoker, which were
ahead, broke the couplings and separated
from the rest of the train, making the tIrn
| safely. The sleepers. mail, express and bag
gage carsswere dashed against high bank
then thrown back and rolled down the en-
oankment The lamps and stoves at once set
Ore TO the wreck, which was instantly in q
blaze. y
a Harry Corners. news agent sleeping in the
baggage car, wakened by the movement Of
the Car, aroused James Woodruff, baggage
master, Just as the cars made the jump. The
roof Of the car split open, TIN owing both men
| out severely injured. Corners, while living on
the ground unable TO render any assistance.
saw the train enveloped in flames, heard the
shrieks of the dying victims and saw the %
/ sainly endeavoring to struggle from the
burning ruins. The porter, as he and his wife
occupied alone the drawing room of one OF
the sleepers, awakened bysthe crash, snc-
eeeded in getting out without injury, but of
sixteen other occupants of the car not one Is
believed to have escaped.
Meanwhile, the occupants of the coach
which kept on down the grade succeeded in
stopping it, saving the lives of some forty oc
,upants of that and the smoking car. They
Immediately walked back to the scene of the
accident, but found only the smoldering re-
mains of the train and few who had escaped
with their lives lying bruised and bleeding in
the darkness, shivering in the piercing cold
J night air or rendering assistance to each
! other. d, III
Relief soon arrived from Tehachcpai -four
| miles distant, and as soon possible medical
| attendancewass sent from Sumner and Bakers
| deld and subsequently from Los Angeles
| search for dead soon showed that twenty.
one persons had persisted; eleven were be
Pond recognition, only .headless bodies and
rsharredlimbs beingtfound. OF the body OF
Mrs. DOwney only the head and bust re-
NAMED. 1t was recognized by jewelry All
The bodies and fragments were gathered up
and coffined. The wounded we're removed to
| The baggage car and on the arrival of the re-
def train from Los Angeles sent to that city.
4 saExpress Messenger Charles Pearson had his
dead shattered. Five were burned but recog-
niZable, viz:
Miss NJ. f. SQuires, Mrs. III. o. Oliver, Mrs.
Oowney, NJ Wethered, and Mrs. James Cas-
4 sell two men unknown, butssupposed to- be
I discharged soldiers, werdfonnd dead but not
burned; one other body of a large man, badly
,harred, is supposed to be the remains OF
Colonel larrabee, ex-Congressman from Wis
fsonsin.a Governor Downey says La rrabee was
IN the train, and he is missing since the acct
lent. The remaining eleven are still uniden-
I lifted. An inquest is in progress but no news
rs yet received from 1t. No one but railroad
and county officials were admitted.