Huntsville gazette., 1886-02-13

Wild Work BY a Broken Freight Train in
the Streets of St. Louis Buildings
Wrecked. Cars Smashed and the Sur.
roundings Presenting the Appearance Of
Coal Yard Struck by a Cyclone.
ST. LOUIS, Feb. 8.-About I:45 this
morning, as sixty-two loaded cars, drawn
by engine No. 3o5 and pushed by engine
No 306, were going east on the Poplar
street track, between Fifth street and
the levee, the coupling broke and the two
sections of the train collided, throwing
seven cars from the track and breaking
them into splinters. The force of the
collision threw the cars clean across the
sidewalk, and houses Nos. 107, 115, lit
and ll9 Poplar were all more or less dam.
aged.
The responsibility for the accident is
not clear, but seems to be divided. The
train was moving at the rate of seven
miles an hour when the coupling of one
of the middle cars parted. This was at
Fifth street. The forward section of the.
bisected train, drawn by engine sos, ran
ahead, leaving gap between the cars.
When the forward train reached the levee
and switched south, Engineer Mahoney
found his way blocked by another
engine and began to slack up. In
the meantime the second section of
the broken train, which was not coupled
to the rear engine, had been gathering
headway on the incline and as the for
ward cars slackened, raced down the
track and dashed into the runaways with
terrific force The effects of the collision
were terrific. The cars left the track in
every direction, and striking out left and
right, scattered the debris of half a
dozen building fronts along the narrow
street.
The greatest destruction was at Poplar
street and the levee. In an angle formed
bv the branching of the tracks north and
south, was a one-story brick office. 1t
was owned by the Bonsack Lumber Com
pany, and occupied by Clayton, who car
ries on the business of furnace setting.
Clayton was asleep when the accident oc-
Cured. A box-car, loaded with lumber,
left the track at the switch, and striking
the building, sent walls and roof flying
out into the levee. Clayton awoke to find
himself in the midst of a shower of bricks
and broken timbers, and with the stars
shining down his face. How he got out,
he says he doesn't know, but he escaped
alive and with only few slight cuts on
the face and head.
The destructive box-car was followed
by fiat, grain car and long line of
loaded coal gondolas. The box-car jaunt-
lily skipped across the debris of the build
ing, and turning end up, stuck on it's
nose in the mud; the grain car broke
loose, rolled down the levee, and rolling
over on its side, broke square in half;
the platform car jumped out Of its wheels
and coal car rolled down to
the edge of the river and stopped
for want of rollers. The engine
escaped uninjured, but when the runaway
train was finally stopped Poplar street
look like coal yard struck by cyclone.
Half a dozen wrecked coal cars had scat
tered their freight along the street and
sidewalk; shed at Main and Poplar
owned By the Bonsack Lumber Company,
was knocked into "pi;" hole in the side
wall in the Bridge & Beach iron foundry
would have admitted a whole train OF
cars; q cart-load of bricks was lying
on the floor of bedroom on the
first floor of the Mississippi House
on the opposite corner, owned by Frank
Mitchell, the lumberman, and rented by
John Girard; the bulk window and front
wall of Charles Williams saloon, No. lis
Poplar, was shaved almost clean, two
telegraph poles were cut off clean as Q
whistle and hung suspended from the
wires, and the owners of several Other
houses will need new steps. The loss
will amount to between $4,000 and
$4,000.