St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-06-06

stroyed the factory. In the gap above
Johnstown the water has picked up
four-track railroad covered with trains,
freight and passengers, and with ma
chine shops, round house and other
heavy buildings with heavy con-
tents, and it has torn the
track to pieces, twisted, turned
and crossed it as fire. never could;
it has tossed huge freight locomotives
about like barrels, and cars like packing
boxes. torn them to pieces and scattered
one place put stream of water, a city
block wide, between the railroad and
the bluff, and in another place it has
changed the course of the river as far
in the other direction, and left hun
dred yards inland on which are the
tracks that formerly skirted the
banks. Add to this that in
the midst, fire, with the singular
fatally that has made it everywhere the
companion of the flood in this catastrO-
phe, has destroyed train of bestibuled
cars, and that the flood had wrecked;
that the passengers who remained in the
cars through the flood until the fire
were saved, while their companions,
who attempted to flee, were over
wholmed and drowned, and that
GAIOuSu IL OH OuO lOCOiuUtltC otOUus uuu
still stands, comparatively uninjured in
disaster, and the story of one
of the most marvellous freaks of
this marvellous food, is barely outlined.
That locomotive stands there on its
track now with its fires burning, smoke
curling from the stack and steam from
its safety valve, all ready to go ahead
as soon as the track is built down to it.
1t is No. 1909, a fifty-four ton. eight
drivers, class r, Pennsylvania railroad
locomotive. George Hudson was it's en-
gineer and Conductor Shelly had charge
of the train. They, with all the rest of
the crew,
ESCAPED BY FLIGHT.
when they saw the flood. The windows
of the playground, where giant force
played with masses of iron, everything
scores of tons each, as a child might
play with pebbles, begin with a bridge
or piece Of bridge, about thirty feet
long, that stands high and dry upon two
ordinary abutments at Woodvale. The
part of the bridge that remains spanned
the Pennsylvania tracks. The tracks
are gone, the bridge is gone on either
side, the river is gone to new channel.
the very earth for hundred
yards around has been scraped off and
swept away, but this little span re-
mains perched up there twenty feet
above everything, in the midst of a
desert of ruins, the only piece of a
bridge that is standing from the railroad
bridge to South Fork. 1t is light iron
structure, and the abutmentS are not
unusually heavy. That it should be
kept there when everything else was
twisted and torn to pieces is one of the
queer freaks of this flood. Near by are
the wrecks of two freight trains that
were standing side by side when the
flood caught them. The lower ends of
both trains are torn to pieces. the cars
tossed around in every direction. and
of the train on the track nearest the
river was smashed into klndling wood.
Its locomotive is gone entirely, perhaps
because the other train acted as escort
or buffer for the second one. The latter
has twenty-five or thirty cars that are
uninjured. Apparently they could move
off as soon as that wonderful engine,
1909, that stands with steam
up at their head, gets ready to
pull out A second look, however,
shows that the track is in many places
literally washed from beDeath the cars.
Some of the trucks, also, are turned
halfway around and standing with
wheels running across the track. But
the force that did this left the light
wooden box cars themselves unframed.
They were loaded with dressed beef and
provisions. They have been emptled to
supply the hungry in Johnstown. In
front of Engine 1909 and this train the
water played some of its most
FANTASTIC TRICKS
with the rails The dnbriS 0f trpoc
logs, planks and every description of
wreckage is heaped up in front of the
engine to the headlight and is packed
in so tightly that twenty men with ropes
and axes worked all day without clear
ing all away. The track is absolutely
gone from the front OF the engine, clear
up to beyond Conemaugh. Parts of it
lie about everywhere, twisted into odd
shapes, turned upside down and
stacked crosswise, one piece abov
the other, and in one place a
section of the left track has been
lifted clear over the right track, runs
along there for ways then twists into
its proper place. Even stronger than
with the tracks the water has played
with the rails where they have been
steel and of the heaviest weight used.
They were twisted as easily as willow
branches in spring freshet III coun-
try brook. One rail lies in the sand in
the shape of letter IS" More are
broken squarely in two. Many times
rails have been broken within few
feet of fish-plate coupling them
to the next rail, and the frag-
ments are still united by the compare
lively weak plates. Every natural law
would seem to show that the first place
where they should have broken was at
the joints. There is little to indicate
the recent presence of railroad in the
stretch from this spot up to the upper
part of the Conemaugh. The little
plain into which the gap widened here,
and in which stood the bulk of the town,
is wiped out. There is not the
trail part of the plain was ever any
thing but hood-waShed gulch
in some mountain region. At the
upper end stands fantastic collection
of ruined railroad equipments. Three
trains stood there when the. food swept
down the valley. On the outside was
local passenger, with three cars and a
locomotive. 1t stands there yet, the
cars tilted by the washing of the track,
but comparatively uninjured. Some
how couple more locomotives have
been run into the sand bank in front. A
freight train stood on the track
where on large collection of
smashed cars has its place now. 1t
was broken all to pieces. Inside of all
was the day express, with its baggage
and express cars, and at the end three
vestibule cars. 1t was from this train
that number of passengers, fifteen
certainly, and no one knows how many
more, were lost.
WHEN THE ALARM CAME
most of the passengers fled for the high
ground. many reached it; others hest
tated on the way, tried to run back to
the cars and were lost. Others stayed
on the cars and after the first rush of