The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1889-06-12

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 one hundred yards inland
the tracks that formerly skirted the banks
Add to this that in the midst of all this de-
vastation fire, with the singular fatality
that has made 1t everywhere the companion
OF the flood in this catastrophe, has de-
stroyed train of vestibule cars that the
flood had wrecked; that the passengers who
remained in the cars through the flood and
until the fire were saved while their com
panions, who attempted to flee, were over
whelmed and destroyed, and that through
it all one locomotive stood, and still stands,
comparatively uninjured in the heart Of
this disaster, and the story of one of the
most marvellous freaks of this marvellous
place is barely outlined. That locomotive
stands there on its track now, with its
fires burning, smoke curling from its stack
and steam from its safety-valve, all ready TO
go ahead as soon as they will build a
track down to 1t. 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 many of them carried away.
The whole of the train on the track nearest
the river was smashed into kindling-wood.
Its locomotive is gone entirely PERHAPS
because this other train acted as a sort of
buffer for the second one the latter has
twenty-five or thirty cars that are unniured
They were loaded with dressed beef and
provisions, and have been emptied to sup
ply the hungry in Johnstown. In front of
this train the water played some of its most
fantastic tricks with the rails. The debris
of trees, 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 clearing all
away. The track is absolutely gone from
the front of the engine clear up to Cone
lnaugh. Parts of it lie about everywhere,
twisted into odd shapes, turned upside
down, stacked crosswise one above the other
and in one place section of the west track
has been lifted clear over the right track,
runs along there for way and then twists
| back into its proper place. Even stranger
are the tricks the water has played with
the rails where they have been torn loose
from the ties. The rails are steel and of
heaviest weight used. They were twisted
as easily as willow branches in a spring
! freshet in a country brook. One rail lies in
the sand in the shape of letter S. More
are broken squarely in two Many times
rails have been broken within a few feet
OF a fish-plate coupling them to the next
rail, and the fragments are still united by
| the comparatively weak plate. 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 a 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.
The river has changed its course from one
side of the valley to the other. There is not
| the slightest indication that the central part
OF the plain was ever anything but a flood
washed gulch in some mountain region. AT
the upper end of the plain, surrounded by
desert of mud and rock, stands fantastic
! collection of ruined railroad eouipments
xn1,n, tl,n 81
swept down the valley. On the outside was
local passenger train, with three cars and
| locomotive. The reason the flood that
twisted heavy steel rails like twigs just be-
low did not wipe out these three trains en-
| tirely is supposed to be that Just in front of
them, and between them and the flood was
the round-house filed with engines twas
a large building, probably forty feet high to
the top OF the ventilators in the roof. The
wave of wrath, eye witnesses say, was 50
high that these ventlators were beneath it.
The round-house was swept away to its
foundation, and the flood played jack
straws with the two dozen locomotives
lodged in it; but it split the torrent, and
part of it went down each side of the three
trains, saving them from the worst of its
force. Thirty-three locomotives were in
and about the round-house and the repair
shops near by. Of these tweuty-six have
been found, or at least traced, part of them
being found scattered down into Johns
town, and one tender was found up in
Stony creek The other seven locomotives
| are gone, and not a trace of them has been
found up to this time. 1t is supposed that
| some OF them are in the sixty acres of de-
bris above the bridge at Johnstown. All
the locomotives that remain anywhere
within sight of the round-house, except
those attached to the trains. are thrown
about in every direction bottom side up,
smashed, broken and useless, except for old
! iron The tenders are all gone. Being
lighter than the locomotives, they foated
! easier, and were quickly torn off and carried
away. The engines themselves We're APP
parently rolled over and over in every di
rectiOn, and occasionally were picked up
bodily and slammed down again wheels
up or whichever way CHANGED to be most
convenient to the flood. Most of them lie
in five feet of sand and gravel, with only a
part showing above the surface Some are
out in the bed of the river"
BURYING THE DEAD
The gray mists had scarcely arisen from
the hills on Wednesday morning before
thousand funerals We're coursing their
green sides. There were no hearses, few
mourners and as little solemnity as formal
| ity. The majority of the Cotfins were of
rough pine. The hearses were strong OK
teams, and instead of six pall-bearers to
one coffin there We're generally six collins
! to one team. Silently the professions NOV ed
and silently they unloaded their burdens
in the lap of mother earth. No minister of
God was there to pronounce last blessing
as the clods ratified down, except a few
faithful priests, who had followed some
nangled representatives of their faith to
the grave. Fully one-thrd of the bodies
recovered have been so mangled, bruised
or charred that Identification was impos-
sible. All day long the corpses were being
hurried below ground. The unidentified
bodies were grouped on high hill west of
the doomed city, where the epitaph Gun
known " must do for all There are hun
dreds of these graves already, and each day
increases the proportion, The possibility
of identification diminishes every hour
Fires are raging over the tangled graves
of hugdreds, and the partial cremation of
many bodies is inevitable. Almost every
stroke of the pick in some portions of the
city Thursday resulted in the discovery of
another victim, and, although the funerals
of the morning relieved the morgues of
their crush, before night they were as full
of dead as ever. Wherever one turns the
melancholy view of coffin is met Every
train into Johnstown is laden with Them
the better ones being generally accompanied
by friends of the dead, Men could be seen
staggering over the ruins with shining ma
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