The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1890-09-27
PLUNGE TO DEATH.
Frightfui Railway Disaster Near Read
ing, Pa.-Scores of People Killed-Five
Coaches Filled With Passengers Dive
Down an Embankment-Bodies Pinned
Under the Wreck-Search for the Vic
Tins.

READING, Pa, Sept. 20.-When day.
| light dawned on the scene of last nights
/ wreck on the Philadelphia & Reading
Railroad, near Shoemakersville, the
| full realization of the indescribable
| horrors of the night before were first
fully revealed, and the sickening speeta-
Gle of the wrecked train and its victims
was presenting in startling picture
and terrible scene The Pottsville
express, dashing around curve at a
speed of fifty miles an hour, struck an
obstruction and plunged straight down
an embankment twenty-five feet high
and on to the rocky bed of the river
Engine, tender, mail and express cars,
three passenger cars and $50 human
beings were piled in an awful mass.
The scene on the banks of the river,
this morning, was CHASTITY one. There
lay long row of the dead, which were
increased as one after another of the
bodies were brought out of the water.
The engine rested in four and a half
:eet of water, while the body of the
engineer, John White, was pinned
underneath the heavy ironwork, his
arms extended in an appealing manner
above the water. The engine is all
battered out of shape, and its ponder
Gus machinery bent and twisted like a
plaything. Next lay the tender on
its side, and then the baggage
and mail cars and passenger
ha oI
left the track, the timbers broken and
the cars overturned, pinning the I'M
rescued victims in death embrace at
the bottom of the river. The speed at
which the train was running can be i'm
agined when it is stated that the dis
lance from the point where the engine
left the tracks, going down the steep
twenty-five foot embankment and then
dashing over the rocky bed of the river,
is fully 80 feet.
The work of searching for bodies con-
tinued all night, and up to So'clock this
forenoon the total number recov-
cred was about twenty. There is now
no longer any doubt as to the fate of
George R. karcher, general counsel of
the Reading Railroad. His body was
taken out of the wrecked parlor car
early this morning, almost unrecogniz-
able and badly disfgured. The force
by the railroad company is
sufficiently large, but it is difficult work
to move the ponderous cars Thou
sands of persons have f1ocked to the
scene Of disaster, and while they are
willing to assist their aid is of very lit
tie service where experienced men are
The cause of the disaster is learned
to-day. A down coal train separated
above Shoemakersville; another coal
train following after ran into the rear
section. Two loaded coal cars were
thrown over on the other track
Just as the passenger train came
dashing past, and, the engine strik-
ing this obstruction, the wreck of
the passenger train followed. 1t is
claimed that the passenger train fol- |
lowed SO soon after the crash of the |
two coal trains that the employees had
no time to go back to warn the APP
preaching passenger train, which I
crashed INTO the wreck at the rate of |
sixty-five miles an hour.
Inc coal regions were more heavily |
afflicted than any other section along |
The Reading Railroad, and large ma
ority ofthe victims, both dead and in
ured, came from that region. This /
forenoon delegation of Mahanoy City /
citizens arrived to take charge of their
lead. A melancholy coincidence is pre-
'ented in the fact that the Inflated train,
the Pottsville express" is the same
which was wrecked at Tuckerton on the |
Town trip on the 23d of June last, and
Engineer White and Fireman Templin,
who were killed in yesterdays disaster,
illed the places of the Heller brothers,
Lewis and George, engineer and fire.
nan, who lost their lives in the first
accident.
Up to 10 O'Clock this forenoon total
If twenty bodies had been taken out,
md the list of injured is now about
iffy