Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1890-09-24

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 specta-
Gle of the wrecked train and its victims
was presenting in a startling picture
and a terrible scene. The Pottsville
express, dashing around a curve at
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 100 human
beings were piled in an awful mass.
The scene on the banks of the river,
this morning, was a CHASTITY one. There
Law 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 half
Seet 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
plaything. Next lay the tender on
it's side, and then the baggage
and mail cars and passenger
coaches in the succession in which they
left the track, the timbers broken and
the cars overturned, pinning the un-
rescued victims in a 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 100 feet.
The work of searching for bodies con-
tinued AN night, and up to s o'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
employed by the railroad company is
sufficiently large, but it is difficult work
TO move the ponderous cars. Thou
sands of persons have hocked to the
scene of disaster, and while they are
willing to assist their aid is of very lit
tie service where experienced men are
required.
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 ap-
preaching passenger train, which
crashed into the wreck at the rate of
sixty-fve miles an hour.
The coal regions were more heavily
afflicted than any other section along
the Reading Railroad, and large ma
jority Of the victims, both dead and in
iured, came from that region. This
forenoon delegation of Mahanoy City
citizens arrived TO take charge of their
dead. 4 melancholy coincidence is pre-
scented in the fact that the Inflated train,
1.-The Pottsville express" is the same
which was wrecked at Tuckerton on the
down trip on the 23d of June last, and
Engineer White and Fireman Templin,
who were killed in Yesterdays disaster
filled the places of the Heller brothers,
Lewis and George, engineer and fire
man, who lost their lives in the first
mentioned accident.
Up TO 10 O'Clock this forenoon total
of twenty bodies had been taken out,
and the list OF injured is now about
fifty.