The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-09-21
THE READING WRECK.
Ghastly Sights in Recovering the Bodies Of
Twenty Victims.

READING, Pa, Sept. GOV hen daylight
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 spectacle Of the wrecked trains
and its victims was presented in a start
ling picture and a terrible scene. The
speed at which the tram was running can
be imagined when it is stated that the dis
tance from the point where the engine left
the track going down the steep twenty
fve foot embankment and then dashing
over the rocky bed of the river Is fully fif-
teen feet.
The work for searching for bodies con-
tinued all night and up to S O'Clock num-
Der more had been taken out, making the
total number then recovered at about
twenty
There is now no longer any doubt as to
the fate of George r. karcher, general
counsel of the Reading road. His body
was taken out of the wrecked parlor car
early this morning almost unrecogniZable.
The scene on the banks of the river was
a ghastly one There lay long rows of
dead, which was increased as one after
another of the bodies was brought out of
the water
The force employed by the railroad COM
pany is sufficiently large, but il is difficult
Thousands of persons have iocked to the
scene of disaster.
HOW IT OCCURRED.
The wreck occurred in this way: a
down coal train separated above Shoe
makersville. Another coal train follow
ing after ran into section No. ,. and load
ed coal cars were thrown over on the other
track just as the passenger train came
dashing past and the engine striking this
obstruction and the wreck of the passen-
ger train followed.
IL is claimed that the passenger train
followed SO soon after the crash OF the two
coal trains that the employees had no time
TO go back TO warn approaching passen-
ger trains, which crashed into the wreck
at the rate of siXty-five miles an hour.
This morning a delegation of Mahoney
City citizens arrived TO take charge OF the
dead
\ melancholy coincidence is presented
in the fact that the ill-fated train, the
Pottsville express. is the same which was
wrecked at Tuckertown on the down trip
on the 2Sd day of June last, and Engineer
White and Fireman Temper, who were
killed in Yesterdays disaster, filled the
places of the Heller brothers, Lewis and
George engineer and fireman. who lost
their lives IN the first mentioned accident.
Up TO 10 o'clock this morning a total of
twenty bodies had been taken out and the
list OF injured is now about fifty.
THE DEATH LIST.
Following is revised list Of those thus
far taken from the wreck:
JOHN +. MILLER, CreSson.
GEORGE GBEENAwALL. pOttsville.
JOTN WHITE. engineer.
! ANES IENPLTN. firemen, POttsville.
WILLIAM ID. SuONO, Reading
II JACoLEY. stone cutter, Pottstown.
JOHN BEEKEB, Chief Burgess, Mahoney.
SOLOMON HOOVER, Pottsville.
Mrs EDWARD J. Fox, aged Il, Potts
Vile
GEORGE r. KAERCHEE, aged -. Potts
Vile
/ HARRY LoUGHLIN, conductor Of the ex-
press.
JOHN OSRURN. Philadelphia.
/ Mrs. J. r FREDRICKs. Pottsville.
!. r. FEEDRICKS. husband OF above.
JOSEPH BAJsNAN. Philadelphia
y. {. NANpEBSLICE phaniNville.
JOHN SHEEDLY, Philadelphia, railroad
engineer.
MICHAEL SUMMERS. Mahony City.
FRANK HAssMAN, Mahoney City.