Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1893-09-23
NEWS BY TELEGRAPH.
From All Quarters.
ELEVEN PERSONS KILLED
Was the Work of a BIunder-
ing Switchman.
HILLS TO RESUME WORK MsNDAY.
They Will Start up Then on
Full Time.
F0REMIH BELLWLLE is BLAMED.
A Finding Rendered on the
Chester Accident.
F0REMsA BELLvILLE IS BLAMED.
BLUNDER OF A SWlTCHMAN.

A Second Section OF a VestibuIed TX
press Train Runs Into a Freight
Train-Brakeman Thompson Let
the Freight Run OF a Siding Just
After the First Section of the tx
press Had Passed-Eleven Persons
Were Killed and Several We're In
jured-The Brakeman Is Missing
and a Number of Men Have Gone In
Search of Him.
KINGsBURY, Ind, Sept. 22.-Eleven
dead bodies rest upon improvised slabs and
tables under the roof of the modest Ms-
sonic hall of this village, and score of
injured persons are registered as inmates
of the city hospital at Peru, seventy miles
away, as a result of collision on the Wa
bash railroad at this place at daylight this
morning.
The catastrophe was due to an instant of
forgetfulness of observation-disclosures on Che
part of brakeman who is given the best
of reputation by the Wabash oficsrs
Freight train No. 4, east bound from Chi
cago, was due at this point at 4:20 this
morning. It was under orders to take the
siding and wait the arrival of west bound
passenger train No. 5, which according to
the schedule should have passed the Kings
bury depot at 4:40.
The express was an hour and twenty
minutes late, and owing to the heavy
travel growing out of the worlds fair it
was divided into two sections, the eecond
section running twelve minutes behind the
fret. Both sections were made up at Buff
falo, the passengers including people from
that city as well ss from the various lines
oentering in it from Canada and the east.
With the knowledge that under the
schedule he had twenty minutes to tpsre
Engineer Whitman Of the freight train
proceeded up the siding to the
main line to take water, the switch
being thrown open by Herbert Thompson,
the trsckman of the freight. After the
engine had taken water, the freight was
backed to the siding and Thompson closed
the switch. Regarding this latter fact
there Is no room for question, for at 5:10
the first section OF the express swept past
on the main track, giving the usual signal,
one long and two short blasts-to intimate
to the freight that a second section was fol
lowing close behind.
The movements of Brakeman Thompson
in the next few moments remain to be de-
later the second section of the west bound
express came laundering along at a speed
of forty miles an hour, the switch was
open. In the early dawn the red lights at
the switch and the target were hardly dis
cerned, and 1t Is question whether either
the engineer or fireman of the passenger
train looked for them, secure in their
knowledge that week in and week out they
had swept over the same ground without
hinderance.
Like flash of lightning, therefore, the
train took the siding and almost before the
engineer and fremen realize that they
into the freight.
A second later the air was filled with
shrieks, groans, means and ptteous appeals
for help and assistance. The passenger
train consisted of baggage, three ordi-
nary coaches and two sleepers, and the
force of the collision was such that only
the rear sleeper escaped injury. The loco
motive of the freight train was driven
half way into the meat car in its rear.
The baggage car was thrown to one side,
while the passenger coaches partially tele-
scoped each other and the third, Grand
Trunk coach, cut into the sleeping car
"Kansas City," carrying away the smoking
compartments and sections one and three
as clearly as though they had been trimmed
with sharp axe.
Moat of the dead and Injured were in the
two forward day coaches and these were
40 completely wrecked that the work of
extricstipg the dead aud dying was COM
paratively easy.
After the freight train had backed to its
siding to await the passing Of the express
Brakeman Thompson's movements were
not observed by any of the crew. When.
however, Engineer Whitman extricated
himself from the debris of the meat car
into which he had been driven, he found
Thompson standing on the track pale and
trembling. "What have you donea" de-
manded the engineer.
81 must have left the switch open," WAS
Thompson's reply. Thompson at once fed
from the scene. Later he appeared at a
farm house two miles south and got some
thing to eat. Afterward he started for
Stillwell, five miles away. Forty men are
pursuing him.