The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1895-10-24
WAS A BAD SMASH UP
TWO TRAINS COLLIDE AT PARK
STREET FRIDAY NIGHT.
A FIREMAN's LEG WAS BROKEN
Eighteen Texas Steers Killed in the Wreck
AID about as Many More Got Away.
Four More Shot by the Police.
Others Still at Large.

At about 1890 o'clock Friday night
there was a serious smash UP on the
Chicago G. North Western railroad at
Park street when regular train No. 187,
known as the night stock train bound
north came into collision with a specia
freight engine which was switching IN
the ward. The collision took place at
the Park street crossing and badly
wrecked one locomotive and two
freight cars and seriously injuring one
side Of the special locomotive. Only
one man was injured. That was Fire
man Frank Palmer, Of engine No. 443,
which was pulling train No. 1877. The
two cars which were smashed up con-
tanned full loads Of Texas steers, there
being about eighteen CT twenty in each
car, OF. perhaps thirty five or forty alto
gether. Eighteen Of these were killed
in the wreck and four were shot by po
lcemen after they got out Of the wreck
and were roaming about the streets OF
the city.
The accident happened in this way:
Train N. 1877 bound north was making
her regular time and was on the regu
lar track for trains bound in that
direction THE west one. The special
train, with Engineer Charles Lane in
charge, bad arrived some time before
and was switching about the yard pre-
paratory to her trip south. At the
time train 1877 had reached the point
where the wreck occurred, Engineer
Lane was passing a switch which
would have put him on what is known
us the Brassville track if it had been
properly turned. The sWitchman who
last turned it left it, however, so that it
connected with the main track, a very
unusual way of leaving it. The conse-
Quence was that Lanes engine made
at once for the main track and straight
into the incoming stock train. The
left cylinder of Lanes locomotive
struck the right cylinder of the stock
engine and wrenched off the cylinder
to a right angle with the boiler, caved
in the boiler head and demolished
about half of the cOwcatcher. En-
gineer Haines' engine was thrown from
the track and the head end was
twisted up into almost an unrecogniza
BILE mass. She lurched over and buried
herself into the gravel bed of the road
clear up to the top of her drivers
The tender 5elescoped the cab and
Engineer Haines barely escaped posi-
BILE death and certain serious injury by
leaping at once through the window
Fireman Palmer was caught and one
leg broken. He was unable to get out
and for nearly All hour had to remain
pinned in the cab. He stood his
ground as theoretically as ever a man did
uncomplainingly until he could be re-
leved. He was taken back to Chica-
go this morning on the $50 train.
Back of this locomotive there was a
frightful sight. The first two cars had
been wrecked and pushed together into
almost an u.recognizable mass by the
momentum of the long train behind
them. The wreckage was piled up for
fully twenty or twenty-five feet and in
all was the dreadful struggling mass Of
Texas steers, some of them at the top
of the pile and making the most frantic
efforts to get out. The cars had been
reduced TO kindling wood and between
the wood and the steers it was almost
impossible to distinguish in the dark
ness Of the night.
The moment Engineer Haines' engine
was seen to lurch the night operator at
the depot saw the headlight go over
and in second he heard boom as
from cannon. He knew at once that
a collision or accident of some kind had
taken place and he wired in both direc-
tons for wreckage crews and cars. 1t
took a couple of hours or more to get
them here In the meantime the l2:45
a. m. passenger train bound north came
in and was obliged to stay south of the
wreck for several hours before pas
sage way could be made for it.
1t was not a great while before a lot
of the steers, which were not so seri-
ously hurt but that they could get out,
had extricated themselves from the
wreckagc and made for the city. Some
seventeen or eighteen of them got out
ard they were roaming around here on
Main street in a frightened condition.
The police got after them and managed
to dispatch about four of them before
they did any damage by shooting them.
The rest got away and have been wan
dering around the rest of the night and
today. They mostly made for the
country and various reports have been
heard today Of their having been seen
in several directions. They are easily
marked and singled out from any OF
our domestic stock because OF the Pc
culiar formation of the horns.
After the wrecking trains and crews
arrived the work of clearing away the
,,,1-c.,ro 1,o~o,, Civtnan of thn steers