Hutchinson gazette. [volume] (Hutchinson, Kan.) 1895-1902, 1897-10-28
TERRIBLE DISASTER.
TWENTY-EIGHT LIVES LOST
IN A WRECK.
A New York Central Passenger Train
Plunges Into the Hudson RIver-Th"
Track Gave Way and the Train LeaPed
Into the Water at Night

GARR1soN's, N. Y, Oct. 25.-Buffalo
and New York special No. 4, ON the
New York Central & Hudson River
road, due to arrive in New York at 7,
was thrown from the track into the
Hudson river one and half miles be-
low here just before daylight yester-
day morning, causing the loss OF
twenty-eight lives.
The retaining wall along the river
had been undermined by high water
in the river, and the track caved under
the weight of the train. The train
consisted of the engine, an express
car, a combination baggage and smok-
ing car, one day coach and six sleep
sra The engine and two of the for
ward cars are submerged in fifty feet
of water. Engineer Foyle and Fire"
man Tompkins went down with the
engine.
As the train plunged over the en-
bankment the coupling that held the
last three of the sleepers broke, and
they miraculously remained on the
broken track. In that way some sixty
lives were saved.
OF eve witnesses there were none,
except the crew Of tugboat passing
with tow. They saw the train with
It's lights as it came flashing around
the curves, and then saw the greater
part of it go into the river Some OF
the cars with closed windows floated,
and the tug, whistling for help, cast
off its hawser and started to the res
cue A porter jumped from one of
the cars that remained on the track
and ran into the yard of Augustus
Carr's house, near where the accident
occurred, and stood screaming for
help and moaning: 1.-THE train is in
the river. All our passengers are
drowned"
In few minutes Carr had dressed
himself, and, getting boat, rowed
with the porter to the scene. As they
turned point in the bank they came
upon the express car and the combi-
nation car floating about twenty feet
from shore, but sinking every minute.
One man was taken from the top of
the car, and efforts were made to res
cue those inside. A few were gotten
out, the passengers in the cars left
upon the track making a human
bridge to the shore to take
the wounded on. The day coach and
smoker had gone down in the deeper
water, and rescue was impossible. In
the latter coach the conditions must
have been horrible. The car turned
completely over, and the passenger
end of it was deep in the water, while
the baggage end stood up toward the
surface. The men in that lower end
must have fought like iends for a
brief period, for the bodies, when
taken out, were mass of wounds.
Nineteen bodies have been recov-
cred. Eight of them are Cinnamon.
General Manager Toucey gave the
following statement as the cause OF
the disaster:
OmolRls Explain tho Wreck.
1.-THE accident was caused by the
bed of the railroad being washed out
in some inexplicable manner In this
undermined condition the track sank
as soon as the weight of the train was
put on it, and the embankment giving
way, the train was, of course, precip-
itated into the river. Such conditions
as this we have never looked for,
Trains have been running over this
spot for years and years without acct
dent or difficulty of any kind and this
piece of track was considered as good
as any section of the railroad. MOI
only was the roadbed the hardest kind
of an embankment but it was
strengthened by a retaining water
wall Of solid masonry three feet thick,
Other railroad officials were of the
opinion that quicksand foundation
of some kind below the water line
was responsible for the sinking of tn,
roadbed.