Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1897-10-25
20 lIvLO LUOI'
Terrible Railway Acct.
dent at Garrisons, N. Y.
Track Gives Way and
Train Goes Into River.
Passengers Imprisoned in the
Cars and Are Drowned.
Evidences Of Fierce Struggles
among the Tying Men.
Engineer and Fireman Go Down to
Death With Their Engine.
Heroic Rescue Of Four Men by
One Of the Passengers.
High Water Undermined the Track caus.
ing II TO Give Away.
Heroic Rescue Of Four Men by
One Of the Passengers.
High Water Undermined the Track caus.
ing It to Give Away.
Lit Of the Identified Dead Many Bodies
Not Yet Recovered.

Garrisons, N. Y, Oct 24-From the
sleep that means refreshment and rest,
to the eternal sleep that knows no
Weakening, plunged in the twinkling of
an eye this morning % souls, men,
women and children. Into the Shiny
bed Of the Hudson river, a train laden
with slumbering humanity, ploughed,
dragging through the waters the help
less passengers. There was nothing to
presage the terrible accident which so
suddenly deprived these unfortunates
of life.
The New York Central train which
left Buffalo, last night, had progressed
for nearly nine-tenths of the distance
| towards it's destination. The engineer
and his fireman had just noted th,,
gray dawn breaking in the east and
the light streak of red betokening the
suns appearance when, with the great
engine-a servant on the rails, a devil
off-plunged into the depths of the
river. Neither engineer nor fireman
will ever tell the story of the Terrible
moment, for with his hand on the
throttle. the engineer plunged with his
engine to the river bottom and the fire.
them came the express car, the COM
bination car and the sleepers, and
these piled on top of the engine.
It is known that it was little foggy
and that the track was not visible, but
if there was any break in the lines of
steel, it must have been of very recent
happening, for only an hour before
there had passed over it a heavy pas
senger train laden with human freight.
Neither is there an explanation ready.
All is conjecture.
The section of the road was supposed
to be the very best from the entire di-
vision. There was a great heavy re-
tanning wall all along the bank and
while the tide was high, yet it was not
unprecedented. What seems to have
happened was that underneath the
tracks and the ties, the heavy wall
had given way and when the great
weight of the engine struck the sup
ported tracks. it went crashing through
the rest of the wall and toppled over
in the river.
Then there happened, what on the
railroad at any other time would have
caused disaster, but now proved a
very blessing. AS the train plunged
over the embankment the coupling that
held the last three of the six sleepers
broke and they miraculously remained
on the broken track. In that way some
60 lives were saved.
OF eye witnesses there were none
except the crew of a tug boat passing
with a 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 it's hawser and started to the rescue.
A porter jumped from one of the cars
that remained on the track and ran
into the yard of Augustus Cars house
near where the accident occurred and
stood screaming for help and moaning
that the train was in the river and that
the passengers were drowning.
Carr hastily dressed himself and get
ting a boat, rowed with the porter to
the scene of the accident AS they
turned point in the bank they came
upon the express car and the combi-
nation car floating about 20 feet from
the shore but sinking every minute.
One man was taken from the top of the
car and efforts were made to rescue
those inside the car who might be
alive. A few were gotten out, but the
passengers left upon the track making
a human bridge to the shore to take
the wounded over 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 in the deep
water. while the baggage end stood up
towords the surface. The men in that
lower end must have fought like fiends
for brief period, for the bodies when
taken out were mass Of wounds.
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