The Portland daily press., 1897-10-25
New York Central Train Ploughs Into the
Hudson River.
TWENTY-EIGHT PERSONS LOSE THEIR LIVES
In TERRIBLE CATASTROPHE.
The Engineer Fireman
Feet Of Water-A Tug Boat Eye
Giving Away OF Retaining Of
Passenger Train Passed Hour Before.

Wall the Cause of the Disaster
'lace am Hour Before.
route from the Canadian border to New
York and middle aged man. supposed
to be Thomas Reilly of 1850 Wisconsin
avenue, st. Louis, of these all excepting
the baggage master, persisted. The DAY
coach contained eighteen or twenty pas
sengers, many of whom were women and
children.
How many Of these escaped is not
known, but at least twelve were drowned
or killed in this car. Behind the coach
were the six sleepers, the Gel Alpine,
with fifteen passengers, the Hermes with
twelve. the Niobe with eleyeen, the Diana
with about fifteen, Anitan, early full and
Racket River with no passengers. The
total cargo of human freight consisted of
something over hundred people.
| At Fishkill the train lessened its speed.
as it Is customary to run from that point
to Tarrytown at the rate of about twenty
five miles an hour. Most of the passengers
were asleep, those in the sleepe1s being
4 @AA VAOA1 pCIbAp, WA1iC UlO OCCuDduUB OF
the coach and smoker were for the most
part doubled up In their seats. Just how
| the train met it's fate will never be fully
known, for the men who first felt the
danger, Engineer John Foyle and Fire
man John Tompkins, tonight lie dead in
the cab of their locomotive at the bottom
of the Hudson river.
One Of :. the trainmen who survived the
disaster made it his first duty to run to
the nearest signal tower to telegraph for
| help. The place where the wreck occurred
Is rather isolated. 1t Is just at the en-
trancesto what is known as Kings cut,
three miles south of Garrisons and five
miles north of Peekskill.
y Two other express trains were following
close behind the i'll fated state express
and the engine of one of them was sent to
Garrisons for General Manager Toucey,
who lives there, while the other engine
hurried to Peekskill for medical aid. Mr.
Toucey was the first official of the rail-
road at the scene, reaching there at 7.3O.
| The engine which brought him there re-
turned to Cold Spring and brought back
| Doctors Winslow, Fillebrown and Muir
dock. In the meantime Doctors Charles
and Percy Mason, Tilden, Sowden and
Lynn had arrived and all the doctors
were soon at work among the injured.
OF the dramatic horror of the situation
in the combination car when it left the
track and struck the water perhaps the
| best account Is to be had from the story
of Hermann Acker of Peekskill, the bag
gageman. Acker was suffering from the
shock when seen but the scenes he
graphically described. He said:
"John Shaw, agent for the Wescott Ex-
press company and myself were in the
compartment, when suddenly there was
% terrible bump and then rush of water
that forced us toward the roof of the car
The car seemed to turn completely over.
and had filled with water to within about
foot of the top. When we struck, the
car whirled completely around. the end
which the Chinese occupied being under
water, while our end was tilted up, We
swan around and got a ventilatorss open
and. noting the situation got an axe from
tool box which was afoat, and smashed
the panel in the end of the car. We
crawled through the hole to the roof of
the car and rowboat came out and took
us ashore. "
Acker has fbeen railroad man for
many years and has escaped from three
accidents. His arm is badly cut. and his
body is bruised : Shaw escaped injury.
| The first victim of the disaster was found
lying ON shore dying. He was badly
bruised about the head and body, and his
right arm was out off near the shoulder,
the bleeding stump alone showing. The
members was not found. The man was
placed on a train and taken to Peekskill,
but died on the way. The body was that
of middle aged man.
| Five men were rescued from the top of
floating car few minutes after the ac-
cident. They were put on train and
taken to Peekskill, about ten miles down
the road, where they were admitted to the
Helping Hand hospital and their wounds
dressed. Of the five, three were Cinnamon
and none were fatally injured. The
Americans were John e. Ryan of 294
!! Barrow street, Jersey City, at thirty
. years old, badly 1acerated hands, shoulder
and knee; Clarence Morgan of Aurora,
N. Y, aged 26, clerk in the Office of the
comptroller of the New York Central rail
, way, broken shoulder. The three China
men were suffering from bad scalp
wounds. Morgan escaped from floating
car through broken panel and swan
ashore. Though badly hurt he helped an
other passenger out.
w. S. Langford of Bayonne, N. j., was
in one of the last coaches which remained
OH the track. He secured an axe and
chopping out panel of one of the partly
submerged cars, he helped to rescue four
people.
At eight O'Clock one of the express