The record-union., 1897-05-28
Head-End Collision Between Freight
and Passenger Train.
The Freight, Which fad Become Un.
manageable, Owing, it is Believed,
to Some One Having Tempered
With the Air Brakes, Crashes Into
the Passenger Train, While Going
Forty Miles an Hour.

POCATELLO Gdaho), May PA
head-end collision between a freight
and a passenger train at American
Falls, twenty-five miles west of here, at
4:30 O'Clock a. M, caused the death of
nine men and serious injury to eight 9TH
ers. Two of the latter will die
This is the worst wreck that has oc-
CURED on the Short Line in many
years.
The westbound passenger was wait
ing for the freight at American Falls
and was standing in front of the sta
ton building.
The freight was coming east and ran
away on the hill west of American
Falls. 1t is thought that the brakes
We're tampered with. The freight, run
ming fifty miles an hour, crashed into
the passenger train, which was already
backing up, right in front of the sta
ton.
Two men We're on the platform. One
was killed and the other fatally injured
The station building was shattered.
Both engines We're converted into scrap
iron and the twenty freight cars piled
up in heap.
Eight box-car passengers, sheep
shearers and tramps were crushed to
death.
George Moore, the engineer of the
freight train, is seriously injured. Fire
man Dick Cosgrove had a leg broken.
c. Z. Hickman, the engineer of the
passenger train, sustained slight in
juries. He stayed with his engine un-
til he reversed it. The conductor and
brakeman We're on top of the freight
setting the brakes, and Fireman Cos
grove had climbed back to help when
the crash came.
The dead are: c. W. Shields. about 80,
residence unknown; d. l.. Thompson,
Dayton Washington; John r. Cooper,
Wellsvillo, Utah; J. Steffen, Dillon,
Montana; five unknown men, sheep
shearers beating their way.
The injured, beside train men already
given, are: c. w. Brennan, Pearl Ida
no, leg broken; F. D. Springer,
Dayton, Washington, leg broken; John
Bergan Brigham, Utah, leg broken;
John Peters, residence unknown, leg
broken; VIM Connolly, Great Barring
ton. Mass, crushed, bowels torn out;
will die.
The first warning of any danger was
when Engineer Hickman heard the
freight whistle to back up. He at
once reversed his engine, but the rails
| were wet and the grade heavy, and it
was an instant or two before the train
responded and in that moment the
freight thundered around the curve and
across the bridge, going at the rate of
sixty miles an hour.
| The passenger train hardly began to
move back before the freight dashed
| into it. Both engines We're demolished,
and the freight cars piled up one on the
| other jamming in the side and de-
molishing one whole end of the station
building. Just as the engines met En-
! gineer Hickman jumped and came to
the ground in the midst of flying tim
bers and debris. John Cooper, Frank
Burke and Night Telegraph Operator
Charles Goodwin had been talking on
| the platform an instant before they
saw the wild freight coming. Cooper
ran into the depot, and was killed in
! stantly. Burke and Goodwin ran out
behind the building and escaped Bren-
nan, who was on the platform at the
same time, was buried in the wreck
ilt SldLIOIl buIlu1lS WAS UHInOilSneu
| to the partition between the depot and
! the private rooms, where Agent ST.
Clair and his wife and three children
were asleep. The dead and mangled
bodies of two of the killed We're hurled
against this partition, beams were
| forced through it and over the bed oc-
cupied by the children, but miraculous
| ly not one of them was injured. al
though the room was twisted and shat
| tered almost to fragments.
! Only the cool nerve of Engineer
| Hickman in remaining at his post and
reversing his engine saved the lives of
dozens of his passengers, as well as
| of the family of the station agent
sleeping in the building
| The wreck presented a scene of inde-
scribable destruction. The cut in front
of the station and the spot where the
station stood was piled high with brok-
en- cars, demolished station and shat
tered engines. Ties were torn up and
telegraph poles and wires were down in
/ the ruins.
The dead were recovered and the in
jured cared for as rapidly as possible,
and at IL O'Clock a special left the Falls
with the wounded for the hospital at
Salt Lake.