Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1897-10-25


York Central Railroad took place yes
terday morning, just before daylight,
between Garrisons and Highlands. on
the east shore of the Hudson river,
near West Point. The official state.
ment ofths railroad shows at least nine.
teen persons were killed and probably
as many more were injured. The
wrecked train, the Buffalo and New
York special, was running along
level and straight stretch of track,
when, without an instant's warning,
and for some reason so utterly mex
plicable as to almost warrant sus-
picion that the road embankment was
| blown up, the solid bank gave way,
carrying with it wall of stone more
than yard thick, and the engine and
seven of the cars of the heavy train
| went into the Hudson river. 1t all hap.
pened in a moment. In less than 1t
takes to tell it the water was rushing
| into the smashed cars and the people,
most of them awakened from sleep in
| their berths, panic stricken and shrek.
ing for help, were rushing hither and
thither, trying to escape from what
seemed certain death. There were
some among the panic stricken ones
! who quickly recovered their pres
ence OF mind, and it is due to them that
the loss of life was not triple what 1T
was. With axes and the other tools
that we're in the cars they smashed the
windows and cut their way out. The
scene for half an hour after the wreck
was almost indescribable. Half OF
those persons who were rescued were
still panic stricken when they were
landed safely on shore, and some OF
them were almost crazed by the fright
they had received.
An official statement OF the company,
made BY General Superintendent Van
Etten, says:
"The accident was caused, to the best
of our belief, by the embankment slip
ping into the river under the weight of
the engine. Why this embankment,
which has stood for forty years or more,
should give out at this particular time
is unaccountable. Trains in both di-
rections had passed over it within tif'
teen minutes OF the time the accident
occurred, one northbound within thirty
minutes. There were upon the train
| 100 persons in all. Of these ninety are
known TO be alive, seven of them in
jured, none seriously, the greater num-
Der very slightly. Sixteen bodies have
been recovered. Eight of these are
Chinamen and hard to identify"
All of the passengers who were kill
ed, so far as is known, we're in either
the day coach on the train, or in the
combination car. The Cinnamon were
in the combination car-penned in like
rats-and when the crash and the slide
into the water came they were utterly
helpless, and, of course, were drowned.
The passengers in the day coach were
penned in, too, and it is nothing short
of marvellous that any of them escaped
at all.
There were probably only three men
in the world who could tell just what
it was and just how it was that it did
happen. Those three men were Engi-
ueer Foyle, Fireman Thomas and a
young man Damed Mckay, an official
of the Wagner company, who was rid
ing 10 the engine with them and those
three, it is supposed, are at the bottom
of the river. From the survivors OF the
wreck, including the three or four per-
sops on the train who were awake at
the time of the accident, some particu-
lars are gathered. One of them says
there were three blasts of the whistle.
| A moment later there was sudden jar,
as though the engineer hal suddenly
applied the brakes. The train did not
seem to slow up. Then there was q
| Jerk, as though the engineer had opened
the throttle again and started the train
at greater speed. Then third shock,
not very great, and fall. 1t was as if
the bottom had dropped out of things.
It felt just as if the passengers were In
an elevator and the rope broke and let
them down. Then came final shock,
and the crashing of wood AMI the
shrieks of people awakened from their
sleep and screaming wildly for help.
For half an hour after this the scream
ing was kept up, and there was the
smashing of glass and the cutting away
of woodwor as the people who had
been sleeping in the cars and had not
been killed cut their way out and help.
ed their companions who had been in
jured. 1t was just dawn. The gray
light of the morning was scarcely sufii-
Gent to enable those who had saved
themselves in their work of rescue.
The engine had disappeared entirely
and so had the tender. Floating down
the river distance the saved passen-
gers could see the express car, and a
little distance behind that the roof of
day coach, as that, too, foated away.
There was left the combination car,
smashed almost to kirdling wood, the
first sleeper, the Glen Alpin, almost
entirely submerged at an angle of 45
degrees, both ends smashed in and half
the windows broken, with the water
even with the windows themselves,
the third sleeper, the Niobe, off the
embankment, but lying forward end
down, that end submerged and the
other end standing out of the water.
On the rails left on the embaukment
stood the other sleepers. The people
in them were just piling out. They
had felt the shock, but kind
providence had saved them from
the fate OF their fellows. The
couplings and the brake hose had brok.
en-, leaving them anchored to the track.
The passengers in the cars that did
not go into the river all aided in the
T.