The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1898-09-06
TRAGIC ENDING
TO LABOR DAY.
Express Train Strikes a Loaded
Trolley Car
At Crossing Killing Is People
Outright.
TEN MORE WILL DIE.
Bodies We're Thrown Fifty Feet
Into the Air.
Remains of Two Women Found
Remains of Two Women Found
on the Engine.

Cohoes. N. Y, Sept. 6.-An appalling
disaster occurred in this city last night.
Shortly before 8 o'clock a trolley car of
the Troy City Railroad company was
struck by the Night Boat special of the
Delaware & Hudson at a crossing at the
west end of the Hudson river bridge,
which connects this city with Lansing
burg and it's load of human freight was
hurled into the air. Eighteen of the So
passengers are dead and at least 10 OF
the remainder will die.
The cars entering the city from Ian
singburg were crowded with passengers
returning from a Labor day picnic at
RennSaeler park, a pleasure resort near
Troy. 1t came over the bridge about
7:S5 laden with a merry party of people
fresh from the enjoyment of the day.
The crossing where the accident &C.
CURED is al a grade.
-Four tracks of the Delaware & Hud-
son road, which runs north and south
at this point, cross the two tracks of the
trolley road. 1t was the hour when
the Night Boat special, train which
runs south and connects with the New
York City boat at Albany, was due to
pass that point.
Tracks of the street line run at a
grade from the bridge to the point
where the disaster took place. In con-
sequence of this fact and a frequent
passing of trains, it has been a rule of
the track for each motor car conductor
tracks and signal his car to proceed if
no trains are in sight. It cannot be
ascertained whether that rule was COM
piled with on this occasion, for all
events prior to the crash are forgotten
by those who were involved.
The motor car was struck directly in
the center by the engine of the train,
which was going at a high rate of
speed. The accident came without the
slightest warning. The car was upon
the tracks before the train doomed in
1rrF0
saved it. The motOrman evidently saw
the train approaching as he reached the
track and opened his controller, but in
vain. With a crash that was heard
for blocks the engine struck into the
lighter vehicle. The effect was horrible.
The motor car parted in two, both Sec
tons being hurled into the air in splint-
erS. The mass of humanity, for the
car was crowded to overlooking was
torn and mangled. Those in the front
of the car met with the worst fate. The
force of the collision was there expe-
r1enced to the greatest degree and eV-
cry human being in that section was
killed. The scene was horrible. Bodies
had been hurled into the air and their
headless and limbless trunks were found
in some cases, so feet from the crossing
The pilot of the engine was smashed,
and amid its wreckage was the manned
corpses of two women. The passengers
of the train suffered no injury except
a violent shaking up.
The majority of the passengers of the
trolley car were young people. They
included many women.
Within ten minutes after the collision
fully one-half of the population of the
city were surging about the vicinity in
and endeaVOr to ascertain if relatives
were among the Unfortunates
The injured were taken to the city
hospital and to the Continental knitting
MILL the former not having sufficient
ambulance service to care for them all.
The cOrpses were placed in boxes and
taken to the neighboring mill sheds.
Many of them were unrecognizable. The
crash was frightful in it's results.
dresses bathed in their own blood;
limbs without trunks or any means of
Identification; wOmens and mems
heads with crushed and distorted fea-
lures; bodies crushed and f1attened
these sights constituted a spectacle
most horrible to behold.
The train of the Delaware & Hudson
road, Immediately after the accident,
proceeded to Troy. The engineer stated
upon it. He tried to prevent his train
from striking the car, but his efforts
were fruitIess. His train was going at
a very high rate of speed at the time.
He was some minutes late and was
trying to make up lost time. In con-
sequence of the caution taken by the
trolley road to ascertain if the tracks
were clear at this crossing, the engi-
neers of trains have always felt safe in
running by at a high rate of speed.
The engineer says that the first he
knew that the car was coming was
when it hove in sight at the corner of
the street at which the crossing is sit
uated. He was but a short distance