Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1899-05-18
FRIGHTFUL RECORD.
GLOON SPREAD OVER THE
SCHUYLKILL VALLEY BY
THE APPALLING
DISASTER.
A Signal Not Obeyed.
This is What the Telegraph
Operator Said, But the En-
gineer Denies Its Truth
flu eSs
Signal Not Obeyed.

Reading, May 13.-With til
frightful list of dead. not yet a
9 great as it will be, the Excite
!. wreck on the Reading Rallroa,
has already taken its place il
history as the third worst rail
: road accident which has happen
, ed near Philadelphia for years.
Thirty victims of the rear enc
collision r already counted
Several others will probably die
! Many will be disfgured, maimee
; and crippled for life. The in.
jured number now nearly fifty
Only by the Mud Run rear enc
!, Collision on the Lehigh Valley
with its sixty>two dead, and by
the meadows wreck near Atlantic
City, with forty.one killed, has
this appalling result been sur.
passed. 1t is worse than the 1896
wreck OF the Reading at Shoes
makerYille, with twenty-one
victims, or the Rose Glen crash
on the same line.
Aud never has the loss fell SO
heavily on one community. Nor
ristown to-day is a city in mourn
ing. More than a dozen of its
homes have been made desolate
at a blow. Over a score more
contain injured victims of the
wreck. It is no wonder that when
the first hospital train from
Exeter came to a stop at half
past l o'clock this morning be-
fore the DeKalb street station a
crowd Of 5000 Norristown peo-
pie should have gathered in the
darkness, ready, as the event
proved, to burst into enc great
sob, in which man as well as wo-
men shed tears when the helpless
forms we're carried on impro.
vised stretchers, from the train
to TIE waiting ambulancas of the
Charity Hospital,
Ia this city. in Conshohocken,
in Pottstown and in Norristown
but n question was discussed
to-day, What caused the coils
ion?" There Ire as many opinions
as there are men. I am, however,,
able TO state the following iodis~
putable facts about the affair.
Train No II. the Wi!Iiamsport
express. was followed from
Reading BY an excursion train
from Harrisburg filed with peo>
pie, mostly from Norristown,
who had gone to see the uaveil
ing of the statue of General Har.
tranft, one of NorristoWn's emil
nent sons. From this city the
excursion train followed the
cannon ball. as the express is [
known, as the second section Of
No. -.
The track takes a sudden curve
two hundred yards from the
Reading side of Exeter ard not
until the engineer, Daniel-F
Wildermuth, Of Conshohocken,
had swung around it at a forty
mile an hour clip did be see the
order board. With the short space
be had 10 go he overran the board
by just his OWE train length. The
conductor, ". W. Brommer, of
Philadelphia, jumped out for the
orders and the engineer reversed
to push his train on the right
side of the board. A brakeman
started to the rear with the REDS
lantern.
The shock was terrific. The
excursions engine cut like a knife
through cheese through the two
cars of the first section,
which had been put on at this
and mounted" the Pullman,
.emoiishing the smoking com
partment and killing three peo>
pie, whose bodies were found
there later. The car ahead of the
pullman, however, was a heavy
new day coach, and it proved to
be stronger than the Orpheus.
The rear end Of this day coach
only slightly damaged, but
the parlor car was torn nearly to
the centre. There was not indeed
single chair left standing in the
Pullman. Its interior was coms
.lete wreck. The cars in the ex-
eursion train were not new ard
we're light. A man called Lu'z,
Who keeps small brick combina-
ion feed store and hotel at
Exeter, says that the shock
seemed to make the cars SILVER
Eiolently, and then in two cases
all aparf.
As-fast as the bodies were got t
from the wreck they were !
to the hotel. which boasts !
Of a narrow porch, This porch {
uas nradnallu fllad with a lnno :