Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1899-01-13
TERRIBLE ACCIDENT,
rs People Killed, 20 Seriously
Injured.

Iead-On Collision OF Two Passenger
Trains at West Dunellep, N. J.---
All the People KILLED Were In "a Car
Crushed by the Tender.
Sixteen people were killed outright and
20 were seriously injured by head-on col
lision between two passenger trains on the
Lehigh Valley railroad at Dunellen, n. j.,
Monday afternoon. The accident took
place at point where there is a share
curve and a steep cutting. A freight
wreck at Bound Brook, three miles away,
earlier in the day, threw all the traffic up
on one track. All west bound trains were
held at South Plainfeld until their own
line was clear of trains going in the oppo
site direction. Train No. 20 from Shame
kin was so heavy it was divided into three
sections. The first two sections, on arriv-
ing at Bound Brook, were switched over to
the track, switched back at Newmarket
and reached New York city in safety The
third section contained 400 people in seven
cars. The people were from Shamokin,
Mt. Carmel and other towns in Pennsylva-
MIA and they were bound to New York on
the annual business mems excursion of
three days.
Their train switched over at Bound
Brook and proceeded, like the preceding
sections, on the westbound track. In the
meantime there had been waiting at New
market local train. Owing to the traffic all
going on one track, it was almost an hour
late. At last the train dispatcher at South
Plainfeld, Harry Butland gave it permission
to 60 He says that he rec lived no orders to
hold the train, and as the track ahead was
supposed to be clear he allowed the local, TO
go up on the single track. The local train
contained only a few passengers. The
train came around the curve at rate of
20 miles an hour
In the cab of the excursion train Engi-
neer James Prendergast, with his fireman,
George Cheshire, saw the local as it start
ed on the curve. The two engines, now
pilotless, for both crews had jumped, came
together with an awful crash. The one on
the local train turned a complete somer-
sault and jammed the tender of the excur-
sion train engine almost from one end to
the other of the first car from Shamokiu
The tender stopped a few seats from the
rear door; the car, or what was left of it,,
rolled over, carrying with it the imbeded
tender, the fragments of a dozen bodies
and the imprisoned wounded who had been
carried with the jagged iron on its relent-
less course through the coach.
1t was in this first car of the excursion
train that all the deaths and most of the
casualties occurred The other cars STAYED
on the track From Dunelen, Bound
Brook and other places, doctors were
quickly summoned, and relief and wreck
ing trains were soon on hand The dead
were taken to Bound Brook and the in
lured to. Plainfeld hospital or to Jersey
City.and:New York.
Engineer Prendergast of the excursion
train, who weighs almost 300 pounds
| jumped too late, and was caught under his
engine, and for three hours lay pinioned il
| frightful agony He is expected to die
| Engineer Rick of the local was found or
the track so badly injured that there
| little hope of his recovery He managed t.
say Someone gave wrong ord RS.
know how it happened but l can't SPEAK
! now"