The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-05-27
MAD RACE TO DEATH
BY ELECTRIC CARS
They Collide With Terrific Force,
Killing Five Passengers and
Injuring Many Others.

ALBANY, N. Y, May 26.-Electrlc cars
racing for a switch while running in
opposite directions, at a rate of forty
miles an hour. cost five lives this after
noon by a terrific collision, in which over
forty prominent people were injured,
some fatally and others seriously.
The lobby of the local postoffice filed
with dead and wounded, hysterIcal
women and children, looking for rela-
tives and friends, surgeons administering
temporary relief and ambulances racing
through the city, taking the wounded to
hospitals. were the early intimations OF
the accident.
The scene of the accident was a point
about two miles out of Green Bush, on
the line of the Albany & Hudson rail-
way. The point where the cars met on
the single track was at a sharp curve
and so fast were both running and so
sudden was the collision that the motor
man never had time to put on the brakes
before south bound car No. % had gone
almost clean throug north bound car
No. II, and hung on the edge of high
bluff with it's load of shreking, manned,
humanity. One mOtorman was p,nioned
up against the smashed front of the
South bound car with both legs severed
and killed instantly, while the other one
lived but a few minutes
Fully 100 men. women and children
formed struggling, shriel1ing pyramid
mixed with blood detached portions of
human bodies and the wreckage of the
cars
MOTORNTEN ARE KILLED.
Some of the more Slightly Injured of
men extricated themselves and began
to pull people out OF the rear ends of the
two cars and almost every one was taken
nut in this way and nearly all were badly
injured The few women and children
who had escaped injury and death. were
hysterical and added their cries to the
shrieks of the dying and mutlated Men
with broken arms and bones, dislocated
Joints and bloody heads and faces. tried
to assist others who were more helpless.
Help had been summoned from East
Greenbush and vicinity and in a little
time the bruised mass OF humanity, with
the mutilated dead for gruesome and
silent company, were loaded on extra
cars and taken to Albany. There ambu-
lances and physicians had been summon
ed and the postoffice turned into a morgue
and hospital. AS fast as the physicians
could temporarily fix up the wounded
they were taken to their homes or to
the hospital
with both motormen killed 1t was hard
to get at the real cause of the accident,
but it was pretty well determined that it
was caused by an attempt of the south
bound car to reach the second switch
instead of waiting for the north bound
car at the first siding
The cars weigh fifteen tons each and
are the largest electric cars built, but SO
frightful was the crash that both cars
were torn almost to splinters. Both cars
were filled with Sunday pleasure seekers
returning from the new recreation
grounds that the railway had just open
cd The South bound car left Albany
at 4:SO o'clock and the accident occurred
at o'clock. The cars on the line were
running at switch headway-that is as a
car reached siding 1t was supposed to
wait until another going in the opposite
direction passed. The motorman of the
south bound car reached one of the
switches, but seeing no North Sound car
decided to take no chances and go on to
0he next siding. 1t was at a curve be-
tween that the cars met.
TALE OF THE ACCIDENT.
among the passengers on the South
pound ears was Deputy Superintendent
Howard j. Rogers of the state DEPART
ment OF public instruction He was ac-
companied by Mrs. Rogers and their
young son and daughter, all Of whom
were slightly injured, with the except on
OF the daughter.
speaking of the accident Mr.. ROGERS
said; My recollection of what hannen-
ed as the cars came together is rather
vague We We're proceeding southwark
at a very rapid rate of speed, our car be-