The Irish standard., 1901-06-01
FIVE ARE KILLED.
terrible Result of a Collision be.
tween Electric Cars Near
Greenbush, n. Y.

~
cars racing for switch while run
ming in opposite directions at the
rate of 40 miles an hour, cost five
lives Sunday afternoon by terrific
collision in which over 40 prominent
people were injured, some fatally and
others seriously. The lobby of the
local post office filled with dead and
wounded, hysterical women and chill
dren looking for relatives and friends,
surgeons administering temporary
relief, and ambulances racing through
the city taking the wounded to hos
pitfalls 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 railway. 'The point where
The cars met on the single track was
at sharp curve, and so fast were
both running and so sudden was the
collision that the motormen never
had time to put on the brakes before
south-bound car No. 90 had gone al
most clean through north-bound car
No. II and hung on the edge of a
high bluff, with it's load of shrieking,
manned humanity. One motorman
was pinioned up against the smashed
front of the south-bound car with
both legs severed and killed instant
ly, while the other one lived but a
few minutes.
Fully 100 men, women and children
formed a struggling, shrielSing pyra-
mid, mixed with blood, detached por-
tions of human bodies and the wreck
age of the cars. Some of the slightly
injured of the men extricated them
selves and began to pull people out of
the rear ends of the two cars, and al
most every one was taken out in this
way and nearly all were badly injured.
The few women and children who had
escaped injury and death were hyster-
ical and added their cries to the
shrieks of the dying and mutilated.
Men with broken arms and bones, dis
located joints and bloody heads and
faces tried to assist others who were
more helpless. Help had been sum-
moned from East Greenbush and vicin-
ity, and in little time the bruised
mass of humanity, with the mutilated
dead for a grewsome and silent COM
pany, were loaded on extra cars and
taken to Albany. There ambulances
and physicians had been summoned
and the post office 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 hospitals.
With both motormen killed, it was
hard to get at the real cause of the ac-
cident, but it is pretty well determined
that it was caused by an attempt of
the south-bound car to reach a second
switch instead of waiting for the
north-bound car at the first siding.
The cars weigh Is 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 recrea-
ton grounds that the railway had Just
opened. The south-bound car left AL
bany at 4:30 O'Clock and the accident
occurred at five o'clock. The cars on
the line were running at switch head
way-that is, as car reached siding
switch it 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-bound car decided
to take chances and go on to the next
siding. 1t was at curve between that
the two cars met.
The dead are:
Frank Smith, motorman; William Mich
OILS, motorman; Maud Kellogg, of Round
Lake; Annie Rooney, of Stuyvesant Falls j;
David Mahoney, mate on the Dean Rich
mond.
Fatally injured-George G. Barry, Troy,
hurt internally; Fred J. Smith, Albany, in
jured internally.
Seriously injured-William f. Barry,
Troy cuts on head; Mary Barry. Troy, leg
broken; George p. Bittner, Moerville, cut
and bruised; Isaac Biauvelt, Albany, leg
broken; Dewitt c. Peltz, Albany, badly
bruised; Charles Peltz, Albany, painfully
bruised; Howard J. Rogers, Albany,
bruised and cut; Mrs. H. J. Rogers,
Albany, cut and bruised; - Rogers, AL
bany, leg broken; A. w. Crotsley, Albany,
hurt internally; George Lane. Albany,
badly cut; Fred Herzog, Albany, shoulder
dislocated.