The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1901-05-27
COST FIVE LIVES
Electric Cars Collide While Rae
ing For a Switch.
Over Forty Persons Injured,
Some of Them Fatally.

Albany n. H., May 27.-Electric cars
racing for a switch while running in OPP
posite directions. at the rate of 40 miles
an hour, cost five lives yesterday after
noon by a terrific collision, in which
over 30 prominent people We're injured.
some fatally and other seriously.
KILLED.
FRANK SMITH, 1notorman-
VA. NICHOLS. motorman-
MAUD KELLOGG, Round Lake.
ANNIE ROONEY, Stuyvesant Falls.
DAVID MAHONEY, mate on the
Dean Richmond.
FATALLY INJURED.
George c. Barry, Troy, hurt internal
"
Fred J. Smith. Albany. injured inter
nally.
SERIOUSLY INJURED.
William F. Barry, Troy. cut on head.
Mary Barry. Troy. leg broken.
George P. Bittner, Moervilles cut and
bruised.
Isaac Bauvelt, Albany, leg broken.
Dewitt c. Pettz. Albany. badly bruis-
ed
Charles Pettz. Albany, painfully
bruised.
Howard J. Rogers, Albany. cut and
bruised.
49, Rogers. Albany, leg broken.
a. ". Crostley, Albany. hurt internal
".
George Lane. Albany, badly cut.
Fred Herzog, shoulder dislocated.
The lobby of the local postoffice filed
with dead and wounded. hysterical wo-
men and children looking for relatives
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 Greenbush, 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 We're both running and so
sudden was the collision, that the motor
man never had time TO put on the
brakes before sOuthbound car No. % had
gone almost clean through north bound
car No IT, and hung on the edge OF
a high bluff with its 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 instantly. while the
other one lived but a few minutes
Fully 120 men, women and children
formed struggling, shriel1ing pyramid,
mixed with blood, detached portions of
human bodies and the wreekage of the
cars
Some Of the more slightly injured Of
the men extricated themselves and be-
gan TO pull people out OF the rear ends
of the two cars. and almost 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. disIocated joints
and bloody heads and faces tried to as
sist others who were more helpless. Help
had been summoned from East Green
bush and vicinity and in Il little time
the bruised mass of humanity with the
mutilated dead for a gruesome and 81
lent company, We're loaded on extra cars
and taken to Albany There ambulances
and physicians had been summoned and
the postofHce turned into a morgue and
hospital AS fast the physicians
could temporarily fix up the wounded
they We're taken to their homes or to the
hospitals.
With both motormen killed it was
hard to get at the real cause of the ac-
eident. but it is pretty well determined
that il 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 10 tons each. and are
the largest electric cars built. but 50
frightful was the crash that both cars
We're torn almost to splinters. Both cars
We're filled with Sunday pleasure seekers
returning from the new recreation
grounds that the railway had lust open
ed. The south bound ear left Albany at
$50 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 a siding switch it was
supposed to wait until another going
in the opposite direction passed. The
motOrnan Of the south bound car reach
ed one Of the switches, but seeing no
north bound car decided to take chances
and go on to tho next siding. 1t was at
a curve betweerPthat the two cars met
OVER FIFTY INJURED.
Albany. n. ~. May 27.-Further infor-
nation from the vicinity Of the collision
on the Albany & Hudson railroad near
East Greenbush. shows that the number
Of injured is over fifty. There have been
no other deaths however, up TO this
hour
YORK REACH SIDNEY