The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1901-11-28
WHO WAS TO BLAMEP
Orders Under Which Wrecked Trains
Were Running.


Detroit, Mich, Nov 2S.-No develop
ments since daylight dawned upon the
hOrrld scene of wreckage on the Wa
bash railroad near Seneca, have tended
to minimize or detract from last nights
awful calamity. Most of the wreckage
has been cleared from the track. 1t
continues to appear that the number of
dead victims will reach from 80 to 100
and that more than the latter number
are suffering greater or lesser injuries
Some of the railroad officials say the
number of dead will not exceed fifty,
but the number of corpses and parts
of human forms being collected seem
to indicate enlargement rather than
diminution of last nights reports The
latest news from the scene is being
handled over special wire arranged
for it by the Associated Press. Con-
siderable light was thrown on the cause
of the disaster by the order which the
conductor showed as his authority for
proceeding past Sand Creek. The order
which was delivered to the train at
Holloway read as follows:
'tOrder No. %. Trains No. IS and 3.
mo 4. engine 609 will meet No. 13 at
Seneca and No. 3. engine 623 at Sand
Creek. Engines No. SS and ISL will
double head No 1872
1t is understood that the engineer
liar order at Montpelier, o., but if so
these orders were diSregarded.
If it develops that the orders issued
to both trains were to the same end it
the disaster rests wholly with the engi--
neer and conductor of the astbound
Continental limited. Many of the burn
ONLY SIX BODIES RECOVERED.
Only six bodies have actually been re-
covered. A small pile of crisp, black
ened fragments that covered two
of the others. The following bodies
are lying in the morgue at Adrian:
Fireman Baldorf, of engine 151, who
was crushed to death in his cab.
James Brown, colored, porter.
E. n. Dnell, Detroit
Job Witchell. Detroit
Unidentified woman
In addition to these Giovanni Folon-
arc lies in a farm house near the scene
of the wreck. The scene of the holo-
caust presented bleak and desolate
appearance this morning. StreWn along
both sides of the track for 500 feet were
car wheels, brake beams and such other
parts of the wrecked coaches as would
ing in the ditch on the right hand of the
road, veritable scrapheaps- Broken
cars, many of them daubed with the
blood of their last occupants We're
scattered about and being used as
cushions by those huddied around the
open fires about the scene.
Farmers for miles around drove to
the collision this morning, in a major
ity of cases bringing their wives an1
families with them. After viewing the
debris scattered along the track they
would walk through the uelQS where
Giovanni FolOnaros one OF the 1m1nl-
grants who escaped from the burning
cars was tossing on a bed and mutter-
ing in his native tongue. When the first
relief arrived on the scene last night
from Adrian, six of the cars in train
No 13 were burning so fiercely that the
relief party could not get within sew
eral hundred feet of them They were
the baggage car, the immigrant cars,
two coaches and a chair car. There
was nothing to do but stand back and
wait until the fire burned itself out 1t
was past midnight before a search OF
the ruins of the burned cars could be
begun. AS soon as the heat had sub
sided sufficiently, scores Of men began
deIving in the mass. AS it was slowly
turned over small crisp pieces OF those
who had perished in the flames were oc-
casionally found The largest portion of
any body found was terribly burned
trunk.
HUMAN BODIES REDUCED TO
ASHES.
The heat had been SO intense that the
cars and their human freight had been
reduced to a blackened powder that
was blown about for hundreds of feet
by the breeze. Inside of two hours the
iron works of the cars had all been
hauled into the ditch at either side of
the road. The first relief party on the
scene arrived from Adrian 30 minutes
after the accident and they immediate
ly began on the coach of train No. 4,
which was telescoped by the collision
and reduced to splinters. The wreck
of the coach was jammed into space
hardly IA feet square. From the ruins
of the car the bodies of four men and
one woman were pulled out.
Train No g. which was waiting on the
sidetrack at Sand Creek. having fol-
lowed No. 13 from Detroit, was run up
to the scene as soon as the accident
was reported there, and on this train
practically all the injured from the
west-bound train were loaded and
started for the companys hospital at
Peru Ind A relief train from Mont
pelier O.. took more of the east-bound
train injured and also started for Peru
with them Pending the arrival of
these ambulance trains the injured as
fast as they were extricated were placed
in two SIeeperS, attached to train No. IL,
which were not wrecked, or taken to
the house of Ben Huss, which is with
in 100 yards of where the collision oc-
ellrred At O'Clock the bodies of the
dead. together with the few awful frag-
ments that had been dug out from the
burning cars, were loaded aboard a
car and taken back to the morgue at
Adrian.
At AIS the body of Fireman Calvin
Balderof was discovered, jammed into
the wrecked cab of his engine, No. 151
From the position of his body he evi-
IDENTIFY had been in the act of feeding
the furnace when the two trains came
together His body was badly crushed,
but still recognizable.
At o'clock the wreckers removed the
last piece of wreckage from the tracks,
1t was engine 151. Although consider
ably warped and bent, its wheels were
still true enough SO they kept the track
after the engine was pulled back on the
rails.
DEATH OF MR.. YoUMANS.