Richmond daily palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1876-1904, 1901-05-27
THEIR LAST RACE
MOtOrmen Racing For a
Switch Precipitate a Ter
riblc Disaster.
A DEADLY COLLISION
Two Electric Cars Come Together
At Albany n. y. With Calamitous
Results.
Pleasure Seekers Caught In the
Catastrophe On Sunday
Afternoon.

Albany, n. Y, May 81 Electric cars
racing for a switch while running in
opposite directions at the rate of 10
miles an hour cost five lives Sunday
afternoon by terrific collision, in
which over 10 prominent people were
injured some fatally and others seri-
ously.
The lobby of the local postoffice fill
ed with dead and wounded, hysterical
women and children loS>lng for rela-
tives and friends surgeons admins
tering temporary relief, and ambu-
lances racing through the city, taking
the wounded to hospitals, We're the
early iutimations of the accident
The scene of the accident was a
point about two miles out of Green
bush, on the line of the Albany and
Hudson railway. The point where the
NaIS Iiis-u N-.- ...--.---.-----..s =. go a. "a
sharp curve, and so fast We're both
running, and so sudden was the col
lisiou, that the motormen never had
time to put on the brakes before south
bound ear No. % had gone almost
clean through northbound car No Il.
and hung on the edge of high bluff.
manity. One motorman was pinioned
up against the smashed front of the
southbound car with both legs severed
and killed instantly. while the other
one lived but few minutes.
Fully 100 men, women and children
formed a struggling. shrieking pyra
mid. mixed with blood. detached por-
tons of human bodies and the wreck
age of the cars Some of the more
slightly injured of the men extricated
themselves and began to pun people
out of the rear ends of the two cars.
and almost every one was taken out
in this way. aud nearly all We're badly
injured.
The few women and children who
had escaped injury and death We're
hysterical 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 We're
more helpless. Help had been sum
moned from East Greenhush and vic
unity, and in little time the bruised
mass of humanity, with the mutilated
dead for a gruesome and silent com
pany. We're loaded on extra cars and
taken to Albany. There ambulances
and physicians had been summoned
and the postotfice turned into a morgue
and hospital AS fast as the physi-
clans could temporarily fix up the
wounded they We're taken to their
homes or to the hospitals.
The cars weigh Is tons 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 recre-
alton grounds that the railway had
just opened. The southbound car left |
Albany ut $50 O'Clock and the accident |
occurred at O'Clock. The cars on the
line were running at switch Roadway
that is, as a car reached a siding |
switch ii was supposed 10 wait until |
another going in the opposite direction |
had passed The motorman of the |
southbound car reached one of the |
switches, but seeing no northbound car |
decided TO take chances and go on TO /
the next siding Ii was at a curve be- |
tween the two that the cars met