The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1902-12-30

CT the suffering.
Surgeons on board the wrecking
train from Sarnia were the first to
reach the scene. They hastened
around the wreck and through the
snow covered field to the temporary
hospitals and began making emerg-
ency examinations of the most seri-
ously wounded Men of the wrecking
crew took up the work of rescue.
With their appliances they were able
to penetrate deeper into the tangle
of wood and steel and extricate the
passengers that the others were un-
able to reach.
While they were at work the wreck
ing train arrived from London with
more surgeons. AS soon as it was
positively known that all the injured
had been found an engine was coupled
to the hospital Pullmans and a pitiable
journey to London, 40 miles away,
was begun. Opiates were administer
ed to lessen the agonies of the wound
ed, aggravated as they were by the
| jarring and jerking of the cars
One of the peculiar features of the
disaster was that not an amputation
was necessary among the injured. AL
most all of them suffered injuries
about the head and the upper part of
| their bodies. This is probably ac-
counted for by the following descrip-
| ton by one of the uninjured passen-
! gers of the telescoping of the day
coach He says that the floor of the
| baggage car raised up level with the
| window sills of the passenger car and
cut a path right through the passen-
ger car at this level. The window
sills being about even with the back
of the seat, this accounts for the great
number of shoulder and head injuries.
| Andrew Carson the operator at
| Watford, the first station east of the
wreck, whose failure to deliver orders
to Conductor McAuliffe, of the Pacific
express, to pass the freight at Wan
stead, is said by the Grand Trunk
officials to have caused the wreck, to-
day made to the Associated Press his
| first statement since the wreck.
He says he received the order for
| No 5, the express, to pass the freight
at 9:4S o'clock but declares positively
that few minutes later Dispatcher
| J. G. Kerr at London called him and
ordered him to bust or cancel the or
| der. He said:
"About 9:45, after calling Wyoming
and ascertaining that the freight was
there, the dispatcher called me rapidly
a half dozen times. When answered
on the wire he told me to bust this
order. | wrote bust it across the or
der, just as No. was coming in. Con-
ductor McAuliffe came in and asked me
what the order signal was ont against
him for l told him that we had had
an order for him, but the dispatcher
had 'busted'it. He told me to hurry
and write him clearance order, which
did. After the train had started
|
patcher learned that the freight had
left Wyoming. told him could not
stop No. 5, as it had left. He imme-
diately began calling Kings Court
junction, the station between Watford
and Wanstead, on the wire, and tried
to raise him on the commercial wire.
I We both failed to do this, however,
until after the express had passed
the junction"
Carson admitted that he knew it
was against the rules of the company
| to cancel a train order without send
| ing substitute for it, but said that
the dispatcher was his superior officer,
and he disliked to question his order
or dispute his authority to take this
action. Dispatcher Kerr's order book
| in the local Grand Trunk Office does
not show that the order was busted"
| or Cancelled, as Carson claims. Ac-
cording to the book, it was still in
force and should have been delivered
to the conductor of the express. Kerr
has not made any statement, even to
the railroad officials, and will not do
SO until he takes the stand at the in
quest.
Division Superintendent George G..
| Jones of Toronto, says that the rules
against canceling or busting" train
orders is the strictest in the company's
code.
Il do not believe" he said tonight,
that it has been violated since the
standard dispatching rules were adopt
| ed. Dispatcher Kerr is one of the
| best and most efficient dispatchers in
our service. He is the operator who
| ancnm mnaniad tho train hearing the