Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1903-12-31
A HEAD-ON COLLISION
Two Passenger Trains Wrecked
Near East Paris, Mich.
Through the Red Signal Being Blown Out
by the High Wind Twenty-Five Lives
Were Lost and Thirty-Eig
Persons Injured.

Grand Rapids, Mich, Dec. ZS.-Ine
death list resulting from the head-on
collision between two Pere Marquette
railroad passenger trains near East
Paris Saturday evening stands at %
with 3S persons injured, several OF
them probably fatally. 1t was the
most disastrous wreck in the history OF
the Pere Marquette system and, instead
of being caused by mans carelessness
or mistake, is charged to the high wind
which extinguished the red signal light
in the "order" board at McCord's sta
ton, where the westbound train was
expected to stop and receive new or
ders. Two minutes before the train
rushed by McCord's the light was burn
ing, says the operator there, but in
that brief interval the blizzard that
was raging extinguished 1t, and train
No. 5 flashed by the station to crash
into eastbound train No. 6, near East
Paris. The trains, which were two OF
the finest on the system, were reduced
to a promiscuous pile of broken and
twisted timber and metal, with dead
and injured pinned down and crushed
by the fragments Of the heavy cars.
When train No. s, bound west,
whizzed by McCord's instead of stop
ping, the frightened operator notified
the dispatcher, then found that his
red signal light had been extinguished.
He reported this fact and then there
was but one action to take. The col
lision was inevitable. The dispatcher's
Office called for medical aid and gave
orders to hold the train over the Sagi-
raw branch at the depot and get the
wrecking outfit under steam. They
then waited for the word they knew
must come. There was no chance OF
the fast-running trains to see each
other through the driving blizzard in
time even to slow down and in few
minutes word came from the conduct
or of No. 5 that they had crashed to-
gether and that there was an awful
loss OF life.
AS the trains came together the
steam domes Of each boiler blew of,
releasing their contents, else there
would have been added horrors from
the blistering steam. No. 6, eastbound,
was composed of q mail and baggage
car, combination smoker, buffet par
lor car, day coach and diner. The
baggage car caught between the en-
CINE and heavy train, crumpled up like
pasteboard, only the roof remaining
partially unbroken. The big blind
mail coach, heavily bulkheaded, took
the brunt of the blow, but withstood
the crash and communicated 1t to the
smoker next in the rear. The smoker
was swept clean as the mail car tele-
scoped its entire length and turned
over at the north side of the track.
The smoker in turn crashed several
feet into the parlor car and it was at
the rear end of the smoker and for
ward end of the cafe car where the
passengers were killed and injured.
From space six feet square he bodies
of two women, a boy and a man were
taken out. The westbound flyer with
its heavy bulkhead cars stayed on the
rails, back of the baggage and mail
cars, and the passengers in this train
escaped serious injury. AS one man
they rushed out of the train to assist
the less fortunate ones on the train
from this city.