Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1903-07-30

KILLED IN WRECK
COLLISION BETWEEN PASSENGER
AND FREIGHT TRAINS ON
GREAT WESTERN.
FOUR DEAD AND SWIM INJURED
PASSENGERS HURLED IN ALL pI-
RECTloNs WHEN THE
TRAINS CRASH.
MISUNDERSTANDING or ORDERS
BY THE FREIGHT CREW THOUGHT
TO BE THE CAUSE OF
THE WRECK.

st. Paul, July 2S.-Four persons, a
passenger and three trainmen, were
killed in a headon collision between a
passenger and a freight train on the
Great Western at Valasaty, Mimi, at 5
O'Clock yesterday morning. Seven
were seriously injured. About thirty
passengers, some of them women,
were slightly hurt.
The wreck is thought to have been
caused by the misunderstanding Of
orders by the freight crew.
There was an impenetrable fog at
the time of the collision, and few of
the passengers were awake. Both
passenger and freight trains were
running or time, and the regular place
OF meeting was Velasaty.
Passenger Train No. I was coming
TO ST. Paul in two sections, the second
half being filed with excursionists
from Des Moines. Orders were sent
out that the second section was three
hours late, and it is presumed that the
conductor and engineer of the freight
Read the Order
as meaning the first section. and went
straight ahead without taking the sid
ing at Velasaty, figuring on reaching
Hayfeld, only nine miles further, be-
fore the belated train reached there.
The first section, however, was on
time, and was going at the rate of
forty-fve miles an hour when it
crashed into the freight engine. Many
of the passengers were in the smoker,
and were hurled in all directions
about the car, and some of them were
thrown through the windows, while
others lay in a helpless condition be-
tween the wrecked seats, unable to
assist themselves, and had to be
pulled out through the windows.
All were bruised, and many of them
were badly cut. The two giant loco
motives remained upright. but almost
Telescoped Each Other.
Engineer Markert of the passenger
train was pinned in the cab and both
his legs were cut off. His body was
badly mutilated.
Engineer Holman OF the freight met
his death in a peculiar tanner. The
coal from the tender was thrown into
the cab of the engine and Heliman
was crushed against the front of the
boiler and held there. His head and
face were crushed. The coal caught
fire and he was partly incinerated be-
fore his body was taken out.
Keene, the fireman, was hurled from
the cab and fell unconscious SO near
the wreck that he was badly scalded
by the escaping steam. Hickey, the
fireman of the passenger train, was
slowly being
ScaIded to Death
beside his dead engineer VIXEN he was
taken out. 1t is thought his injuries
are fatal.
Fireman Cogan of Des MoiEes and
his wife and child were riding on a
pass. He was going to visit his moth
err in Minneapolis. In the course OF
the Journey he went into the engine
cab to visit his friend Markert, and
was killed..
Fred Horton, a passenger from
Dodge Center, was standing or the
platform Of the smoker talking to an
other man when the crash came. He
was hurled from the car and fell a
corpse to the ground Strangely, how
ever, his companion remained on the
platform, only his hat being carried
away.
The passengers who were injured
got their injuries by being tossed
about in the interior Of the coaches.