Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1903-07-10
RAILROAD HORROR.
% Killed and Many Wounded In a Wreck
at Rockfish on Southern Railway.

% Killed and Many Wounded In Wreck
at Rockfish on Southern Railway.
Charlottesville. July Strain No.
35 over the Southern Railway, known
as the United States fast nail. which
left this city yesterday afternoon at
2:35 o'clock, twenty-five minutes late,
ran into an open switch at Rockfish,
twenty miles south of the Union Sta
tion at o'clock and collided with
freight train No. 6S. Twenty two per-
sons are known to be killed and ten in
jured.
The freight train had just been
shifted from the main track, to the sid
ing, and the failure to close the switch
led to the terrible resulted chronicled
above.
Conductor w. b. Brubeck OF this
city, and his engineer, it is said. read
their orders as giving them one hour
and twenty minutes in which to shift
their cars when in reality the orders
read twenty minutes. For this reason
the switch was open from the siding to
the main line when the passenger came
around the bend in the line at this point
and through the cut at the high speed
of nearly seventy miles an hour. The
crash that resulted was terrific.
The engines were driven from the
track on opposite sides. The first
passenger coach. a second.clas Car,
was telescOped on the combination bag
gage and express car, the latter coach
plunging up from the track and into
the passenger coach and grinding along
the full length OF the passenger coach
at about the height of the seats, crush
ing the lives out of most of those in
the car.
DR.. w. A. Lambeth of the Univer.
sity of Virginia, was the only physi-
clan on the train. being 10 the smok-
ing car at the time of the accident he
gives the following account Of the af
fair. II was probably the first man
out of the train. found one engineer
dead and the other painfully hurt. The
engines were piled up together. The
baggage coach had crashed through
the passenger coach next to it, carry
ing off its top, and between these
coaches. the one on top of the other,
could see that many persons had beer
crushed to death. Arms and feet stucE
out at different points and in som,
cases crushed heads we're in view. W.
got axes, cut through the panelling o
the coach and for an hour and hall
worked like beavers to remove the deaf
and injured. In that time we took GU
certainly q dead, not to speak of thos,
that were injured There was no PAM,
among the ladies. On the contrary
they were extremely helpful, washing
the blood from the faces of the wound
ed. 1t was horrible sight and tn,
work of relief 30 exhausting that whei
it was we'll over / keeled over in /,
somewhat collapsed condition and il
turn was the object of the kind atten
tlOn of one of the lady rescuers.
The special train which went to th,
scene of the wreck returned to Char
lottesville at o'clock at night, bearin,
some Of the dead and most of tn,
wounded. A large crowd was at th,
station to get the news of the disaster
The sound of sobbing and wailing wa
heard frequently. Thirteen of the in
jured were taken to the University O
Virginia Hospital, and were put OF
the operating table as rapidly as pos
sible and their wounds dressed.
1t is impossible to give a complet,
list of the dead. They can only b,
counted. Some of them we're Aus
trian immigrants, bound for points a,
distant as California.
There were ten small children who
escaped injury and who, being for
eigners, cannot tell anything abou
their parents, who were killed in tn,
wreck. The little ones are being cared
for by the people of this city.
The body of Engineer Charles Davis
OF the passenger train, which was &c
shOckingly imbedded in the debris Of
the engine, had not been rescued up tt
6 clock this morning.
Reports from the scene of the wreck
state that there are several bodies
which had not been rescued up to II
O'Clock this morning.
The entire crews on both the pass
enger and freight train are said to b,
either killed or injured.