The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1903-12-28
HEAD-ON COLLISION
Pere Marquette Road Has It's
First Disastrous Wreck.
TWENTY-FIVE DEAD, MANY INJURED
Cause Assigned In That High wind
EXtinGuished Red Danger Signal
Light and WestbOund Train
Ran Past Crossing station.

Pere Marquette railroad passenger
trains near East Paris caused the
death of twenty-five persons and seri-
Gus injury to twenty-nine others. Sew
eral of the injured will probably die.
The dead are: Mr.. and Mrs. l.. j.
Baldwin, Mulliken, Mich; Louis Bald
win their son, Mulliken, Mich; Les
ter Williams, Lansing Mich; Mrs
Daisy Giles, Lowell Mich; Burt
Myers. Grandville, Mich; Walter Jor-
dan, Grand Rapids, Mich; Joseph
Hull, colored, Windsor Ont; Austin
]. Wager. baggageman, Detroit Mich;
Charles A. Stoddard, engineer of No. e.
Detroit, Mich; Charles A. Devine,
Grand Rapids, Mich; William Helm
rich, baggageman, Detroit Mich. f.
NJ. Gillet, Burr Oak or Portland, Mich.
Allen H. Wells, Big Rapids. Mich;
Frank Burns, fireman of No. 5, Detroit
Mich. Peter w. Wierengo, Grand Rap
ids, Mich. George Palmer, American
Express agent on No q. Detroit, Mich;
william Smith, Saranac, Mich, and
four unidentified men.
The injured were mostly Grand Rap
ids and Detroit men.
1t was the most disastrous wreck in
the history of the Pere Marquette sys-
tenn. and, instead of being caused by
mans carelessness or mistake, is charg-
ed to the high wind, which extinguish-
ed the red signal light in the order
board at McCOrds Station, where the
westbound train was expected to stop
and receive new orders. Two min
utes before the train rushed by Nc
Cords the light was burning, says the
operator there, but in that brief In
teryal the blizzard that was raging ex-
tinguished 1t, and train No. flashed
by the station to crash into eastbound
train No. q near East Paris. The trains,
which were two of the finest on the
system, were reduced to promiscuous
pile of broken and twisted timber and
metal, with dead and injured pinned
down and crushed by the fragments of
the heavy cars.
Five cars and two large locomotives
were jammed into a space ordinarily
occupied by three coaches, and the
wreckage was strewn across the rail
road right of way from fence to fence.
When train No. 5, bound west, whiz-
Eed by McCOrds instead of stopping the
frightened operator notified the dis
patcher, then found that his red light
had been extinguished. He reported
this fact, and then there was but one
action TO take. The collision was in
evitable.
The dispatchers office called for med
ical aid and gave orders TO hold the
train over the Saginaw 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 run
ming trains seeing each other through
the driving blizzard in time to even
slow down, and in a few minutes word
came from the conductor of No that
they had crashed together and that
there was an awful loss Of life.
The westbound engine, No. 397.
drove through No G's engine like
wedge, separating the gear from the
boiler and standing the latter on end
like broken, twisted shell. The run
ming gear was crumpled up like SO
much Irvine. Great cast steel side rods
bent into many shapes. and even the
steel tires of the big driving wheels
split and sprung from the wheels. land
ing i'm some cases ten feet from the en-
CINE. The boiler Of engine No. S97
turned over several times, and the very
force of the twisting impact seems to
have been the means of saving the life
of Engineer Waterman, He was flung
forty feet over the fence at the edge of
the right of way. Moon, his fireman,
was sitting on the opposite side of the
cab, and he, too, was thrown clear of
the pile of wreckage.
As the trains came together the
steam domes Of each boiler blew off.
releasing their contents, else there
would have been added horrors from
the uliSNtiiuA 0ltuils ANbs w. NdNNb'N''hs
was composed of mail and baggage
car, combination smoker, buffet parlor
car, day coach and diner The baggage
coach. caught between the engine and
heavy train crumpled up like paste
board, only the roof remaining partial
ly unbroken
The big blind mail coach heavily
bulkheaded, took the brunt of the blow,
but withstood the crash and communi-
Gated it TO the smoker, next in the rear,
The smoker was swept clean as the
mail car telescoped 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