The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1903-12-29
TWENTY-FIVE PERSONS KILLED
IN WRECK OF TRAINS NEAR
EAST PARIS, MICH.
THIRTY-EIGHT OTHERS HURT
.ExTlNGUisHING OF RED LIGHT
BY BLIZZARD SAID TO HAVE
CAUSED DISASTER.

death list resulting from the head-on
collision between two Pere Marquette
railway passenger trains near East
Paris Saturday evening stands at
twenty-five, with t%hirty-eight persons
injured. several of them probably ia
tally.
The dead are: Mr.. and Mrs. ]. L.
Baldwin, Louis Baldwin, their son;
Lester Williams, Mrs. Daisy . Giles,
Burt Myers, Walter Jordan, Joseph
HUM. colored; Austin L. Wager,
Charles A. Stoddard, Charles A. De-
vine, William Heinrich, F. M. Gillett,
Allen H. Wells, Frank Burns, Peter
W. Wierenge, George Palmer, William
Smith, 3. T. Coykendall, A. F. May,
- Peterson Cor Thompson) of Sioux
City, Ia. and one unidentified man.
1t was the most disastrous wreck in
the history Of the Pere Marquette sys-
TEN 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 station. the light
was burning, says the operator, but in
that brief interval the blizzard was
raging and extinguished it and train
No. 5 flashed by the station to crash
into eastbound train No. g., neal East
Paris. The trains, which were two OF
the finest on the system, were reduced
to a pile of broken n twisted timber
and metal, with dead and injured
pinned down and crushed by the frag-
ments.
The five cars and two large locomo-
tiyes were damned into a space or
dinarily occupied by three coaches
and the wreckage was strewn across
the track from fence to fence.
When train No. 5, bound west,
whizzed by McCord's instead of stop
ping, tho frightened operator notified
the dispatcher and 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 Inevitable.
The dispatcher's office called for
medical 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
running trains to see each other
through the driving blizzard in time
to even slow down, and in a few min
utes word came from the conductor OF
No. S that they had crashed together
and that there was an awful loss of
life.
The westbound engine drove through
No. 6's engine like a wedge, separat-
ing the gear from the boiler and stand
ing the latter on end like a broken,
twisted shell. The running 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, landing in
some cases ten feet from the engine.
The boiler of Engine No. 397 turned
owe several times and the very
Force of the Twisting Impact
seems to have been the means of saw
ing 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 oppo-
site 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 blistering steam.
No. G., eastbound, was composed of
a mail and baggage car, combination
smoker, buffet parlor car, day coach
and diner. The baggage coach, caught
between the engine n heavy train,
crnmpled 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 it to the smoker next
In the rear. The smoker was swept
clean, as the mail car t%elescoped it's
entire length and turned oyer at the
north side of the track.
The smoker, in turn, crashed several
feet into the parlor car and it was at
the ear end of the smoker and for
ward eaA ef the cafe car where the
passengers were
Killed and Injured.
From a space six feet square the
bodies of two women, a boy and a man
were taken out.
The w%estbound flyer with it's heavy
bulkheaded cars staid or the rails
back Of the baggage and mail cars
and the passengers in this train es-
capped serious injury.
AS one man they rushed out of the
train to assist the less fortunate ones
On the train from this city. Many
stripped warm o%vercoats from their
backs and covered the suffering in.
jured as they were borne TO the less
shattered cars of No. s and into the
remains OF the parlor a of No. 6.
Nearby farmers, hearing the crash.
turned out with blankets and did
valiant service.
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