The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-02-20
Express Train Crashes Into a Street Car Filled With
 Boys and Girls
EIGHT INSTANTLY KILLED
 AND 4 SCORE INJURED
Brakeman Tried to Stop Car, But the Wheels Slipped on Icy Rails and Gained Momentum as 1t Sped
 Down the Hill.

Newark, N. J., February 19.-A fast ex- press train on the Delaware, Lacka- wanna and Western railroad today cut through a trolley car crowded with school children at the Clifton avenue crossing killing eight of the children and injuring a score of them. The motorman of the car, who stuck to his post, will die and the engineer of the express was so severely hurt that there is little hope of his recovery.
 Both the express and the trolley were on a steep grade going at right angles. The train was signalled and the crossing gates were lowered, while the trolley car was only half way down the hill. The motorman shut off the power and ap- piled the brakes, but almost immediately the car began to slip along the icy rails It gained tremendous momentum and at the bottom of the hill crashed through the gates directly in the track of the on- coming train.
 The locomotive ploughed its way through the car, throwing the children in every direction.
 THE DEAD.
 Viola H.
 Maud Baker.
 Ernestin P. Mueller.
 Mabel B. Kershner, Tiffin, O.
 Alma Loehnberg.
 Rosebud Kohn.
 Ella Werpupp.
 Evan T. Eastwood, Jr.
 The Injured.
 Injured: Peter Brady, motorman, skull crushed; Oscar Bakliff, engineer skull fractured; Jennie McLelland, skull frac- tured probably fatally; Florence Doll. Mabel Smith, Frederick Allsop, George Smith, Carl Raquet Maud Van Valen, Walter Baurmann, Susan DeCamp. Oth- CTS received bruises and decorations. All the girls and boys lived in Newark ex- cept Mabel Karshner. The ages ran from F to IS years.
 The accident happened within three blocks of the High school building and in the car at the time were nearly one hundred pupils. As many as thirty oth- CTS had managed to throw themselves from the car before the crash came
 The trolley was one of the specials which every day took the children to school It had more than its ordinary load today owing to the cold. It con tained every child that could squeeze inside and others stood on the rear plat lorIH becduSe tnlS car nad been so crowded many who were waiting for it before the hill was reached could not get on, although some climbed on the front platform with the motorman A score more children followed the car afoot. They say that when the car was still less than half way down the hill the railroad gates began to drop
 Power Shut of.
 Peter Brady, the motorman. promptly shut off the power and applied the brakes. The speed of the car was check ed but 1t continued to descend. There was no thought of danger. Then 1t began to move faster. The ice-covered rails af- forded no hold for the wheels, and al- though Brady jammed his brake harder and then swung on the reverse, the mo- mentum of the car grew at every yard and the car shot down toward the rail- road. When 1t was right at the gates the express thundered into view. Warn ed by the cries of those afoot and by their own sense of danger, those on the platforms began to throw themselves off into the snow, and as the car sped along the few remaining feet to the rails. per- haps one-third escaped death or injury in this way, but there was no time for those within the car to do more than rush towards the rear door
 The gates were snapped like twiggs and the car was struck by the locomotive
 
 filled with the cries of the helpless chil- dren.
 Trolley Car Completely Wrecked. The wreck of the trolley car was com plete. The locomotive turned it partly around and then cut 1t in two. The chil- dren were hurled in every direction One half of the car was thrown to one side and lay on the tracks. The other section was hurled some distance away In every direction lay the injured and dead The engine was brought to a stand still and from the train and from near by houses men rushed to the rescue.
 From the high school pupils and teach CTS came to aid the injured. A lad who had been hurled to safety in a snow bank thirty feet from the crossing arose brush ed the snow out of his eyes, and rushed up the street to a fire box and turned in an alarm. Within five minutes as many dead bodies had been laid side by side in the snow along the track. One of the bodies, that of girl, was found block beyond the crossing. It had been carried there on the pilot of the locomotive The injured were sent away in patrol wagons and at1t1o