The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-11-01

crash came without an instants warning
remember that 1 had counted SIS tickets
and had almost reached the bottom of my
pocket when / was thrown from my feet
and rolled around the car. The first thing
/ recall was the terrific jar when the loco
motive of my train struck the coal car.
Then there came a rebound, followed in
stantly by another crash, more stunning
than the first. The car seemed to raise it
self on end and then to fly through the air.
AS IT settled down, a / afterward found,
on top of the wreckage, 1 was thrown out
to one side, the breath knocked out of me.
but otherwise unhurt except for a scratch
| on my right hand.
TERRIBLE CONFUSION.
II don't remember in the confusion of
| the moment just how the other passengers
| in the car came out. l saw several, l re-
member, pinned underneath and between
seats, and 1 know that some of them must
| have been terribly hurt.
1.-The two cars in front of the one 1 was
In felt the full force of the collision and
| never want to see another sight like the
| one they presented when l came to my full
| senses More from a trainman's habit than
from anything else, suppose / looked at
| my watch soon L picked myself from
the ground and saw that ii was exactly
1902 o'clock. The collision must have oc-
| cured about two minutes before that, or at
precisely 10 o'clock"
| AS the conductor stood on the embank-
ment telling his story, his face was
| scratched and grimy, his clothes torn and
| disheveled, and he bore the appearance of
a man who had reached the limit of physi-
| cal and mental endurance. He had been
working with bare hands for over an hour,
assisting in the removal of the dead and
injured.
II can't tell you the cause of the acct
dent because 1 don't know it," said Con-
| ductor Johnson 81 can't believe that either
myself my engineer is responsible for
| this awful thing. My orders were to leave
Lafayette at o'clock and to arrive in In
| dianapolis at 9:47. 1 carried out this
schedule faithfully, my train making good
time even with its heavy load, although we
were perhaps ten minutes late. know this
much absolutely-my train was given the
right of way over all trains between Lafay-
cite and Indianapolis. as my fiimsy will
| show. We were not to stop or sidetrack
for anything, not even United States mail,
and / had no intimation of any kind Of
the fact that switching train was at
work in the yards here, or that 1 was sup
posed to slow down SO far from the sta
ton. My orders show these facts as I
have stated them.
SPEED OF THE TRAIN.
I'VE may have been running twenty
| miles an hour. although I can't be sure
| on that point We had been running very
fast all the way down and the decrease
| in speed when we reached the city was
so marked that / am unable to give any
estimate of how fast my train was going
when it struck the coal cars. AS I say, 1t
may have been twenty miles an hour.
at have been in wrecks and 1 have seen
number of railroad accidents, but this
is the most terrible thing 1 ever looked
at. 1 know that this scene will remain
with me to my dying day. When with the
others I went to work that blood
smeared pile there, which only a few
minutes before had been as fine a train as
any one could wish to see 1 was in tears,
and I'm not ashamed to own 1t. No man
could see what we saw-the white-faced
dead, many of them in positions that
showed the awfulness of their deaths, the
dying just able to look up at you with a
terrible appeal in their glazing eyes, with
only enough breath to just whisper for
help, and the broken and bleeding young
men. many OF them still holding to their
football rigs that they had been handling
so happily few minutes before-I felt
that 1 couldn't bear very much more
When the work was over and willing
hands had done all it was possible for
men to do, 1 was about all in.
N "a MI IN VIC bod
away at that awful mass who told me
that they had never seen anything in
their lives that made them so sick and
some OF them men who have been with
the road for thirty years.
lone of the things that struck me was
the gameness and heroism of the boys who
were the worst hurt. They acted like he.
roes, every one of them