The Dickinson press., 1903-01-03
DISASTROUS WRECK
TVENTY.EIGHT PEOPLE KILLED
+END THlRTY INJURED ON
GRAND TRUNK ROAD,
Passenger Train Crashed Into a
Freight Head.on in Binding Snow
Storm and the Baggage and smok.
Ing Car Of the Express Were TeIe-
scoped-Accident Believed to Be
Due to an Operators Error.

London. Ont, Dec. 29.-In the
head-on collision Friday night near
Wanstead on the Grand Trunk railway
between a westbound passenger train
and fast freight. twenty-eight per-
sons were killed and thirty were in
jured. Some of the injured may die.
Many of the dead were mutilated and
the snow about the wreckage was
crimson with blood.
The Pacific Express was two hours
late and running at high speed when
it reached Wanstead. The freight
was trying to make siding but failed.
When the through train struck the
freight there was a disastrous crash
The locomotives reared their pilots
high in the air and tumbled into the
ditch.
The baggage car of the express train
telescoped with the smoking car and
here the death list was made. The
Pullman sleepers did not leave the
rails and their occupants escaped ex-
cept for bruises.
The responsibility for the accident
has not been definitely fixed, but it is
believed to have been due to a tele-
graph operators error. The operator
gave an order to the freight to pass
No 5. the Pacific Express, at Wan
stead. This order should have been
duplicated to the conductor and en-
gineer OF the express. Instead of this.
the conductor Of the express received
clearance order. telling him to run
right through. The freight train
stopped at Wanstead to sidetrack, and
was telescoped by the express. The
binding storm which was raging rend-
cred objects invisible at the distance
of few feet.
usually on dutye7at night, but Friday
evening was in the Office short time.
He was going to the door when he
heard the telegraph instrument click
and Immediately call repeatedly the
message, stop No. s." stop No. g."
Selling the lantern, the operator
dashed for the door, and as he closed
it behind him he heard the crash of
the collision up the track.
Injured Receive All Possible Aid.
AS there was not a house at hand
to- which the injured could be carried,
the two Pullman cars on the train
were converted into temporary hos
pital. The injured were placed in the
berths and everything possible done
to ease their sufferings.
The darkness of night and the raging
Of a blizzard added horrors to the
wreck. Fortunately, the fire horror
was averted. A fire broke out in the
wreckage OF the day coach, but it was
smothered with snow and coats, which
were thrown on it before it gained
headway.
In the binding snow storm neither
engineer saw the other train approach
ing, apparently. The shock was
awful. The trains came together
squarely head-on. In second the
baggage and express cars of the pas
senger train telescoped into the day
coach. This day coach was reduced
to splinters and fragments back to the
last three windows,
1t was crowded with human beings,
and the resultant loss of life and in
jury was narrowing. Fire that broke
fire was scarcely worse danger than
the cold. For three hours or more,
wounded and MANNED passengers were
pinned underneath wreckage, crying
piteously for help while they suffered
from exposure to the elements
Exposure undoubtedly hastened the
death Of some of the more seriously
injured, and caused the death of some
of those who might have been saven
if it had been only question of ex-
tricating them from the wreckage.
The bodies taken from the wreck
were frightfully mangled, some of
them almost beyond recognition. The
scenes attending the removal of the
dead bodies from the wreckage were
pitiful in the extreme. Several fam
lilies were on the train, and the air
was filled with the cries of those sep
arated from their loved ones. not
knowing whether they were killed or