Evening journal., 1903-12-28
TRAINS CRASH IN
HEAD-ON COLLISION
Frightful Wreck on the Pere
Marquette Road Due to
High Wind
q ARE DEAD AND 2s INJURED

Grand Rapids Mich, Dec. 2S.-The
death list resulting from the head-or
collision between two Pere Marquette
railway passenger trains, near Eas.
Paris. stands at %, with 20 persons in
iured, several Of them probably ia
tally.
The dead, all Of whom are from
cities of Michigan, are: Mr.. and Mrs
L. j. Baldwin, Louis Baldwin. Lester
Williams. Mrs. Daisy Giles. Burt
Myers. Walter Jordan, Joseph Hullom
(colored). Austin l. Wager, Charles A,
Stoddard, Charles A. Devine. William
Heinrich. f. NJ. Gillet. Allen H. Wells,
Frank Burns. Peter W. Wierengo,
George Palmer, William Smith and
four unidentified men.
II was the most disastrous wreck in
the history Of the Pero Marquette sys-
TEN, aud instead Of being caused by
mans carelessness OF mistake, it Is
charged to the high wind, which ex.
tingulshed the. red signal light in the
order board at McCord's Station.
where the west-bound train was ex-
pected to stop and receive new orders.
Two minutes before the train rushed
by McCord's the light was burning.
says the operator there, but in that
brief interval the blizzard that was
raging extinguished it, and train No.
s flashed by the station to crash into
east-bound train No. near East
Paris. The trains. which we're two O.
the finest on the system. were reduced
to a pile OF broken timber and metal
with the dead and injured crushed
and pinned down by the fragments O..
the heavy cars.
Five cars and two heavy locomotives
were iammed into a space ordinarily
occupied by three coaches, and the
wrecSage was strawn across the rail.
way right of way from fence to fence
When train No. 5. bound west
whizzed by McCorIs instead OF stop
pins, the frightened operator notified
the dispatcher then found that his
req lisht had been exdnguished. He
reported this fact The collision was
Inevitable
There was no chance of the fast
running trains seeing each other
through the driving blizzard IN ame
to even slow down. and In q few min
utes word came from the conductor of
No. that they had crashed together
and that there was an awful loss of
life.
Great cast steel side rods bent into
many shapes, and even the steel tires
Of the big driving wheels split ard
sprung from the wheels, landing 10
some cases 10 feet from the engine.
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 40
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.
No. 6, easthound, was composed of
a mail and baggage car, combination
smoker. buffet parlor car, day coach
and diner. The baggage coach, caught
between the engine and the heavy
train, crumpled up like pasteboard.
only the roof remaining partially un-
broken. The big blind mail coach.
heavily bulkheaded, took the brunt OF
the blow, withstood the crash and com
municated It to the smoker. 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 forward end Of the cafe car where
all the passengers were killed and
wounded. Within a space Of six feet
square, the bodies Of two women, a
boy and a man we're taken out.
When the engines met one turned
completely over and lay with its nose
in a direction opposite to that in
which It had been travelling. The
other climbed the wreckage Of the
first. its boiler torn from the trucks
standing erect in the centre OF the
debris.