The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1904-08-31
TRAIN WRECK KILLS SCORES
Cars Dropped Into a Torrent When
TrestIe Collapsed.
CLOUDBURST NEAR PUEBLO, COL

The Worlds Fair Flyer From Denver to
St. Louis is Wrecked Near Eden COLI
Eight Miles North OF Pueblo. by
Bridge Breaking Down-Train Swept
Along Like KindIing.
Denver. Col.-Over four score per-
sons were killed in the wreck of the
Missouri Paci6c's Worlds Fair Flyer,
which left here at FIVE o'clock for st.
Louis.
A cloudburst filed the channel of
Steeles Hollow, an aroya which joins
Mountain Creek near Eden, eight miles
north of Pueblo. Steeles Hollow is
SPANIEL by a bridge sc feet long and
Is feet high. The hollow was full of
water when the train approached at
s o'clock, and the engineer, seeing that
the rails and ties were i'll place. failed
20 check his train, which was running
IS miles an hour.
A moment later the train dropped
through the bridge, the baggage car
and smoker being crushed by ne en-
CINE, while the chair car broke loose
and foated away on the raging torrent,
all but three of its occupants being
slowly drowned as it careened along
to a point half q mile away.
Fireman Mayield was unhurt.
Climbing out on the bank, he hurried
to Eden with the news,
Wrecking trains were sent from
north and south and the search" for
the bodies began. There were no llV-
ing victims to rescue when the relief
trains arrived, and the survivors on
the dining car and. sleepers were I'M
able to give aid TO those who, for q
time, struggled to escape from the
smoker and chair car, and they were
soon engulfed in the flood.
It is asserted by the railroad officials
that the loss of life will not exceed
seventy, while persons who were on
the train believe that fully one hundred
persisted.
R. Brunnazzi. superintendent of the
dining car service, had a narrow es-
cape.
Il was sitting in the front end of the
forward sleeper" he said, NEAR the
door. The train had slowed up Oh ac-
count of the bad condition Of the
tracks. and I think we were going
about fifteen miles an hour when all
at once 1 felt q sudden jolt, then a
terrible crash and our car turned al
most OIL it's front end. 1 rushed to the
platform and saw before me nothing
but a black, raging torrent, with three
coaches whirling down the stream. 1t
was horrible, horrible.
81 have never experienced anything
like the awful sensation hat came
owe ne when I say the cars packed
with human beings floating down that
raging flood. The water was rushing
against the banks with terrible vel
ocity. and no humau being, it seemed
to me. could ever Withstand that awful
current.
strangely enough. there was hardly
any screaming. 1 listened to hear the
cries. but it was all owe in a moment,
and the coaches whirled away down
the stream with loads Of human beings.
Apparently the people were sWal-
lowed I'D in the food, the water surg
ing into the coaches and drowning
them instantly. I heard no calls for
help"
How many persisted probably never
will be definitely ascertained, for the
tr~eacherous sands are drifting over the
bodies. Searching for the dead was
begun about midnight on an extensive
scale. All corpses found were brought
to Pueblo and placed in four morgues.
Many identihcations have been made
by articles found on the bodies, the
features in many instances being un.
recognizable.