The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1904-09-13
TRAIN GOES OYER TRESTLE !
-Four Killed and Over Score Are
Injured.
COACHES AND ENGINES SMASHED

ming at Forty Miles an Hour Crashes
Through Bridge Near the Catawba
RIVER and Is Followed by an Engine
and Caboose.
Charlotte, N c. While Seaboard
Air Line passenger train was running
about forty miles an hour over trestle
about 300 feetlohg, spanning meadow
near the Catawba River at O'clock
in the morning, the trestle gave way.
The engine and some of the cars
passed over, but were drawn back
ward into the abyss and upon the rear
cars, and then. to add to the disaster,
a light engine and caboose following
ran on top Of tie train.
Four persons were killed and thirty
three injured. The killed are: Engi-
neer 3. x. BaTksdale, Of the light en-
CINE, Abbeville, s. G.; Fireman Ed
Roberts (colored), OF the passenger en-
CINE, Atlanta. Ga; Mrs. Black and
an unidentified woman
George s. Fitzwater, chief detective
Of the Seaboard Air Line. said that he
had found some spikes and bolts and
two angle bars which had been re-
moved from the track with claw bars.
He was confident that criminal work
had been done. He expressed his be-
lief that some one had disconnected
the joints in the lower half Of the
bridge
The stretch of track in that vicinity
Is a clear, straight and apparently well
built one. The timbers of the bridge
appear to have been wrenched from
their fastenings, and those that are
splintered are Of sound wood There
was nothing to suggest that the foun-
datiOns OF the structure were under
mined by washout, although the
ground was somewhat marshy.
CASTOR Mears, the engineer of the
passenger train, escaped with some
bruises and q painful scalp wound. He
said that just before the engine had
swept entirely clear Of the structure
he felt 1t sinking. but the impetus car
ried the engine and all the cars ex-
cept the first-class passenger car and
the Pullman over and clear Of the
yawning gulf, which was left when
half the bridge collapsed, but the en-
CINE and cars were swerved from their
course to the right, tearing the rail
loose from its fastenings and hurting
the entire train upside down over an
embankment to the meadow, about
thirty feet below.
When the train went crashing over
the embankment every light went out,
and passengers were thrown against
the sides of the coaches. bleeding and
bruised.
Mrs. Black, sitting with her husband,
who Is telegraph operator in the ser
vice of the Norfolk and Western, gave
short cry and when he managed to
strike match and find her body he
discovered that she was dead, her neck
having been broken. She was the only
passenger killed or even hurt seriously.
/ As the scrambling and shouting went
on in the dark, above the noises a
brakeman, with his head half way out
Of window, was heard to shout
MY God, the freight train is coming
upon usr'
In less than "a minute the engine and
cab0ose. which had left Monroe fifteen
minutes behind the passenger train
struck the open space where the bridge
had fallen andplunged its way through
the passenger cars. The woman whose
Identity could not be discovered then
met her death.
Mr. Black was the last man to leave
the coaches, and the very first thing
he did was to walk in his bruised con-
dition to Catawba Junction, two miles
away, and send a telegram for help to
Monroe, twenty-five miles distant Aid
was promptly sent and the injured