The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1904-07-15
PICNIC TRAIN is UREcSl2
CRASHES INTO A FREIGHT WHILE
GOING AT RATE OF FORTY
MILES AN HOUR.
WORK OF RESCUE DELAYED
INJURED HELD UNDER WRECK
AGE UNTIL AID COULD BE
SUMMONED.

Chicago, July 14.-Last evening
twenty-five members of the Sunday
school of Doremus Congregational
church at T%hirty-first and Butler
streets went to death with joy in their
hearts and a hymn On their lips.
Seventy people, mostly children. mem
bers of the same Sunday school, were
manned and a.a-g.cl at the same time.
The carnage occurred in a collision
on the tracks of the Chicago and East
ern Illinois railroad between Chicago
Heights and Glenwood, twenty-five
miles from Chicago. Wednesday was
the annual picnic of the Sunday school,
and as in former years, hundreds OF
the children with their parents and
friends had gone to the picnic grounds
at Momence, ILL.,, for the day. The
picnic was over, and the train was on
the return to Chicago when the accl-
dent occurred. The children in the
first coach of the train We're singing
as it passed through Chicago Heights,
twenty-seven miles from Chicago. Two
miles further the train went OF, and
then the singing was hushed in death
for above a score, and cries OF pain
and horror for seventy others.
Two accidents combined to make
the disaster. The first was the break
ing down of a freight train on the
northbound track on which the eXcur-
sion train should have proceeded after
leaving Chicago Heights, and the
other was the breaking of a coupling
on a second freight train. Because
the first train had blocked the right
full track, the excursion train
switched to the s%outhbound track to
run for four miles until 1t should have
passed the station of Glenwood just
north of Chicago Heights.
AS it tore along the track at the
rate of forty miles an hour, it rounded
a sharp curve, and came full upon the
second train which was backing up on
the southbound track in order to take
up it's lost cars, and trying at the
same time to keep out of the way OF
the coming picnic train, which it be-
lieved was on the northbound track.
Struck The Freight at Full Speed.
There was no time for more than
the setting of the brakes, when with
unslackened speed the train with it's
load of 500 men, m and children,
crashed at full speed into the freight.
There was a shock, a shrek and over
twenty souls were in eternity. The
people in the first car were thrown up
against the front of their car which
plunged up against the end of the
baggage car just ahead, and the mass
0f naon1n n hpr1od o0oincf tho wreck
of the baggage car, and nobody in the
dense pack of people in the forward
end of that first coach escaped death
or serious injury.
The dead are: Carl Stewart, twelve
years old; Mrs. Ellen Landers, Mrs.
Emma Halmer, Lena Halmore, Lena
Hipleus, fourteen years; Mrs. Germ
ger. Miss Ceringer, Walter Ceringer,
fifteen years; Andrew Kramer, Will
lam H. Meyer, twelve years; John
Poduda, eight years; Mamie Poduda,
three years; Mrs. Carriage and nine
unidentified children.
The train which vas wrecked left
the T%hirty-frst street station of the
Chicago and Eastern Illinois Wednes-
day morning for Momence. The pic
mic was the annual outing of the mem
OO1o vi q
chapel of Plymouth Congregational
church. of this city. After spending
the day on the picnic grounds at Mo-
mence the train started on the return
trip, running in as the second section
of the regular passenger train, which
is due in Chicago at 1925. When the
picnic train reached Chicago Heights,
four miles beyond Glenwood, where
tho oooidarf f00H n1o00 r. uoc
switched to the regular southbound
track, and although it was coming
north it was given a clear track by the
should reach Glenwood, four miles
away.
Impossible to Pass the Freight.
Just half way between Chicago
Heights and Glenwood there is a sharp
curve and as the picnic train tore
around this on the southbound track
a freight train was backing from the
southbound to a northbound track. 1t
was partly on both tracks, and no
train could have passed it in either
direction. The bend is so sharp that
the engineer of the picnic train had no
chance to see the freight before he
was upon it. 1t was too late to do
anything but set the air brakes, but
before they could take effect the pas
senger train smashed into the freight
at full speed.
The engine and baggage car of the
passenger train went clear through
the freight, and were piled up in a
heap of wreckage on the further side
of the switch on which the freight
was crossing from one track to the
other. The first coach of the picnic
train plunged straight into the wreck
age. and buried itself in a mass of
.1ndling wood under the demolished
baggage car.
Nearly all of the passengers in the
first coach were caught beneath the
mass of debris, and it was here that
the loss of life occurred. The people
IN the rear coaches were hurled from
their seats. and many of them were