The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-09-10
JUNK IS MADE OF CARS.
Rolling Stock Torn to Pieces in Sea-
 board Wreck.

Charlotte. N. C.. Sept. 9.-The wreck ed train was running about forty miles an hour when the trestle which is about 300 feet long. spanning a meadow near the Catawba River. gave way. The engine and four cars passed over, but where drawnI back into the abyss and upon the other cars. a light engine and caboose piling in on top of the train of wreckage before 1t could be Jagged.
 Gaston Mears. the engineer of the passenger train, escaped with some bruises and a painful scalp wound. How he escaped death is beyond his comprehension. He said that he was driving at the rate of forty miles an hour as he crossed the bridge. Just before the engine had swept entirely clear of the structure. he felt it sink ing but the impetus carried the engine Snd all the cars across except the first class passenger car and the Pullman, clear of the yawning gulf which was left when half the bridge collapsed, but the engine and cars were swerved from their course to the right, tearing the rail loose from It's fastenings and hurling the entire train upside down over an embankment into the meadow about thirty feet below.
 oCtItB HtiIuWlHS DNyoho ucSCTlptlOH ensued. The accounts of the survi- vors are terrible. When the train went crashing over the embankment. every light went out passengers were thrown against the sides of the coaches, bleeding and bruised. Mrs. Black, sit ting with her husband. gave a short cry. and when he managed to strike a match and find her body he discover ed that she was dead, her neck hav- ing been broken.
 As the scrambilng and shouting went on in the dark, above the noise a brakeman. with his head half way out of a window. was heard to shout, My God, The freight train Is coming upon upon us"
 In less than a minute the freight which had left Monroe fifteen minutes behind the passenger. came whizzling along the tracks. struck the open space where the bridge had fallen and plunged It's way through the passenger cars. The woman whose identity could not be discovered then met her death, the freight engine having crashed through the side of the passenger coach in which she was and her body was crushed into q shapeless mass The engineer of the freight train must have me! his death instantly.
 lie was IOunu III lHe cap the overturned engine with his head crush ed. but few bruises upon his body When his body was dug out of the debris. this morning. his watch was still running on time His fireman escaped with few minor injuries
 The wreck developed at least one hero Mir. Black. whose wife was killed beside him. He was the last man to leave the coaches. In a bruised con- dition he walked to Catawba Junction. two miles away, got into the telegraph office and sent to Monroe for help. He Is a telegraph operator in the service of the Norfolk and Western Railroad. and was going to Atlanta with his wife to testify there in railroad suit. He hardly realized the blow he had sustained, and sat on the bank near by with mournfui eyes and mutterinE to himself: My God, what an ordeal for q man to bear.
 The mass of wreckage of the two trains is like a huge heap e junk Railroad men said today they had nev- CT seen such a complete demolishment of engines and coaches. They are lying heaped and crushed together Looking at the debris, people wonder that any one escaped. The wreckine crew from the Seaboard shops at Ab- beville. s. C.. arrived about 10 o'clock this morning and began to clear away the wreckage. It will take days to get the line in passable condition, al. though the trains are scattered to the side of the tracks and in the ravine | into which the bridge fell.
 George S. Fitzwater. chief detectiv, of the Seaboard Air Line. arrived or