The free lance. (Fredericksburg, Va.) 1885-1926, 1905-09-14

Crowded Train Derailed and Car
Pitched Into Street.
MORE THAN rwo-scoRE INJURED

Train Was Running at High speed anu
Struck a Misplaced switch-Heavy
Car Truck Fell Among Victims In
the Street.
New York. Sept l2-The death list
OF the accident ON the Ninth avenue
elevated railroad, when car crowded
with workers on their way down town
pitched headlong into the street now
stands at -. Three men are IN hos
pitals with fractured skulls. one OF
these who as yet remains unidentified
AT Roosevelt hospital. is unconscious
and not expected to live. More than
twoscore persons were injured. many
of them seriously.
The dead are: Jacob NJ. Anspach.
Of the Newark o. J) board Of trade;
Ernest p. Schoible. Theodore Morris.
John Cochrane. Solomon Neugass.
Cornelius Mccarthy William Lees,
Joseph Bach. James Cooper, Emma
Conhoyen. Albert Webster and Louis
Abel
or the dead the most frightfully
mutilated was James Cooper, whose
head was completely severed from his
body
The cause Of the accident and the
immediate responsibility remain to be
settled. The motorman OF the wrecked
train is a fugitive. while a switchman.
conductor and four guards are under
arrest. The switchman is charged
with manslaughter and the trainmen
are held as witnesses.
Whatever may have caused the mis-
take. the accident the worst In the
history of the overhead railroads In
New York came when a southbound
train on the Ninth avenue line was
switched of TO the Sixth avenue line
at the SD street junction. The motor
man. expecting a clear track on the
direct line of Ninth avenue, or disre.
sarding the warning signal that the
switch was open. rushed his train
along at high rate OF speed. The
first car swung around the rght-angle
curve. holding TO the rails because OF
the weight of the train behind. Then
the strain became too great. The
couplings broke. the second car was
whirled about almost end for end, and
10 the horror OF those who looked on
from below, pitched into the street.
The first indication people on the
sidewalk had OF the accident was a
loud rumbling along the overhead
structure. Looking up. they saw a
shower Of sparks. then followed spin
ters and the sound Of splitting tim
bers. Suddenly the outer guard rail
OF the railroad structure gave way, a
score Of bodies were hurled through
space and with a deafening crash the
car fell into the street For an in
slant it stood fairly on end. Then the
sides gave way as if they were made
Of pasteboard, belching out a mass OF
humanity.
Those passengers who had not
jumped from platforms and windows
before the plunge came were thrown
into a mass at the forward end OF
the car. AS the injured men and
women were struggling to free them
selves the heavy front trucks OF the
third car on the train fell almost in
their midst as the car itself Jumped
partly of the elevated structure and
was wedged against a building at the
southeast corner Of Ninth avenue and
53d street.
Three alarms Of fire brought many
engines TO the scene. A slight fire
caused by burning insulation was
quickly extinguished, and the fremen
set to work chopping out the dead and
injured.
The task was not an easy one, for
the heavy car in falling almost com.
pletely buried pedestrians in wreck
age. At least one was killed outright
in this way, while Policeman Henry
Aitkens, who was standing directly
under the elevated structure, is among
those most seriously injured.
Eight persons were dead when taken
out Of the wreck and four died later
at hospitals.
A man who went suddenly raying
mad in a subway train a few hours
after the wreck was identified as Leo
pold Neugass, father Of a young man
killed in the wreck. The father was
reading a paper, and supposedly had
before him one of the early stories
about the wreck, for he suddenly
jumped from his seat shouting that
his boy was killed. He tried to climb
out OF a car window. When pulled
back into the train by guards he had
to be forcibly restrained from beating
his head against the steel walls of the
car. At the hospital he was pro
nounced insane Friends who were on
the same train identified him. and said
that his mind had been sound only a
few minutes previously.