The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-11-13
50 IMMIGRANTS Die IN WRECK.
SN tSHED cars TAKE FIRE AND
MANY ARE CREMiTED.
Besides the Dead, a. Are seriously Injured.
some Of Them Fatally -MIsunderstand-
InE or Neglect II signals the Cause
Victims FriendIess d Unknown.


Victims FrIcndIess and Unknown.
CHICAGO, Nov. FIFTY persons were
killed and forty-eight seriously injured.
some fatally, in a headon collision
between a Baltimore and Ohio passenger
train and a freight train near Woodville,
Ind, ten miles this side Of Valparaiso. early
this morning.
Six passenger coaches and a number OF
freight cars were burned, and many Of
the victims were cremsted before the
rescuers could drag them from the wreck.
After the flames were extinguished the
dead immigrants, forty-eight In all, were
collected at the side Of the track. and the
bodies were piled into two big boxes and
buried at the side Of the right Of way. This
was lone by consent Of the Coroner. Two
trainmen who were killed were taken to
their homes at Garrett, Ind.
The disaster was caused by some ones
blunder. No effort was made at the rail-
way offices in Chicago to suppress details
Of the disaster, but the number OF fatalities
was not known definitely until late this
afternoon.
The injured. who, like the dead, are
all immigrants bound for Chicago and
the Northwest, were brought to this city
on a special train arriving at 3 o'clock his
afternoon. Nearly all the dead were Poles
and their names have not been learned.
Investigation by the Baltimore and Ohio
officials of the cause of the wreck estab-
lished, so the officials declare, that it was
due to negligence on the part Of the train
crews.
This negligence consisted Of the alleged
failure of the crew Of the first section,
which preceded the wrecked passenger
Train, to display the proper signal lights
and to signal with whistle to the freight
train which caused the wreck, in COM
pliance with the rules Of the road and with
the special orders Of Train Dispatcher @.
L. Showalter.
Also the engineer. of the freight train
is blamed for failure either to see the signal
lights, if any were displayed, or to call
with his whistle when he failed to receive
the regular whistle signals from the pas
senger train.
Shortly before 3 A. NJ. the engineer OF
east bound freight No. 90, on instructions
received at McCooI. waited at the siding
at Babcock, Ind. to allow the immigrant
train to pass.
For some reason he did not know or he
had forgotten that train No. AZ, the west
bound immigrant train. had been divided
into two sections.
The first section, headed for Chicago
with scores OF foreigners from Baltimore,
flew past the waiting freight. some say it
carried at the rear no lights indicating hat
a second section was following. At all
events. il it did the signals we're unheeded,
and Engineer Burke and Conductor Moste
sent the freight eastward over the single
track.
A light fall of snow and a curve just west
of WoOdville contributed to the disaster.
Engineer Reneman % the immigrant
train and Engineer Burke On the freight
each caught through the snowfakes the
yellow CLEAN OF the headlights as they
rounded the fatal curve. Whistles and
brake exhausts shrieked together.
Then with "a crash the engines flew to-
gether and fell sideward upon the en-
bankment, carrying in a broken mass the
coaches and freight cars with them.
Thrown from sleep amid strange sur
.roundings into the dark and cold Of early
morning and made more terrible by the
cries Of their injured and dying fellows,
the 1856 foreign born passengers %uninjured
we're panic stricken.
Fires showing here INC there among the
forward ~wreckage added to the confusion.
and only the heroic determination and
cool headed efficiency of Conductors Brooks
and Moste and their brakemen averted a
greater loss of life.
The entire immigrant train OF six cars
was burned, as were three cars in the freight
train.