The Elbert County tribune., 1906-03-22
WRECK and LOSS 0FLIFE
IN D. .&R. G. RAILROAD COLLISION

Pueblo. Colo.-The Adobe wreck will
rank as one OF the great railroad dis
asters In the history of railroading. In
other wrecks the loss of life has been
greater, but none was productive. of
scenes more horrible The collision
happened at Adobe, four miles east of
Florence, at 2:30 o'clock Friday morn
ing. A binding blizzard was raging
and the thermometer was 2 degrees
below zero. Rio Grande passenger
train No. from Denver collided with
No. 16 from Salt Lake. Operator ]. S.
Lively at Swallows is said to have
slept and failed to deliver orders
The accident happened on the same
curve where about year ago seven
teen persons were killed.
Two great mogul locomotives were
hauling, No. 3, the westbound train,
and they bore down on the engine pull
ing No. 16, around the outer edge of a
at the point of the wreck, on a down
grade at the rate OF forty-five miles an
hour.
Going thirty miles an hour was No
16. Shut of from each others view
until almost together, there was no
chance for brakes.
The engineers who lost their lives
hardly knew what happened. The
great engines came together in the
light of their headlights with tremen-
dou5 force.
The leading engine of No. 3's double
header was jammed and crushed be-
tween the mogul behind it and the one
pulling No. 16 like an empty tomato
can. The sheathing of one set of
boiler tubes covered that of another
great energy generator.
Cars piled up in high masses of steel
beams and woodwork and caved in and
down on their slumbering occupants.
The scene that followed, as de-
scribed by the few survivors who have
been able to talk coherently, can only
be left to the imagination of people
fortunate enough not to have been
present.
No man can say to-day, tomorrow or
next week how many travellers met
their doom in that irresistible grind of
wood and steel.
Sixteen charred, mangled and utterly
unrecognizable bodies lie in the morgue
at Pueblo, six more have been identi-
fed, and more than a score were doubt
less burned to ashes
Conservative estimates on the total
loss of life place the number of dead
at thirty-five. Rio Grande officials at
Pueblo insists that the exact number
of persons on the two trains cannot be
ascertained; that it is impossible.
The Republican of Sunday morning
says:
Operator L. S. Live>y has been sus-
pended from further duty and Opera
tor VIM VanDeusen will be relieved,
it is stated, as soon as a suitable man
can be sent to Swallows to take his
place. AS far as the train dispatch
er's office in Pueblo know. say the men
in charge, VanDusen was working his
own shift at the Swallows station all
the time and the first information re-
ceived by the Office was when the
wreck occurred.
1t Is understood that Van Deusen
had made arrangements to lay off and
had come into the city to spend the
night. 1t is not known definitely
whether he did this or not. The opin-
ion of the railway men as expressed is
that Lively was directly responsible
and that Van Deusen to some extent
indirectly for the catastrophe.
Walter Murphy, the Florence oil
driller who was supposed to have per-
ished in the car while rescuing pas
sengers from the flames. has turned
up safe and sound, with but a few
scratches. 1t appears that he rescued
a number of persons and then went
with the injured people to Portland
station, where he assisted in caring
for them, before he took the time to re-
turn to his home.
A heartrending story of mother love
and self-sacrifice is told by Conductor
Kroeger, who had charge of the Pull
mans on the westbound train.
II saw one mother" he said. with
a little babe in her arms. She knew
that 1t was almost an impossibility TO
be saved herself, but her only thought
was of her child. One hand was pin
Toned by the debris. but her head and
the other arm were free.
"She was trying to keep her head
from the flames and with her free hand
was holding the infant as high in the
air as she could Just as we were
about to reach her she gave a gasp and
fell back into the. flames with. the
babe"
There is only one change in the
death list as made up yesterday The
name of Patrick Murphy is stricken
out and that of Thomas Brennan sub
stituted. The list follows:
William Hollis, engineer. Pueblo.
Walter Cosslett, engineer, Pueblo.
H. d. Suddeth, fireman, Pueblo
Ed. E. Baird, deputy sheriff, Denver.
Archibald Whitney, convict, Denver.
E. M. Mcfarland, messenger, Den
yer.
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