Perth Amboy evening news., 1906-03-16
VIC 7 | MS
BURN IN
W WRECK.
Forty Are Killed in Head-OD
Collision on Rio Grande
Railroad.
BUT I5 ESCAPE
Relief Trains from Pueblo Carry
Doctors and Nurses Dead
and Injured Brought Back.

PUEBLO, Col, Mar. 16:-TwO
passenger trains on the Rio GraHde
railroad met in a head-on collision
near Portland this morning and forty
passengers are reported to have been
killed, but fifteen having escaped.
Immediately after the accident the
wreckage of both trains took fire and
many of the injured were roasted
alive.
Relief trains, loaded with doctors
and nurses, were rushed from this
city to the scene of the catastrophe.
The dead and Injured are being
brought here and all the hospitals
and morgues are filed.
The accident happened in
binding snow storm. which had pre-
vailed for several days in the Arkan-
sas Valley. So dense was the air that
it was impossible to see more than a
few feet ahead. This fact does not,
however, account for the catastrophe.
as the trains, as stated, met head on
The westbound train, No. 3, was
the Utah and California Express,
which left Denver at s o'clock last
evening, and the eastbound train was
No. 16, the Colorado and New Mexico
express from Santa Fe, n. NJ, and
from Durango, Grand Junction. Lead
vile. Salida, and other Colorado
points.
1t was from the report given ogtt by.
persons coming from the scene that
the ~n-a11Ber burned was esrix5iss
fifteen.
From these same persons some ink
ling was gathered of the horror of the
situation after the collision.
The night was dark and the ther-
mometer near the zero point. A cut
ting wind was blowing, and drifts
were piled high along the tracks.
When the crash came nearly all on
the two trains we're sleeping. On the
California express were three Pull
mans and on the New Mexico express
also three.
These heavy coaches remained on
the rai but the lighter cars, of
vhich ere were nine, were toppled
over, crushed and twisted.
Immediately the passengers inn
prisoned in the network of iron and
wood, many of them terribly injured,
began to scream for aid.
thrown from their berths, rushed
madly into the night, but soon quiet
ed down and bent all their energies TO
saving the unfortunates.
Flames added to the horrors of the
scene. Catching, supposedly from
an overturned stove in one of the.
baggage cars, the fire, famed by the
fierce wind, spread rapidly and in
creased the tortures of the dying
women and men.
For two hundred yards up and
down the track lay wreckage and
broken rails, clothing, pieces of benr7
iron, and baggage. Over all this swirl
ed little mounds of snow melting unAs
der the flames that lit up the scene.
Ii was impossible on account of the
intense heat from the burning pile to
get at the victims pinned in the de-
bris. They cried and shouted till
they became unconscious or begged
to be put out of their misery.
Many man risked his life to get
to the sufferers.
When daylight came an estimate
made that $50 had perished, but lat
er the number was reduced to forty.
BY the time aid arrived the engines
and charred cars were nearly buried
by the drifting snow, and many OF
the dead were dug out frozen as well
as burned.
The fortunate fact that the Pulls.
mans remained on the track resultede
in the saving of score of lives of the
injured. For although the cars were
cold they furnished refuge from the
storm and contained blankets and
wraps for the sufferers.
A dining car also attached to one
of the trains was the means OF furzs
nishing hot berths and stimulants.