Los Angeles herald., 1907-05-13

BY Associated Press.
SANTA BARBARA, Cal, May H.
While hurrying northward over the
coast line of the Southern Pacific rail-
road yesterday afternoon home bound
after a week Of fraternizing and Fiesta
in Los Angeles 145 Shriners of Ismailia
temple of Buffalo and Rajah temple OF
Reading, with their families and
friends, were hurled into the midst of
horrible destruction when their special
train, running fifty miles an hour,
struck a defective switch at Honda, a
lonely station on the sand waters OF
the Pacific beach, derailing the train,
smashing the coaches into flinders, kill
| ing thirty almost instantly and injur-
| ing more than a score of others.
| The bodies Of twenty-one lie in the
morgues Of Santa Barbara this after
noon and nine more are at San Luis
Obispo. The injured, many of whom
are terribly hurt and will probably die,
are in two sanitariums at San Luis
Obispo.
Train Going Fast
The wreck occurred exactly at 1886
o'clock one hour and forty-five minutes
after the conclave visitors, forming a
merry party, had spent all the morning
sightseeing in Santa Barbara. The
statement that the train was making
a terrific speed when 1t struck the de-
fective track is borne out by the fact
that 1t covered the sixty-one miles of
curves and crooked track between here
and Honda In exactly 100 minutes.
There was no warning of the impend-
ing calamity. The special plunged
upon the defective switch and in an
instant the big locomotive, baggage car,
diner and Pullman coupled with 1t
were hurled together in huge heap of
The engine shot forward on the
broken track. tearing up the rails and
ties and twisting the huge iron spans
into fish hooks. The baggage car half
buried itself in the sand on the right
side of the locomotive.
1t was smashed almost into kindling
wood.
The dining car, in which were thirty
two people eating their monday re-
past, leaped into the air and was
thrown directly on top of the demol-
ished locomotive. Nearly every person
in this coach was scalded to death by
escaping steam from the broken boiler
and from the disconnected pipes in the
kitchen of the diner.
Terror Reigns
The terror and turmoil of the scene
were indescribable. Many who escaped
instant death in the first impact were
crushed by the oncoming rear coaches
hurled upon the wreckage. Others,
pinioned in the debris, were roasted
alive. The wreckage caught fire from
the Goals of the engine, but was ex-
tinguished few minutes later by those
of the passengers who had escaped in
jury.
Engineer Fred Champlain was pitched
with his cab twenty-five feet beyond
the engine and got up and ran three
he discovered that his arm was
broken and that he was severely
scalded.
A man standing behind his wife in the
baggage car was hurled through huge
rent in the roof and alighted in soft and
yielding sand almost uninJured. The
woman was forced through the floor
and wreckers had to lift tons of bag
gage to get her body out.
Caught in Death Trap
But the unfortuna.es who occupied
every seat in the dining car were caught
in a veritable death trap. Only two of
the nine men of the diner crew are num-
bered among the dead The remainder, |
though cooped up in the narrow kitchen
and pantry, sustained but few cuts
and bruises.
The last call for luncheon had just |
sounded few moments before the dis
aster.
Rajah temple of Reading occupied the
last car on the train and were the last
ones to go forward to the diner. The
car was filled almost entirely with
Reading people when the wreck oc-
CURED.
An instant after the smash those who
were not rendered insensible or other
wise incapacitated by the terrible Inn
pact jumped from the train to render
aid, but the grewsome scene before
them untitled many for the work they
had to do in the long hours before re-
lief arrived.
Women Faint
Frightened women. peering through
the windows of the undamaged sleeper. |