Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1907-01-20
Is PEOPLE KILLED
IN Big FOUR WRECK
Bodies of Twenty of the Vic
tins Were Cremated.
Dense FOG CAUSED ACCIDENT

ne engineer OF passenger rain Was
Unable to See Danger Light which
Directed Him to Stop, and Train
Was Running at a 5o-Mile Rate.
Indianapolis, Jan. ia special to
the News from Lafayette reports re-
ceived there indicate that 25 people
were killed in the wreck of Big Four
passenger engine No. So, near Fowl
er early Saturday, twenty of whom
were cremated.
Those killed, it is said, were nearly
all in the combination car, which took
fire and burned.
The sleeping cars turned over.
Owing to the dense fog the engi-
neer of the Big Four flyer was unable
to see the light on the semaphore
which directed him to stop as a west
bound freight had the right of way
The train dispatcher, knowing that
the dense fog would prevent the train
men from seeing the block signal
went outside and waved his lantern
frantically and fired at least half a
dozen shots from his revolver, but the
train rushed by, and moment later
the crash came.
The tender of No SO telescoped
the baggage car, the rear end of the
tender cut through to within ten feet
of the rear OF the smoker.
The fremen of both trains were
killed instantly, but the engineers es-
capped by jumping.
The report Of the collision was heard
al over the little town and fire bells
and whistles quickly called the people
to the aid of the injured.
Immediately following the crash the
wrec6age caught fire and the bodies
were burned before they could be ex-
tricated from the ruins. The heat of
the burning cars was so intense that
the would-be rescuers could not get
near enough. to help. The injured
and some of the dead were taken to
Kankakee, H.
One man was pleading piteously for
aid was pinned under a car seat :" He
was rescued when the flames were
within six feet of him. Another man
was thrown out of the window of the
smoker into a ditch. These were the
only TWO passengers rescued from the
smoker
The killed includes men, women
and children, and all that could be
seen at daybreak in the morning was
the smouldering skeletons of human
bodies and wreckage of the smoker
and the baggage cars. None Of the
passengers in the sleepers was killed.
Coroner Comley has taken charge
and prosecuting attorney Hall will as
sist the coroner in making an in
vestigation of the wreck.
The sleeping cars were not destroy
ed by fire, as first reported.
General Superintendent H. F.
Houghton, of the Big Four, said his
information at 10 a m. was that be-
tween ten and fifteen persons were
killed, while the list of seriously in
jured is not large.
THE Indianapolis sleeper" said
Mr. Houghton, was the last car on
the train. No person on it was hurt.
Five injured were taken into the
hospital at Kankakee. One of them
died on the way
THE survivors were put aboard the
next train for Indianapolis. 1t was
necessary to send this train back to
Schaf and over the Lake Erie and
Western and Chicago and Eastern I'LL
nois to get back to the main line for
Indianapolis. Some of the passengers
wished to go back to Chicago, and
were sent there.
1--WE sent a wreck train from here
at 5 o'clock in the morning, but
train from Kankakee was there ahead
of it.
Our information is that No. SO
ran past the block at Fowler, proba-
bly, because of the fog"