Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1907-07-25
THIRTY PERSONS DIE
KILLED IN WRECK ON PERE
MARQUETTE RAILWAY.
Passenger and Freight Trains Crash
Together Near Salem. Mich
Seventy Are Injured - Accident
Due to Blunder of Freight Crew.

Due to Blunder of Freight Crew.
Thirty people are dead and more
than seventy injured, many of them Sc
ricusly, as the result of head-end col
lision Saturday morning between Sa-
lem and Plymouth, Mich, when a Pere
Marquette excursion train bound from
Ionia to Detroit crashed into a west
bound freight in a cut located at q
sharp curve about a mile east of Sa-
lem.
The passenger train of eleven cars,
carrying the Pere Marquette shop en-
ployes of Ionia and their families
1000 in ALTO the Michigan metropo-
lis for their annual excursion was run
hing at high speed-said to have been
fifty miles an hour-down steep
grade. 1t struck the lighter locomotive
of the freight train with such terrific
force as to turn the freight engine COM
pletely around.
The wrecked locomotives few hours
later lay side by side, both headed
eastward. Only few of the freight
trains cars were smashed, and it was
only few hours work to remove all
traces of them from the scene.
Coaches Are Shattered.
Behind the two wrecked locomotives
six cars of the passenger train lay piled
in a hopeless wreck. -Four of the pas
senger coaches remained on the track
unchanged and We're used to convey
the dead and injured to Ionia. One
coach was unchanged, with only its
forward truck off the rails. These were
the rear five cars. The two coaches
next ahead of these were teIeScoped.
One of these was the smoker, where
most of the victims We're riding.
The next car forward stood almost on
end after the wreck its forward end
resting GA the roadbed and the rear
end high in the air upon the two tele-
scoped coaches that had been follow
ing it.
Two coaches were thrown crosSwise
OF the track and lay suspended from
bank to bank of the cut high above the
rails
Of the baggage car not enough re-
manned to show where it had been
tossed Portions of the baggage car
and of the locomotive tenders and
freight cars were piled in an indescrib-
able mass of debris.
Engine Crew Jumps; One Dies.
The freight train was moving slowly
UP the grade in the cut when the eX-
cursion flyer bore down on it. L. B.
Alyord, engineer of the passenger, saw
the crash was inevitable, and after set
ting the air brake jumped, with his
fireman, Knowles. AlvOrd escaped Sc
rious injury, but Knowles died of his
hurts.
After the first frenzy of terror sub
sided the uninjured passengers began
TO give succor to those who were hurt |
and remove the bodies of the dead. |
which were seen on all sides, pinned |
down in the debris.
fire lent speed to their efforts.
Bodies Taken from wreckage.
The dead were placed in a row
alongside the track, and the injured |
were made as comfortable as possible |
until the arrival of wrecking trains |
from Saginaw, Detroit, and Grand Rap |
ids made it possible to send them to
Ionia and Detroit.
The twenty eight bodies first taken
from the wreck were sent to Ionia and |
the injured were placed on two trains, |
one of which beaded for Detroit, and |
the other for Ionia. There were about |
thirty-five injured people on each train.
Later in the day the body of Ed Cor
wan, the head brakeman of the passen-
ger train, was taken out of the wreck.
Fireman Knowles died in the relief
train en- route to Detroit, making the
list of dead thirty, with a possibility
that several of the injured may die.
Freight Crew Blamed; Missing.
Responsibility is put squarely on to
the crew of the freight train by officials
of the road. One of them, who arrived
at the scene of the wreck soon after
the accident, took from the crew of the
freight the orders under which it was
running. They clearly showed the po-
sition of the passenger excursion train
and that the freight had encroached on
the other trains running time
The special train was due at Salem
at 8 10 a. m. and at Plymouth at 9 90
a. N. 1t passed Salem on time.
The time card of the special was
telegraphed to the freight crew in the
form of train order, and this order
with the signatures of the freight train
crew attached. was recovere- by the
officials.
The freight crew disappeared imme-
diately after being interviewed by the
rail chiefs. They explained that they
forgot about the special
Te1egraphic Brevities.