The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-05-13
Special With 145 Shriners on Board Strikes a Defective
 Switch al Honda
MORE THAN 4 SCORE
 ARE SERIOUSLY INJURED
Most of the Passengers on the Train Were From Buffalo, N. ", and Reading, Pa.-Harrowing
 Scenes.


 Scenes.
 Santa Barbara, Cal, May 12-While hur- rying northward over the Coast Line of the Southern Pacific railroad yesterday afternoon, homeward bound, after weeK of fraternizing and fiesta, in Los Angeles, 145 Shriners of Ismala temple of Buff faIo and Rajah temple of Reading, Pa, with their families and friends, were hurled into the midst of death when their special train. running fifty miles an alour, struck defective switch at Honda lonely station on the sand waste of the Pacific beach. derailing the train, smashing the coaches into flinders, killing thirty-one almost instantly and injuring more than score of others The bodies of twenty-five lie in the morgues at Santa Barbara this afternoon, and ten more are at San Luis Obispo. The in- jured, many of whom are terribly hurt, are in two sanitariums at San Luis Obspo.
 Following are the names of the dead: J. Douglass Nipple, potentate Rajah temple, Reading, Pa.
 H. K. Gitellman, Reading.
 A. l.. Rolph, Reading.
 C. Gilbert Steffe, Reading.
 S. Snyder. Reading.
 Louis N. Ellenborgen, Allentown, Pa. Howard Mover, Hazleton, Pa.
 A. b. Wasson, Ismalia temple, Buffalo, N. Y.
 Charles S. Henry, Lebanon, Pa.
 John w. Cutler, Binghamton, N. Y. Charles M. Lowing, Pullman conductor, Buffalo
 c. w. Austin. New York. agent for McCann's Tourist company.
 John Laceni, a negro car waiter. John Sweeny, dining car waiter. George F. Hagerman, Reading. Benjamin Stoltz, Reading.
 Harrison Hendle, Reading.
 Thomas J. Brumbach, Reading.
 Brakeman Bickford, back broken.
 Women Killed.
 Following are the names of the women who met death in the wreck:
 Mrs. William E. Sick, Reading. Mrs. S. Snyder, Reading.
 Miss Stoltz, Reading.
 Mrs. J. w. Cutler, Binghamton N. Y. Mrs. Lewis N. Ellenboger, Allentown, Pa.
 Mrs. Henry J. Fisher, Cleveland, o. Miss Cora Young, Cleveland.
 Mrs. Brumbach, Reading.
 Unidentified woman, probably Mrs, Mary Gvins, Reading.
 Dead at San Luis Obspo. The following dead are at San Luis Obispo:
 Richard Essick, Reading.
 Oliver T. Kaufman.
 Henry Miller.
 Alonzo B. Rogers, St. Paul Pullman car conductor.
 Engineer Champlaine badly scalded. Fireman Glen Thompson, face and arms scalded, and internally injured.
 Ex-Mayor H. A. Hartsel, Easton, Pa., not serious.
 Mrs. Hendle and daughter Helen of Reading, not serious
 A. R. Raefel, Bemis Point, Ore, scalp wound. right hand and leg hurt.
 J. Calvin Hoffedtig, Reading, Pa, left shoulder fractured, scalp wound.
 Martin Henry, Shamokin, Pa, scalded. MT. Boyd, Reading. leg broken. Mrs. Fred Greenwood, Binghamton, N. r., leg broken.
 Details of Wreck.
 The wreck occurred at 215 o'clock one hour and forty-five minutes after the con- clave 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 it struck the defective track Is borne out by the fact that it covered the sixty-one miles of curves and crooked track between here and Honda, in exactly one hundred 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 were hurled together in d heap of wreckage. The engine tore up the rails and ties and twisted the huge iron spans into fishhooks. The baggage car, half buried itself in the sand on the right side of the locomotive. It was smashed almost to kindling wood.
 The dining car, in which were thirty two persons. eating their monday meal, leaped into the air and was thrown direct ly on top of the demolished locomotive. Nearly every person in this coach was instantly killed. Scores were scalded by steam escaping from disconnected pipes, in the kitchen of the diner.
 Terror indescribabIe.
 The terror ana IuTTlOll Ol lue SCeHe was indescribable. Many of those who escaped instant death by the first impact were crushed by the rear coaches hurled upon the wreckage. Others, pinioned in the debris, were roasted alive. The wreckage caught fire from the cols of the engine but was extinguished in few minutes by the passengers who had escaped injury
 Engineer Frank Champlaine was pitched with his cab, twenty-five feet above the engine and got up and ran three-quarters of mile, seeking help before he dis covered that his arm was broken and that he was severely scalded. A man stand ing behind his wife in the baggage car, was hurled through huge rent in the room, and alighted in soft and yielding sand almost uninjured. The woman was forced through the floors and wreckers had to lift tons of baggage to get her body out. The unfortunates who occu- pied every seat in the dining car were caught in a veritable death trap.
 Only two of the nine men of the diner crew are numbered among the dead. The remainder. though cooped up in the nar-