New-York tribune., 1908-07-17
EXPRESS JUMPS TRACK
VRECk ON n. Y, n. II. s III.
N;ns Cars LedUe Rails, One Turning @
OUer, rith Single Fatality.
rBv Telegraph to The TrIhune.l


..tns and St Albans express over the New York.
80 Haven & Hartford Railroad. which left the
c-end Central Station. New York. at $40 a. m.
DAY hauled by two electric engines, left
.hs track just after 1t had passed the Greenwich
cation at 9:20 a. m. and was wrecked. One
s-lor car turned completely over, landing across
he y,estbcqlnd track. pinning beneath its wreck
.e Miss Marguerite Armstrong. of Wayne,
penn who was instantly killed. A dozen occu-
ants Of the five parlor cars We're more or less
se-;ouslv bruised and cut. and all the two hun
s-o5 Messengers were thrown headlong from
.beir seats and piled in the aisles.
The other four parlor cars left the rails and
.,-a thrown at a sharp angle toward the west
bound track but none of them turned over, and
% This was dobutless due the escape of the
Messengers. The baggage car and the three
coaches remained upright, with part of the
-,cls or each still the tracks The electric
,oco,,otives remained on the rails. The east
.o,nd ana westbound express tracks were torn
,n for more than hundred yards The list of
.5esd and injured follows:
THE DEAD.
ARMSTRONG. Miss Marguerite, Wayne, Penn
THE INJURED.
.yxs-RoHG. MIS-. ". c, Wayne. Penn. cut and
bruised
.11roRp George. porter. left foot hurt
Hiss "
-,.SnA1T Mrs c NJ Of No. west 95th street.
New York, shock and wounds in head
,os- 7 = and Mrs Frost. address refused, inter
nsIiv hurt, condition not serious
-,BprRsn, Mrs Elizabeth. No. 395 AdelPhi street
Pookyr leg badly broken and otherwise hurt
condition serious
vr1rrps william s. Of No. 516 western avenue
BROOKLYN. badly shaken up
SMITH vanderbilt porter. sprained ankle
1F7TTTTMoRE. s. E, livery stable keeper Ne Newport
X r. LEFT knee injured and left arm "rencheo-
CARS LEAVE THE RAILS.
-As-e was a terrific crash when the cars left
.be rails and began TO plough along the roadped-
Mingled with the sound of tearing steel, ripping
.inher and crashing glass were the shrleks OF
the frightened passengers in the parior cars
-nost Of whom were women. All were thrown
against the windows on the left hand side OF the
sn-esdine rails and a rotten tie on the brluse
vrbicb spans Greenwich avenue, just east OF the
s,.,ion we're thought by the railroad officials to
hoye I,een the cause of the wreck The train as
., left the Grand Central Station was made up
NJ the two electric motors. a baggage car five
ns-lor cars and three coaches. The coaches were
On +he rear as usual Parlor car No 2.13l, the
last of the five and the fourth car from the end
If the train. bore the brunt of the accident, and
if vas in this car that the single fatality and
most Of the serious injuries occurred
Railroad men who examined the tracks, OF
what WAS left of them after the accident, said
that parlor car No. 2121 must have been the
first 10 leave the rails This occurred just at
the western end of the bridge over Greenwich
svenue when the train was running at rate
Of forty miles an Hour. Fhe heavy parior car
bumped across the bridge on the ties ana tore
away so much Of the track that it was hard to
-s,,1, <111.o rTa174 " q
able to clear the bridge without dropping down
on 10 the iron girders. The whole train held to-
gether, however, until the bridge was passed.
WHOLE TRAIN BROKEN UP.
The r1otorman. who had applied the emer-
sency brakes as soon as he felt the grinding Of
the car on the roadbed, brought the two motors
TO a dead stop three hundred yards from the
Greenwich station, but by that time the tre-
mensH-s strain had broken up the whole train
The two motors had become separated, and when
stopped were fifteen feet apart but upright and
with most Of the trucks still on the rails
Attached 10 the second motor were the baggage
and two parlor cars The baggage car was
partly on the tracks but the two parlor cars
were of the rails and tipped at an angle OF 10
degrees toward the westbound track The pas
sengers in these two cars had only to pick them
selves up from the aisles and rush out of the
doors. Their only injuries were cuts and bruises
from flying glass and splnters-
The train had broken completely in two be-
tween the second and third parlor cars and
there was q space of one hundred yards between
the first and second sections. Parlor cars Nos
2127 and :, 162 which were the third and fourth
Of the parlor cars, hung together They were
of the tracks and tilted over toward the west
bound track The passengers in them had a
little more trouble in getting out, as the vesti-
bules were badly jammed and broken Several
In these two cars received cuts
Parlor car No 2.121, the fatal car, broke
away from the coaches ahead some fifty yards
west Of the bridge and then turned over on its
side, a wreck so complete that it was hard to
believe that its twenty-four passengers had been
removed with only one fatality
PULLMAN PORTER'S STORY.
7 y. Hankerson, the negro porter Of the III
fated car, who did heroic work in saving the
Passengers, described what happened in the car
for The Tribune. He said:
I was sitting on a camp stool in the rear, or
Wenens end. Of the when felt the emer-
gency brakes go on. / jumped up and started
for the centre Of the car, but had gone only
lew steps when the crash came ! thrown
back against the glass door which goes out into
the rear vestibule
I felt the car topping over TO the left, and
knew that II had left the rails. ] got a mighty
STIFF Jolt the head, but it did not knock me
out and the car turned over could see the