Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1910-03-11
SLIDE SWEEPS TRAINS
OVER EDGE OF CANYON
Twenty-three Dead, Twenty-Five
Missing, Under Avalanche in
State of Washington.
FALL 200 FEET INTO A GULCH
Coaches in Twisted Debris at Noun
tain's observation-disclosures
Lines Suffer.

Conditions almost unprecedented in
that section have virtually cut off the
entire northwest, and nave tied up
traffic on half a dozen transcontinental
railroads. Thaws in the mountains
have caused avalanches and snow
slides that have swept away mountain
towns and sections of railroad tracks
from Nevada to British Columbia.
Floods also have cause widespread
damage.
In the Cascade mountains in Wash
ington two Great Northern trains were
buried by an avalanche. Twenty
bodies were recovered and scores are
injured or missing. The exact num-
Der of deaths caused by a~valanches in
the Rockies, in Idaho. and in western
Montana probably will not be known
until the summer sun melts the great
masses of snow and ice in the canon
into which several mining towns were
swept.
Further details of the disaster in
which an avalanche swept two Great
Northern passenger trains n a part
of the town of Wellington. Wash.
down the mountainside at the west
portal of the Cascade tunnel shows 1t
to be more serious than first reported.
Twenty-three lives are known to have
been lost when the mass of snow,
stones n uprooted trees hurled h
cars containing seventy sleeping per-
sons over the narrow ledge to the bot
tom of the canyon 200 feet below, and
twenty-five more were reported miss
ing. Besides these a score were in
jured.
The avalanche rolled down the noun
tain at 4:30 a. m. The two trains,
three locomotives, four powerful cleo
trio motors, the depot and water tank
were swept off the ledge and deposited
in a twisted mass of wreckage at h
foot of the mountain. The noise from
the snowslide, which was a mile long,
could be heard throughout the valley.
The wrecked trains lie piled on top
of each other 200 feet below the sid
ing on which they stood when the
avalanche swept over them. The cars
were crushed into kindling wood and
no one in the train escaped injury.
The slide filled the shelf on which the
tracks at wellington are laid and roll
Gu oSel Liz CdSC lAIO ~ 4EAa
Messages telling of the disaster were
sent to Everett and a relief train.
bearing physicians. nurses and work
ers, was made up and dispatched. DIV.
ing to previous slides which blocked
the road Inc swept away parts OF the
track, the rescue train could get no
further than Scenic, whence the res
cuers had to make their way on foot
over the snow.
In the later wreck of Oriental lin
tied train No. 2, east bound, on the
Great Northern, one person was killed
and twelve were injured. The entire
train escaped plunging down a fifty
foot e~mbankment near Milan by a mar
row margin. 1t carried 175 passen-
gers. AS the train was rounding q
curve the engineer, Alonzo earle. Of
Spokane, saw a great mass Of powders
blocking the way. earle throw on the
emergency brakes twenty-five feet be-
fore the train ran into the rocks. When
the train struck the mass gas tanks
in the cars exploded. Fire started Inn
mediately in five of the forward cars
and they began to topple over the en-
bankment. Conductor B. S. Robertson
ran forward and uncoupled the last
three cars, saving them.
The exact number of dead in all the
disasters will not be known for weeks,
not until the snow, which is 0ver forty
feet deep in the canyon, he melted
Workmen digging in the snow and
w~reckage report finding dismembered
bodies, severed arms and hands.
Four transcontinental lines into
Washington and Oregon are block
AIDED. Only one railroad is operating
into Salt Lake City. West Of Utah
the Southern Pacific and Western Pa
ciic lines have been cut by swollen
mountain streams.