The Wenatchee daily world. [volume] (Wenatchee, Wash.) 1905-1971, 1910-03-19
CAUSE Of N AMY
DEATHS
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had become stalled at the tunnel pre-
vious to a general cancellation of
trains on the division.
These trains were Spokane local
No. %, loaded with passengers, and
mail train No. q, with eight mail
clerks and a train crew aboard.
There were seven coaches in the for
mer and five in the latter train,
with Conductor J. L. Petit in charge
of the passenger, and Conductor
Walter Vogel responsible for the
mail train.
Why He Moved Trains.
These trains had been moved from
Leavenworth to the eastern portal of
the Cascade tunnel when Supt.
O'Neil who was directing the work
of the four rotaries, saw a possibility
of clearing the tracks west of the
tunnel, and counting on the storm
SCdoIAS, GU buC II dluS, WAkCA
were lying 70 feet apart, to move to
the apparently safer refuge of the
fiat at Wellington.
With locomotive and his own pri-
vate car on the scene, O'Neil directed
the work of digging out the snow
covered trains and removing them,
piecemeal, into the tunnel, where
they were made up and sent to Well
ington, three miles beyond the west
portal
This removal was effected on the
night of February "a, and O'Neil was
confident of getting the trains out of
the mountains the following day. He
had removed them from the tunnel,
fearing that smoke from the loco
motives might suffocate the passen-
gers, and fearing, also, that a train
might enter the tunnel, despite block
signal, and cause a wreck. With no
trains passing through the tunnel
there was also danger Of the passen-
gers freezing, he thought, as the tun-
mel becomes frightfully cold in win
ter. Feeding the passengers was an
other serious problem.
Danger at Tunnel, Too.
Before leaving this subject, O'Neil
said that if the passengers had been
held just outside the tunnel, as would
have been necessary to guard the
passengers against suffocation, at
least two of the coaches would have
been carried away in slide, which
wrecked an eating house at the tun-
mel entrance and killed two men on
the night of the greater catastrophe.
He said he merely stated this to
show that there was danger every
sibly have been foreseen at that time,
because it was thought the storm S
fury would abate and the tracks
would be cleared in "a hours or less
Telling of the fight against the
slides for miles along his division,
the superintendent said snow had
fallen and drifted from four to 35
feet deep. Twenty-four hours were
consumed by the rotary plows in go
ing four miles. After the heavy snow
of February % and the removal Of
the trains to Wellington the follow
ing day, a brief respite came and the
snow was attacked with greater fury
by the plows, the men working al
most continuously, stopping only to
melt snow to supply the boilers with
water.
But the snow continued and slides
occurred again and the rotaries I'm
ally gave up the fight on February &c,
The two double rotaries were held at
Wellington, close by the stalled
trains. One of the two others was
stalled near Gaynor. east of the TIM
mel, while the fourth had been
wrecked. The three laid up were out
of fuel. although they had lao tons
to start with four days before.