The Randall County news. (Canyon City, Tex.) 1908-1926, 1910-04-01
FIFTY KILLED AND FORTY INJURED.
In Rock Island Doube-header Train, Coaches
Telescoped Passengers Crushed like Egg
SheIls-Near Geen Mountain la.

one OF the greatest railroad
wrecks, four and a half miles
north of Green Mountain Iowa,
which has ever happened in the
State of Iowa. The causallity
was about fifty killed and forty
injured many being women and
children. Briefly stated the cir
cumStanceS were: a Chicago
Rock Island and Pacific train
which was consolidation of No.
10 from Chicago and No. q from
st. Louis bound for Minneapolis,
Mimi, was being detoured over
the the track of the Chicago and
Great Western road. Running
at a speed estimated from 80 to
40 miles per hour in cut north
of Green Mountain, it struck a
spread rail or soft track it is be-
lieved. The pilot locomotive
jumped the track and with a ter.
rife force was buried in an en-
bankment of soft clay. A second
engine coupled behind the first
rolled over and the impact of the
sudden stop hurled all of the
rear cars forward with such
force that a coach, a smoker and
a pullman were smashed to
splinters, almost all the occup-
ants being killed or injured.
Many passengers were apparent
ly killed outright, heads were
severed from bodies and arms
and legs cut off, the sight was to
horrifying to detail. The wreck
occurred at a point difficult to
reach with relief. Such bodies
as could be secured were
stretched out in an adjoining
pasture, but the first attention
was given to the wounded. For
tunately the wreckage did not
take fire. The rescue party be-
ing reinforced later on by trains
of wreckers, nurses sent from
the nearest available points,
worked all day and until long
after dark.
1t is estimated the death loss
and the payment of Identities to
the estates of the fly dead and
forty injured in the wreck, last
week will aggregate not less
than $350,000 or 100000.
There is only one thing about
that horrible Rock Island road
wreck near Green Mountain, Ia,
calling for comment by the news
papers, and is the plain fact
that with the proper care for the
lives of travellers such wholesale
slaughter would not occur, it is
the same thing over again. You
find tits practically in every case
where a railroad wreck is parti-
Gully all disastrous. The s moker
and the day coach telescoped by
the sleepers helplessly caught in
this trip, the victims are crushed
and mutilated.
This feature of the railroad
should be eliminated. If all cars
were equally resistant this tele
scoping would not occur. In
this case where half a hundred
lives were snuffed out.
The impact in the PullmanS
at the end of the train was so
slight that passenger is quoted
as saying that it did not feel like
a wreck, it seemed he said like
someone had thrown a brick on
the floor. Those frail cars ahead
were the cushions that thus re-
duced the impact. We submit
that in such a case the discom-
forts of travel are not equitably
distributed. While the man in
the steel pullman didn't even
know that it was a wreck, so
slight was the jar that reached
him, fifty lives were being
crushed out in the buffer zone
that insured him salty. That is
not right, it is almost criminal.
Perhaps the time is not far away
when it will be considered so.