The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-06-07

Four men were killed, two probably
 fatally injured, two seriously hurt and
 about a dozen more imperilled in the
 wholesale wreck of four freight trains
 about a mile east of Fairfield depot
 at Il o'clock last night.
 The responsibility for the wreckage
 is fixed in the official statement of
 the company upon one of the men who was killed. They say he ran past a
 signal, warning him that there was danger ahead and that he alone was responsible for the catastrophe.
 Though wrecking crews were at work on the scene by 1 o'clock this morning, it was nearly 1 o'clock this afternoon before the last of the vic- tims was dug out of the wreckage. The corpses of the last two to be taken out were mangled and scalded beyond recognition. Hundreds of spectators who crowded alongside the tracks to watch the gruesome work, sickened at the sight and made way for the silent procession of the dead towards the undertaker's wagon wait ing on the open lot.
 Here is the company's official state ment of the wreck:
 Extra 33S running east on track No 2, the inside eastbound track, stopped to fix a hotbox. Engineer of freight and Midway, known as Hy-2. also running east on the inside, eastbound track, failed to observe the Fairfield signal which was against him, and ran into the rear of the freight train, blocking the two westbound tracks. m westbound track, ran into this wreckage.
 Based on the present information at hand, the main man responsible for starting the wreck was killed. In addition, the fireman and brakeman on this train were also killed and the engineer on one of the weStbound freights that ran into the wreckage was killed. The names of the men killed are as follows: E. F. Beach, en- gineer; R. S. Gates, fireman; L. F. Harris, brakeman, all on Hy-2; w s. Laurie on westbound freight that ran into the wreckage. The injured were: Fireman Fox and Brakeman Hannon, on Train Sh-1, and Conductor Raub and Brakeman Walsh on Extra SSs."
 No adequate estimate of the dam age can be made. Twenty eight cars were reduced to various stages of wreckage, so bad that they couldn't be drawn away on trucks, and their remnants were tossed aside by the huge steel arms of the wrecking der ricks. Two of the freights were made up mostly of perishable stuff. Dozens of railroad men, many of them be- longing to the railroad police, patrol led the vicinity of the wreck, to pre- vent depredations upon the wreck age.
 Huge van loads of silk were haul ed away by Christopher Rickard, the truckman, who had two four horse vans on the scene before daybreak. The silk was placed in the Bridgeport freight house for safe keeping. Its value was estimated at S15O,O0O.
 Thousands of dollars worth of cop per ingots, of which there were sev- eral carloads, were dumped into the soft earthen banks both sides of the tracks Real mining will be neces- sary to unearth the metal for it IS buried deep into the borders of the roadbed.
 Trolley traffic to the scene of the accident was capacity, and extra cars were put on to accommodate the hundreds of curiosity seekers who port and vicinity. Repeatedly the railroad policemen were forced to push the crowd back out of danger, and at length the expedient of form ing four men abreast of a heavy plank and marching them up and down the tracks was adopted to keep the throng out of danger of the wrecking crews operations.
 It will be we'll into tomorrow be- fore the roadbed is repaired suffici- ently to allow traffic to be resumed under normal conditions. The four tracks were so badly torn and twist ed that it was nine hours after the wreck. about 8 o'clock this morning before a single train passed by the scene of the collision
 Scenes of desolat ation and terrible marked the wreck Veteran trainmen, who have seen scenes of Hrecks. declare this the most exten- sive, In point of damage to rolling stock and roadbed, as we'll as from