The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1912-07-05
THE HORRIBLE
AFTERMATH Of
CORNING WRECK
Sixteen Dead Remain Uni
Identified in the Morgues
of Two citi~ s1... b,
HOLIDAY TURNED INTO DAY
OF DEATH AND MOURNING
One Family Entirely Wiped Out En-
Cept the Husband Whose Father
Was Also Among the Dcad-Was
His First Trip in Sixty Years.

Washington, July 5.-The in
terstate commerce commission to-
day ordered corps of inspectors
to Corning, N Y. to make an in
vestigation of the Lackawanna
wreck.
Corning, N. Y, July 5.-Twenty of
the dead victims of the wreck yester-
day on the Lackawanna railroad have
been identified and sixteen are still
awaiting Identification today, eight
in Elmira and eight in Corning. Forty
one persons were killed and fifty-one
injured in the disaster.
But one additional Identification
was made today. Mrs. Louis Freid-
man of New York. whose body was
taken to Elmira was recognized there
by her brother.
OF the injured but four, Miss Mary
dell, all of Newark, and Max Eismann
of Jersey City, are considered seri-
ously hurt.
A pathetic case was that of William
r. Laird of Buffalo, whose entire fam
lily. consisting of his wife, f1ve-year-
old daughter and n two-year-old son.
was wiped out by the catastrophe. His
employed in a Buffalo printing estab-
lishment, left that city last night.
knowing only that his father, George
Laird, was killed. He had received no
information of the fate of the others
and visited the local morgues search
ing for his missing ones. At the first
place visited he found his little boy
single stretcher. At the second
morgue he found the body of his wife
beside that of his aged father. The
family had taken advantage of the
holiday excursion rates for reunion
in Buffalo. 1t was George Lairds first
railroad trip in sixty years.
The wreck was the worst in the hts
tory of the road. Its cause. according
to Engineer Schroeder of the express,
was his failure to see signals set
against his train. The morning was
foggy and he said he could not make
them out
The wrecked train stood on the
main track blocked by crippled
freight train. Engineer Schroe >r de-
clarcd it was too foggy to see just
around a curve.
the flying express plunged past
them and crashed into the rear of No.
8, bringing death to two score of it's
passengers.
Schroeder had taken No. IL at Ell
mira. Is minutes before. It was few
minutes late. The stretch of track
from Elmira to Corning is fitted for
fast running and he was sending his
train along at sixtyfive miles an hour
NO. was supposed to be half an hour
ahead of him. He had no warning
until he made out the outline of the
rear coach of No. 9 through the fog.
Then he threw in the reverse without
shutting off steam.
The jerk threw the train off the
track and the locomotive plunged on
to splinter the two day coaches filled
with excursionists and tear through
the last of the Pullmans. Schroeder
said the impact threw him from his
cab and landed him on his shoulder
on the roadbed. practically unhurt.
The 1OO-ton monster continued it's
plunge through the middle of the
train, grinding everything in its path.
When finally blocked by the debris it
remained on the roadbed in the midst
of the desolation it had caused while
hundreds of persons rushed in every
Kind of vehicle to the scene to lift
and pry the dead and injured from the
tangled mass of wreckage
Taking advantage of the holiday ex
cursion rates to Buffalo and Niagara
rails, many excursionists had boarded
NO. at all points from Hoboken, in
Guiding Scranton, Binghamton and Ell
mira. There were also many .passen-
gers for the west. BY the time Elmira
" oo iCstCAeu tIle lIdlI carried SO manV
passengers that second engine was
attached.
Long before extra freight train No.
81, bound for Buffalo, had pulled
through Elmira. When the heavy
grade at Gibson was reached a draw
head pulled out. and No. 81 was
crippled. Signals which she put out
stopped No. 9. The first engine was
uncoupled and set at work to push the
dead end of the freight train into
siding to allow No. 9 and No. II which
was due in twenty-five or thirty min
utes to pass. The work was slow and
during the wait many passengers from
the day coaches got out.
Meanwhile the signals had been
thrown against No. IL. These failed
to stop the express and the crash fol-
lowed. Rescuers were quickly on the
scene.