The Penn's Grove record., 1913-09-05
FATAL CRASH ON
NEW HAVEN Line
White Mountain Express Tears
Through 8 Wooden PuIImans
ROAD A M TRAIN CREW
Driver Sees Red Signal Only 100 Feet
from Train-RaiIway Burns Wreck
age Despite T~eIegraphed Orders
from Washington.

New Haven, COM. IWenCy-one
lives were lost and fifty persons were
injured, some of them probably NOR
tally, in a wreck on the New York,
New Haven & Hartford Railroad lear
North Haven, Conn.
Into the story of the accident enter
the familiar properties which have
figured time after time in the grim
history of the road-wooden cars, an
tiquated signals, carlessness some
where in the operation of the trains.
The first section of the White Noun
tain Express, running past danger sig
nails at high speed, crashed into the
second section Of the Bar Harbor Ex-
press, just getting under way after
gtopping to let a train ahead get out
of the danger zone.
The White Mountain engine tore
through two wooden Pullman cars,
splitting them from end to end, and
tossed the third to the height of the
telegraph poles beside the track.
Bodies were hurled in all directions,
some forty feet. Others were buried
OC1lCdLll tOlIo VI PlAllCC gu WIN IL
twisted steel.
AS the dead were being carried to a
watermelon patch beside the tracks
and the injured were hurried by street
car and ambulance into New Haven,
twelve miles away, investigation of
the causes of the disaster was begun.
1t was shown banjo" signals, of 4
type condemned by the State and
Federal authorities, were in use where
the accident occurred. The ~sphntered
mass littering the tracks was sufficient
evidence that wooden cars, long prov
en- unsafe, played their part in the
slaughter.
No n except the public officials
and persons connected with the rail-
road was permitted to be present when
the various trainmen concerned in the
accident were questioned. At the
close of the proceedings what purport-
ed to be a transcript of the testimony
was given to the newspaper reporters.
H. K. Belknap, chief inspector of
the Interstate Commerce Commission
LII w GSl1uS IOh1 Sol1Co AC1u 1loPCSlOI ,
from Springfield and New York, and
visited the wreck.
Commissioner Charles G. McChord
~telegraphed to the railroad officials
forbidding them to burn the wrecked
cars before the officials arrived, as
was done in the Stamford wreck last
June.
Notwithstanding this employees of
the road fired the heap, and by night
fall only ashes and twisted steel re-
manned
This most disastrous wreck even in
the history of that disastrous road,
surprising in horror any that had
darkened the administration of his
predecessor, occurred on the first day
of office of Howard Elliott, who sue
ceeded Charles S.. Mellen as president
of the New York, New Haven & Hart
ford.
Haggard and worn, the new presi-
dent of the road pointed out almost
tearfully that he was an utter stranger
to the road and utterly unfamiliar
with it's workings. 1t was a day Of dis
NAL introductions to the road and its
habits that was provided for him.
Meanwhile. from all along the, coast,
terrified relatives and friends fastened
to this city to find and identify dear
ones among the dead and previously
wounded in the local undertaking
ShonS and hoSDita1S
Many of the victims were fastening
homeward, refreshed and happy, from
long Summer vacations at New Eng
land resorts.
Two zeal Pul1mans, loaded with
sleeping tourists, were broken into
than four feet square, and their pas
sengers were hurled high and far be-
side the track, the dead amid the dy-
ing on the green fields.
After investigation conducted by the
New Haven Railroad officials, the local
Coroner, and the chief engineer of the
Connecticut Public Utility Commits
sion, the blame for the catastrophe
was placed Jointly by the railroad of
ficials on August B. Miller, the en-
gineer of the White Mountain express,
who, they said, disregarded torpedo
signals and a red danger signal just
seventy feet back of the stalled train,
and on the f1agman of the Bar Harbor
express, who, they said, had placed
warning %torpedoes on the track less
than $50 feet behind the stopped Bar
Harbor train, when he should have
run back half a mile to do so and to
flag the approaching express.