Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1916-03-29

man bodies were scattered thickly
through the wreckage.
Relief parties collected the remains
of three bodies-those of a woman
and two men-and piled them, indis-
criminately, in one basket. They
probably will be buried together.
Thrown Into W0man's Berth.
Alfred Fritzele, Cleveland salesman
for a fire eXtinguisher company, was
in the Toledo sleeper of the first
section and escaped injury. He help
ed in the rescue and then came on to
Cleveland.
Aaron De Ray, Pittsburgh, who
came through with Fritzele said he
was catapaulted from his berth into
one occupied by woman across the
aisle when the crash came. De Ray
was uninjured.
A. A. Comensky, Pittsburgh, COM
ing from Chicago said he saw a wo-
man die in the wreckage before he
could extricate her. Another wo-
man he saw was badly injured and
man had his arms torn from their
sockets.
Estimate Dead % to so.
With only three of the 40 occu-
pants Of the day coach accounted
for, the number of dead was esti-
mated at between twenty-five and
thirty.
According to Fritzele and De Ray
the first section stopped five minutes
after it left Amherst and was just
picking up speed again when the first
crash came Two minutes later, they
said, the second occurred.
Train No. Sc was known as the
urgh-Baltimore-Buffalo limited.
The flier was split into two sections
from Chicago to Pittsburgh and Buff
falo and took on sleeper at Cleve-
land for Buffalo.
1t carried a diner from Chicago to
Pittsburgh and was known as one Of
the fastest trains on the New York
Central lines.
The flyer was split into two sections
today because of unusually heavy
traffic and this splitting Of the train
indirectly caused the wreck.
D. c. Moon, general manager of the
New York Central lines at Cleveland
gives this story Of the wreck as it
was given him from his subordinates
on the road at o'clock:
Train No. IS, eastbound, was tray
cling in two sections.
"The engineer of the first section
was stopped at Amherst by a signal
l don't know just how.
THE second section of No. IS
should have stopped because of the
automatic signal or by the signal of a
fiagman on the first section. The sec
ond section ran into the end coach of
the first section. The wreckage from
both sections went over on the west
bound main high speed.
THE rear car Of the first section
was coach from Chicago to Pitts
burgh.
1T had 40 passengers, four Of
whom are killed. l don't know how
many were injured.
THE next car ahead Of the coach
was club pullman car. There was
nobody in this car but a porter and a
mail clerk.
These two men are missing. The
cars ahead Of the club car were sleep
ers.
Nobody In them was hurt.
THE Twentieth Century was de-
rallied but nobody on it was injured.
Il have ordered an investigation at
once.
Il do not think any Of the crew was
hurt but so far we haven't got track
OF the engineer of the second section"
Death Total 81.
! The death list in the wreck was in
| creased to q when four additional
bodies were taken from the wreckage
after 8 o'clock. The list OF injured
as compiled up to that time included
names of q persons, some of them
seriously, perhaps fatally hurt.
The body Of one fireman, badly
crushed, was found on top of the boil
er of one Of the engines.
c. c. Robinson, Toledo, engineer of
the Twentieth Century, crawled unin-
1ured from under his engine after it
had plunged 400 feet along the ties.
His fireman also escaped unhurt
Uninjured members OF the crews
assisted in caring for injured passen-
gers and in clearing away wreckage.
Search was being made for the
bodies OF two express messengers, ex-