El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1916-03-30
To PLACE BLAME
FOR N.Y.C. WRECK
Investigators at Work as
Upward Of 80 Passengers
Dead and 40 Injured.

Cleveland Ohio. March 30-With
q bodies recovered from yesterdays
wreck Of three New YORK Central
trains at Amherst, Ohio. attention to-
day was focused upon the several in
vestigauons that were put under way
by federal state and railroad authori-
ties TO determine responsibility for the
wreck Representatives Of the inter-
state commerce commission, the utili-
ties commission Of Ohio and various
department heads Of the New York
Central were conducting investigations
i'm Cleveland and at other points in
the vicinity Of the wreck.
Was 'Death Coach" Steel.
The question Of whether the So
called death coach on train No. Sc
was Of modern steel construction as
claimed by New York Central officials
or was mainly Of wood construction,
promised to be an important feature Of
the iuvestigat
Railroad officials today We're still
divided in opinion as 10 whether the
blame should be placed upon the tow
erman who it is alleged by some Off
Gals, was asleep and failed 10 give the
proper signals, or upon the engineer
who. they say 70 may be shown. either
failed to see the signal or exceeded
his orders?
several Injured May Die.
jured in the wreck, several were said
to be in o. precarious condition early
today and more fatalities were feared.
Railroad officials say that only =
bodies have been recovered and that
they regard it as impossible that more
bodies are in the ruins. Unofficial. but
what were regarded as reliable reports
placed the number Of dead at 80.
The two men at whom most of the
questions We're to be directed at to-
DAVIS investigation were engineer Her
man Hess of the second section OF y.
Sc. and towerman A. X Ernst or AM
herst.
Engineer .. W Leonard Of the first
section Of train No. sc which pulled
the death car asserts he stopped his
train on a signal originating in Ernsts
tower.
Engineer Saw No Signal.
Engineer Hess declares he saw no
signal when he brought his section
booming along at a 80 mile an hour
speed about three minutes later.
Ernst asserts he set no stop signal
declaring the line was open for en-
gineer Leonard TO 90 ahead IL Ernst
is held culpable in the investigation
the blame will trace back to baby'S
tiny crib in the Ernst home at Elyria-
The baby was born Sunday night
Since that time Ernst has had little
sleep. railroad officials say.
TOwerman Denies He Was Asleep.
Ernst, the towerman, stoutly denied
that he was asleep or had been in
capacitated by loss Of sleep. The signal
simply failed to work. he said.
IF the signals had been working
properly the block signal light two
miles away would have flashed eau
ton and the block a mile away would
have signalled Hess to come to a dead
stop" said Ernst. Hess was too good
an engineer 10 run past two signals set
against him.
Il was on the lookout for train No.
S. When il was two miles away I
threw the signal lever into the clear.
giving No. SO a clear path. I realized
there had been a signal failure when
the train stopped When the train had
stopped, ! again damned the signal
lever into the clear and this time il
might have worked. for the train
started ahead. Then the crash came.
I did not have time 70 stop the
Twentieth Century before II, too,
crashed into the wreck"
IT. W. Belnsp. representing the inter
state commerce commission, opened the
federal investigation.
A. S. ingalls,. general superintendent
OF the New York Central lines west OF
Buffalo. spent an hour in laying before
Belnap all that railroad officials had
learned so far in their Investigations
into the cause Of the accident