The sun., 1917-07-02
TROLLEY LEAPS
INTO NIAGARA
RAPIDS, DIE
Car With 65 Aboard Tum-
bles Down Bank After
Striking Bad Track.
ARMY STUDENTS IN 1T
Soldiers on Cantilever Bridge
Try in Vain to Prevent
Disaster.
ARMY STUDENTS IN 1T

BUFFALO, July 1.-Two car lengths OF
the roadbed OF the Great Gorge Route
trolley line at Niagara Falls near the
Cantlever Bridge slid from beneath the
tracks few minutes after 3 o'clock this
afternoon. Fifteen minutes later a troll
ley car bound from Lewiston to Buffalo
and loaded with about sixty-five passen-
gers, many OF them student army off,
GERS from the Fort Niagara Training
Camp, struck the weak spot in the track
while running at the speed OF twenty
miles an hour.
The car left the tracks, turned a SOM
ersault in the air and plunged down
twenty foot embankment to the whirl-
pool rapids of the falls. where II turned
over In ten feet of water and crushed
most OF the passengers beneath II. At
! IL o'clock tonight twenty bodies had
| been recovered, and the fire and police
| Departments OF Niagara Falls. aided by
regular soldiers and National Guards
| men, were working under searchlights
| rescuing the few Survivors and dragging
out the dead. Many OF the latter are
! known to be pinned beneath the smashed
seats of the car and cannot be recov-
cred until the car is removed.
| folIoWlnE is list OF DOuleS recovered
and identified:
MARION LLOYD scHUMAKER. Akron.
J; i; MUCK, Princeton: Ind;
MRS. BERTHA SEASTROM, az Beach
ALEXANDER HERON. l4ls First street
MRS ". b. MASTERY. Chicago
| JAMES S. KEMP, Scranton, Pa.
HARVEY G. PHELPS, Schenectady, y. Y.
MRS. L. f. WALLACE. Akron. Ohio.
Many SIN Are Missing.
1t was impossible tonight at mid
night to obtain an accurate estimate
the number OF dead besides those whose
bodies have been recovered. score OF
other persons have been reported to the
police at Niagara Falls as missing. but
many of these were later found in hos
pitfalls or in hotels.
1t is not believed that any person on
the car escaped injury, and a careful
checking up Of the known dead and in
jured at midnight left from fifteen TO
twenty still unaccounted for. II the esti-
mate of sixty-five passengers Is correct.
Probably between six and ten bodies
were torn from the wreckage by the
strong current and carried down to the
rapids This number Is the estimate of
the police and Of National Guardsmen
and regular soldiers who said they saw
wreck and several men swimming down
the river in desperate effort to keep
from being drawn into the rapids.
Tried to Avert Accident.
Soldiers of a National Guard regi.
ment, on duty on the bridge, saw the
earth slide from beneath the tracks, and
many OF them. as we'll as several Ma
tional Guard officers ran TO tele'
phones and tried to stop the car before
IL left Lewiston. They failed, and there
was then nothing they could do but wall
until the car came and trust to fortune
that the motorman would notice thu
weakened spot in the track before HI
drove his car into II.
When the car came sweeping around
/ the bend in the track near the bridge
! the soldiers shouted, fired their rifles anC
: did everything in their power to attrac
, the attention of Motorman Louis f
, Crahdall and Conductor Alexander Her
: on, but without avail The car wal
, crowded, men and women standing
, between the seats and jamming the rea
platform.
There was no way the soldiers coult
get from the bridge to the tracks excep
by sliding down an embankment that le'
l directly into the rapids To clip would
current, but several solciers. when the,
failed to attract the attention OF tn
trolley crew, threw of their kits, dumpet
; their rifles on the bridge and slid fee
! first down the embankment. The!
: landed on the trolley tracks only fev
! seconds after the car had gone spinnin
e into the rapids. Other soldiers who re
l maineo on the bridge heard the passen
; gers in the car laughing and talking a
It neared the dangerous stretch OF trac
! and on the rear platform they saw
group of student officers singing an
E skylarklng with one another.
/ Inside the car sat other prospectiv
= army officers with their mothers. sister
4 or sweethenrts, who had been visitin
e them at the training camp.
Just starting "TIpperRry."
One young army student on the rea
= platform had just raised his voice I
:, sing "Tipperary" when the car strucl
o For an instant there was a dead silenc
e save for the crashing and splintering {
}, wood as the front end of the car saggeC
9 Then the rear end jumped under tn
1t impetus OF twenty mile speed. TIL
e car leaped from the track and starte