Wrecks

Not in years have so many railroad wrecks (seven) in so short a time (three days) killed so many people (46) and injured so many others (111) as they did last week in the U. S. and Canada.

Leaf into Local. Tooting through the night, Grand Trunk-Canadian National Railways' proud International Limited (Montreal-Chicago) was brought to an unscheduled halt near Dundas, Ont. Ahead the engine's searchlight picked out a dark jumbled mass. Walking down the tracks trainmen heard moans, screams, shouts. Farther on they saw scattered Christmas presents, a blood-spattered doll with smashed legs, a fox terrier whimpering over a man's mangled body, another body without a head. Upended on the brink of a 150ft, cliff was a wooden railroad coach with screaming people inside. From the splintered debris of two other coaches came sounds of death and destruction.

Few minutes before, Canadian National's crack Maple Leaf express (Chicago-Montreal) had shot through an open switch at a-mile-a-minute, knifed its way through two cars of a holiday excursion train, killed 15, injured 32. The excursion train had been stalled on a siding with engine trouble. A jittery brakeman, seeing the approaching headlight of the Maple Leaf, had lost his head, switched the flyer off the main line onto the siding.

Delayed two hours at Dundas by the wreck of the Maple Leaf, the International Limited finally got underway, sped toward Chicago to make up lost time. Scooting through Harvey, a Chicago suburb, hours later the International suddenly piled into an automobile at a crossing, scattered the bodies of three men and four women along the right of way.

Two days later, three miles from Harvey, the International Limited struck another car, killed the wife and daughter of a University of North Dakota dean, injured the dean.

Next day the Maple Leaf hit a heavy truck near Chicago, hurled it into a parked car, injured one Mike Heneghan. Three-day score for Grand Trunk-Canadian National: Dead, 24; injured, 34.

Double-Header. Delayed two hours by the crush of holiday travel, pack-jammed with mail & passengers, including onetime Secretary of War Newton Diehl Baker. New York Central's fast Midnight Express (Columbus-Cleveland) was running with double-header locomotives near Delaware, Ohio when it shot out of a cut-off junction, just in time to catch the Eastern Mail on the main line. It took a wrecking crew with blow torches ten hours to get Engineer F. E. Springer's body out of the overturned second locomotive of the Mid night Express.

New York Central's score : dead, 3 ; injured, 14.

Vandal Nearing Columbus, Ohio s Union Station half an hour late, Penn sylvania's No. 614 (Cleveland-Cincinnati) hurtled through an open switch, piled into a string of empty box cars, pinned three trainmen in the overturned locomotive cab. Police and railroad officials said the switch had been locked open by a vandal.

Pennsylvania's score: dead, 3; injured, 20.

Pressure, Down through a winterclad West Virginia valley before sunup puffed a four-car work-train filled with sleepy-eyed men. They were going to their jobs in a mine atop a nearby hill, owned by Elkhorn-Piney Coal Co., subsidiary of Koppers Coal & Transportation Co. of Pittsburgh, which also owned the train. As the train stopped at each little valley settlement, workmen climbed on jauntily swinging pails. With some 300 passengers aboard, Engineer William M. Blankenhorn stopped at the little mining community of Powellton, to work up more steam. Up & up went the pressure gauge. Satisfied that he had enough, Engineer Blankenhorn opened the throttle.

What happened then he never knew. With a mighty bang the whole locomotive exploded, tossing engineer and fireman 100 yards into a creek, catapulting the engine cab through the roof of a house. The entire boiler sailed up into the air and crashed down through the roof of the first coach. When the steam cleared, dead & dying lay sprawled in all directions. Com-pany officials said the boiler had seemed satisfactory when inspected last summer. Elkhorn-Piney Coal's score: dead, 16; injured, 43.

Cause. Last week the American Railway Association reported a slight rise in railroad accidents in 1934, attributed it to the increase in rail traffic over 1933. In the first eight months of 1934 nine passengers, 57 employes were killed. For last week's highly extraordinary series of rail mishaps Association officials had two explanations: 1) coincidence; 2) the fallibility of man.

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