Milford, Connecticut, USA
1916 - PROBE BEGUN IN MILFORD WRECK NINE DEAD, OVER FIFTY PERSONS INJURED. LOCAL RUNS INTO EXPRESS.

Flagman Meets Death While Waving Signal to Stop Oncoming Train - Ill Fated Engineer, Rounding Curve at Fast Clip, Fails to See Sign.

New Haven, Conn., Feb. 23 - An investigation to ascertain the cause of the train wreck near Milford, in which nine persons were killed and scores injured, was begun by the Connecticut public utilities commission.

MR. ELWELL said that he was confident of finding out the cause and whose was the responsibility despite the fact that the engineer, the fireman and the flagman, the persons most intimately connected with the collision, were killed.

The dead are:
GEORGE C. ALLEN, Groton, Conn.
PATRICK CONNORS, New York.
W. R. CURTIS, engineer of train No. 6.
J. FRICK, Pullman porter, train No. 79.
J. FRY, Pullman porter, train No. 79.
MISS SUSAN R. HIGHLAND, New Haven.
E. L. McGINNIS, fireman.
G. L. TOURTELETTE, flagman, train No. 79.
Unidentified man, a passenger: Armenian, believed to be MARDERS HOVHANESSIAN.

Two Trains Jump Tracks.
A westbound local passenger train crashed into the rear of a westbound express stalled ahead of it, and the two trains, jumping from the rails, were sideswiped by a long freight train moving westward on the adjacent track.

Wooden and steel cars of all three trains were tangled and mixed in a great pile of wreckage, under which killed and injured persons were scattered. The exploding of the boiler of the engine on the local train caused the death of several. Of those injured eight are expected to die.

The wreckage spread over all four parallel tracks of the New Haven, and traffic was completely blocked for seven hours. All three of the men who would be able to fully explain the wreck were killed. They were the flagman of the stalled express train who had started back to stop the oncoming local, and the engineer and fireman of the local train.

Block Signal Disregarded?
Some hours after the accident the block signals were found set to stop any train that might be approaching behind the express, but if they were so set as they should have been when the local ran toward the express, the engineer of the local must have failed to obey them.
Officials of the New Haven road, C. C. ELWELL of the Connecticut public utilities commission and J. S. HAWLEY, inspector of the interstate commerce commission, held an inquiry in the New Haven office building, and one of the points they investigated was whether the signals had been set against the local. They also sought to learn just how many cars in the passenger trains were of wood and how many of steel.

The dispute is over the last car of the express, in which many persons were killed and injured. Officials of the railroad said that it was of steel but many of those who visited the scene of the accident said it was wooden.

Flagman Is Killed.
The express train wrecked was No. 79, known as the Connecticut River special, and ran from points on the Boston and Maine, entering the New Haven tracks at Springfield, Mass. The train was made up of an engine, a combination car, three coaches and three Pullman cars. If left New Haven on schedule time and had run as far as Indian River when the airbrake hose broke between the locomotive and the head car.

The train was stopped and brakemen began to repair the hose. When the train stopped G. L. TOURTELETTE, the flagman, started running back up the track to signal the local train 5, from Boston, which left New Haven ten minutes behind the express. It was crowded with pleasure seekers going to Bridgeport and New York for Washington's birthday.

Slightly more than 600 feet behind the express train was a slight curve in the track, and as TOURTELETTE was about to enter this curve, running from the west, the local train shot around it from the east. According to the position in which his body was found and its condition, the authorities agreed that he was struck by the locomotive of the local train and instantly killed.

The flagman dead, the local train rushed on, driven by W. R. CURTIS, its engineer, and EDWARD McGUINESS, fireman. By the time the train had rounded the curve so that CURTIS could see the express train it was too late for him to avoid the collision.

Boiler Blown Fifty Feet.
The speed of the local at the time has been estimated at forty miles an hour. Its momentum must have been great, for when the engine crashed into a Pullman car of the express both bodies rose from the tracks and then bulged outward against the freight train passing at the moment.

The freight was wrecked, but before it was stopped the cars of the passenger trains were dragged, overturned and telescoped until most of them were crushed into a mighty mass of splintered wood and twisted iron. The force of the collision caused the boiler of the locomotive on the local train to explode, and scalding water and steam were scattered in every direction. The boiler was torn from the base of the engine, and hurled fifty feet into the air. Its great bulk sailed over the cars of the freight train, across the two tracks on the other side of it and landed fully 100 feet from the wreck.

Potsdam Herald Recorder
Potsdam, New York
February 23, 1916

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