Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA
1911 - FOUR DIE IN WRECK - EIGHTEEN HOUR FLYER LEAPS OFF RAILS NEAR FORT WAYNE.

30 PERSONS ARE INJURED.

SEVERAL VICTIMS OF CRASH ARE NOT EXPECTED TO SURVIVE.

SPEEDING AT 50 MILES AN HOUR, CHICAGO TO NEW YORK EXPRESS LEAVES TRACK AT SWITCH AND CRASHES INTO FREIGHT TRAIN.

THREE ENGINES PILED UP IN MASS OF TANGLED IRON - MEN, IN PANIC, THRUST WOMAN ASIDE TO ESCAPE.

Fort Wayne, Ind., Aug. 13. - Four persons were killed and 30 injured when the Pennsylvania 18-hour train, en route from Chicago to New York, jumped the track on the western outskirts of the city at 6:30 o'clock this evening while going at the rate of 50 miles an hour.

In leaving the rails the two engines pulling the passenger train sideswiped a freight engine and the three piled up in a mass of bent and twisted iron.

The baggage car, smoker, buffet, and two sleepers turned over in the ditch. Most of the injured were seated in the diner and smoker when the accident occurred.

The wreckage has not been cleared and the list of dead may be more than the number reported. The thirty or more injured are now in the hospitals, and it is believed that at least four or five will die. It is also feared there may be some bodies in the wreckage.

The Dead.
The following are the persons killed:
WILLIAM E. ARRICK, freight engineer, Fort Wayne, Ind.
PETER MALONE, engineer on flier, Fort Wayne, Ind.
W. CREIGH, fireman on flier, Fort Wayne, Ind.
Unidentified Passenger at St. Joseph's Hospital.

The Injured.
The following injured are at St. Joseph's Hospital:
EDWARD COHN, New York city; left eye injured.
E. J. MASSADER, Milwaukee, Wis.; left hand and legs crushed.
EARL THOMAS, East Palestine, Ohio; right hip bruised, cut on face and abdomen bruised.
L. B. HAVENS, aviator, New York city; hands and arms cut.
P. J. DOSE, New York city; side and head bruised.
LEROY BENSE, Chicago; right hand cut.
N. H. CRAWFORD, Philadelphia, cut on forehead.
R. B. RUSSELL, Toronto, Ontario; right ear torn off, face smashed, left collarbone broken.
SAM ROSENTHALL, Grand Forks, N. D., left hip dislocated.
? SNYDER, Crestline, Ohio, baggageman; fractured skull, internal injuries; in critical condition.
H. C. BURTON and H. C. KOHL (colored), waiters on passenger train, hands and arms badly cut.
F. C. BOLYARD, Fort Wayne; scalp wounds, eyes injured, teeth knocked out.
F. B. BROBA, Chicago; steward dining car; right arm broken, scalp wounds.
W. E. THOMAS (colored), Chicago; hands and head bruised.
WILLIAM MARSHALL (colored), Chicago; cuts on head and arms.
VICTOR SOWERS, Mansfield, Ohio, mail clerk; back and foot injured.
JAMES E. SULLIVAN, New York city; internal injuries.

Tracks Are Torn Up.
The police department, fire department, and every ambulance in the city were called to the scene of the accident, and the injured were soon taken to hospitals. The main track and the track on which the freight train was located were torn up for a distance of 200 yards. The two engines of the flier were torn from their trucks and thrown down the embankment, while the engine of the freight reared up over the trucks of the fliers engines.

Passengers in the seven rear cars escaped with only cuts and bruises. It is declared by railroad men that if the cars had been of the old-fashioned wood construction the carnage would have been frightful.
The all-steel cars of the flier were put to the first actual wreck test they have ever undergone. Only the first two cars of the heavy nine-car train were much smashed.

Several Injured May Die.
The wrecking crew from Fort Wayne arrived at the scene within half an hour, while the wrecking trains from Crestline and Chicago arrived leter in the evening. Thirty more passengers, who are badly bruised and cut, are at the Anthony Hotel.

Several of the injured at a late hour tonight are in an extremely serious condition, and it is expected their deaths will occur before morning.
Evidence seems to point to the fact that the flier, going at an extreme rate of speed over a temporary switch, was the chief cause of the accident. From Valparaiso to Winona Lake the engine which brought the train out of Chicago was going badly, so the engine which was to take the train from Fort Wayne to Crestline was sent to Winona Lake to meet the flier.

C. C. CHATTELL, of Chicago, was in the dining car when the accident occurred. He escaped with only slight injuries to his head and face.

Hurled Length Of Car.
"The train was running at a terrific rate of speed," he declared. "The first intimation I had that anything was wrong was when all the passengers in the dining car were thrown headlong the entire length of the car. The next thing I realized was that men were fighting like beasts to get out of the car, and the steam escaping from the kitchen was choking us. Another man and I fell to the floor and crawled along in the semidarkness and among the screaming men to a window, through which we made our escape."

CHARLES P. SKILLMAN, of this city, who lives directly across from the spot where the wreck occurred, saw the whole thing, as he was sitting on his veranda at the time.

Crash Came at Switch.
"The train, which was double-headed," said MR. SKILLMAN, "was coming at a terrific speed. Just across the bridge which spans the St. Marys River the train veered into a new switch placed there because of the track elevation work. I guess the train was going at too great a rate for the switch to stand the strain, for as I watched the train it seemed to me as though the rails of the switch just slid from under the train directly over to the freight train standing on the north track."

"The crash was simply terrific. For the first minute after the three engines struck there was somparative silence. Then came the sound of the escaping steam, the crash of the two first passenger cars as they slid down the embankment into Swinney park, and the screams of the passengers."

Men Dragged Women Back.
GEORGE MITCHELL, his wife, and four children, of Los Angeles, Cal., were passengers on the train, and escaped serious injury miraculously.

"Instantly," said MR. MITCHELL, "there was a panic such as I never would suppose could happen. I saw strong men seize a woman, whose companion had broken a window and was pushing her through it, pull the woman back, and crawl out themselves. Several men rushed over me and my family, and we were the last to get out of the car. My daughter, aged 14, has a bad cut on her leg, but the rest of us escaped with bruises and slight cuts. If it had not been that the cars were of steel, I think that we would all have been killed.

JAMES E. SULLIVAN, of New York, who was injured, is the well-known head of the Amateur Athletic Union, and the new boxing commissioner of the State of New York.

Wrecked A Week Ago.
By a peculiar coincidence this same train was wrecked a week ago tonight, near Hammond, Ind., although no one was killed. A fireman was injured and the passengers were severely jolted.

Tonight's wreck marked the fourth accident that has occurred since the Pennsylvania's eighteen-hour train was placed in service, in June, 1905.
The first smash-up occurred at Mineral Point, Pa., February 23, 1907, when the westbound train was derailed. Most of the passengers were injured, but none were killed.

The second accident occurred near Hamilton, Pa., where the train ran into a landslide. This happened February 15, 1909. No one was badly injured.

The Washington Post
Washington, D.C.
August 14, 1911

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