THE WAUPACA POST

Thursday, September 15, 1898

 

RAILROAD COLLISION

 

 

     There was a railroad collision and a narrow escape from disastrous loss of life in this city last Friday afternoon at 4 o’clock.  At that hour two passenger trains meet and pass here.  Just before the meeting time, a south-bound freight train came in, while the north-bound passenger was at the station.  The freight stopped on the hill between the old brewery and the depot, and a brakeman was sent back with torpedoes and a flag to warn the incoming passenger train from the north.  He failed to go up the road far enough to make the warning effectual.  Before he reached the brewery crossing the passenger train was rounding the curve and rushing down the hill.  The engineer saw the caboose when too late to prevent a collision, but he did all that he could in the way of reversing the engine and applying the air brakes.  Then he and his fireman jumped from their engine, which, in a moment, at a speed of about ten miles an hour, crashed into the caboose.  The latter was smashed in at both ends, one end finally resting on the pilot of the passenger engine.  A flat car and an oil tank were thrown from the track and ditched.  The passenger train was not derailed, and no passengers were badly hurt, though many were badly shaken up.  By 6 o’clock the track was cleared, and all the trains got away.  There is a high embankment and a curve at the place of collision, which would have helped to make a terrible disaster had the speed of the passenger train been much greater than it was.