Pando, CO Train Wreck, Sept 1915

ONE DEAD, 49 HURT IN D. & R. G. WRECK

FIREMAN PINNED UNDER CAB; COOKED BY STEAM FROM LOCOMOTIVE.

Freight hits express

ENGINEER SERIOUSLY BURNED, AND PASSENGERS BRUISED, AT TENNESSEE PASS.

Western Newspaper Union News Service.

Leadville, Colo. --- ELMER JOHN, fireman, was killed, and WILLIAM KING, engineer, was seriously burned, forty-three passengers and six other trainmen hurt, when a D. & R. G. helper engine crashed head-on into a double header express train near Pando, Wednesday morning. One engine was thrown upon its side; the ends of two steel cars were crushed and about sixty feet of track was torn.

The place where the accident happened was upon a piece of track laid on a high bank 200 feet above the stream, and, had the cars been thrown from the track, the resulting casualties would have been frightful.

JOHN was caught under the engine that left the track and was cooked by the steam from the boiler. Aid was speedily given him and he was extricated, but he died while on the way to the hospital at Salida.

Information given here is that the crew of the engine, which was a freight train helper, is to blame. The helper engine is one which aids the engines of regular trains to pull their loads over the heavy grades in this mountain division.

Passenger Train No. 20, which is one of the crack trains operated from Salt Lake City by the Rio Grande, connecting with the Western Pacific line from the coast, was filled with tourists home bound from the Panama Pacific Exposition.

Among the Coloradoans injured were JAMES R. DONALDSON, IRENE B. DONALDSON, L. E. ARMSTRONG, J. RAYSVILLE and O. A. EVERS of Denver, and B. F. BENSON, BERTHA C. NORRIS and MARY R. NORRIS of Colorado Springs.

Range Ledger Hugo Colorado 1915-09-11
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!