New Haven, CT Train Wreck, Sept 1913 - Officials Blame Signals

Officials Blame Signal System.
The New Haven officials were frank to admit tonight that the so-called "banjo" block signal system, which on this part of the line has not yet been replaced by the semaphore system recommended by the public utilities commission last December, was, in a measure responsible for the wreck, although the question as to whether the engineer of the White Mountain train, Augustus B. Miller, was making too much speed under the weather conditions, is under investigation.

Under the "banjo" system, as soon as a train passes a signal, it sets red and automatically opens the signal in the previous block, allowing a train following to enter.

Both more than an hour late, the two trains passed Wallingford, three miles north of the scene of the accident, eight minutes apart, shortly before 7 o'clock. Eight minutes ahead of them was the first section of the Bar Harbor express, and a local train, due to stop at North Haven, three miles south of the wreck, led them all.

Stopped Beyond Signal.
According to the officials an engineer may pass a "banjo" signal set red after he has brought his train to a stop. This, according to railroad officials, the engineer of the second section of the Bar Harbor express did, and then came to another stop about 100 feet on the other side of the signal, a mile north of North Haven.

This opened the signal in the previous block, a mile away, and down a stretch of track, straight as an arrow, plunging through the thick fog, came the White Mountain express, with the impetus of seven cars, baggage, day coach, and five sleepers behind the engine.

Meantime, Flagman C. H. Murray, of the Bar Harbor train ran back with the torpedoes, a distance, it was said, of 400 feet. The torpedoes went off, according to officials of the road and some of the train crew. Then came the crash.

Impossible to Stop Train.
According to Vice President Whaley of the New Haven, it would not have been possible at the speed the train was making for Engineer Miller to have stopped within fifteen hundred feet after he saw the signal. The engineer did not see it, he said, until he was almost upon it, or scarcely more than one hundred feet from the rear of the Bar Harbor express, and at the same moment he heard the torpedoes.
"I do not wish to place any blame on the engineer," said Mr. Whaley, "but in view of the foggy conditions a question to be determined is whether he was running too fast under the circumstances. There is no rule of the road which would require him to make up time and take a risk while running in a fog, and as far as I know he received no instructions to make up time."

Twice Told to Change System.
Chief Engineer Ellwell said tonight that the New Haven had been twice advised by the public utilities commission to abolish the "banjo" system, once last December and again in March, following minor wrecks, in both of which the blame was laid at the door of the "banjo" system.

Passengers in both trains were asleep when the collision occurred. The White Mountain's engine, No. 1337, twin of the new Pacific superheater locomotive that figured in the Stamford wreck of last June, plowed through the two parlor cars of the Bar Harbor train.

For several minutes after the first shock there was silence, the passengers said, and then sounded the screams of the wounded. Passengers from both trains turned out to the work of rescue. They found scores of the dead and injured strewn on both sides of the track, but there were few in the wreckage. The terrific force of the engine had literally reduced the two Pullmans to the merest kindling wood, and the bodies of the passengers, instead of being buried in the wreckage, fell upon it or were hurled over a fence into a watermelon patch.

Officials Burn Wreckage.
The vestibule of one Pullman, sitting astride the pilot of the locomotive, and the vestibule of the other, tossed into the ditch, were the only parts of the two cars not demolished. Tonight the wreckage was burned by the railroad officials.

Trolley cars were pressed into service to bring to New Haven both the dead and dying. A part of the White Mountain train took some of the injured to Meriden, and the undamaged cars of the Bar Harbor train were used to take others to this city, where they were placed in hospitals. There are eighteen here in all, and some are in such serious condition that the death list may increase. Some of the less seriously hurt went on to New York.

Washington Girls Escape.
The members of a girls' camp, returning from the Maine woods, were on board the Bar Harbor train. The railroad officials said that so far as they knew none of these young people had been injured.

The party, numbering about 40, was in charge of a Mrs. Sherman. They were returning from Camp Abena, at Belgrade Lakes, Me., where they had spent the summer. All of them are pupils of the Sidwell Friends School, in Washington, D. C.
Daniel Dunn, a former Yale football star and athletic instructor of the boy campers, and Harry L. Mooney, who is in charge of them, came out of the wreck unscathed, and led in the rescue work. Practically all of their young charges were in the overturned third car, the Chisholm.

Coroner Acts in Secret.
First steps to determine who, if any one, was to blame, were taken in secret. Nor will the inquest be public. If Coroner Mix adheres to his announced plan. At the preliminary hearing this afternoon trainmen of the two trains were examined. Later what purported to be a synopsis of the testimony was given out.

According to this recital, every possible precaution was taken. The flagman of the Bar Harbor express went back when his train stopped, place torpedoes on the track, and stood ready to stop any train that might be following. He was recalled by an engine whistle. The engineer of the on-coming train saw him, hear the torpedoes explode, and saw the red bulls-eye of the "banjo" block signal leap out of the fog - but saw and heard too late to stop.