LIVES LOST IN A WRECK.

AN APPALLING RAILROAD ACCIDENT IN INDIANA.

The Air Brakes Wouldn't Work, and the Train Was Going Sixty Miles an Hour – It Left the Track and Plunged Into the Station – People Killed on the Platform.

A terrible accident occurred on the Big Four Road in Lafayette, Ind., at 1:15 a few mornings ago, as a result of which ten men were killed and many more injured. The train was the east-bound passenger leaving Chicago at 9 p. m. The accident was caused by the failure of the air-brake to work.

The engineer undoubtedly discovered this before reaching the cut beyond the Wabash River, as the vigorous whistling of the engine for brakes could be heard when the train was still a mile west of this city. The engineer's desperate efforts to stop the train were shown by the large amount of sand thrown by him on the bridge through which the train came just before the fatal crash.

The engine dashed out of the bridge over the Wabash River at a speed of not less than sixty miles an hour, crashing into the depot building, tearing off a portion of the depot and train sheds, and carrying them several hundred feet. The engine when it left the track was followed by the baggage car, two postal cars and the express, and all were piled in a heap, burying a score or more victims.

The trucks of the first day coach were dragged out and the side of the car knocked into fragments, but no passengers in this car were injured. The chair car and two Pullman sleepers remained on the track. Fire started from the stove in the baggage car, but the Fire Department rapidly extinguished the flames.

A large crowd of citizens gathered very quickly, and a force of local physicians gave the necessary attention to the wounded. Several victims of the wreck were persons standing in the depot waiting for the train, a hackman, a mail cart driver, and passengers.
The dead were:
MICHAEL WELCH, engineer, Indianapolis.
Fireman McINNIS, Indianapolis.
ED. MYERS, Logansport, mail clerk.
______ McMAHON, Cincinnati, express messenger.
A. R. CHADWICK, Cincinnati, mail clerk.
CHARLES MEYERS, Lafayette, hackman.
JOHN LENNON, Lafayette, mail cart driver.
JESSE H. LONG, Lebanon, Ind., mail clerk.
CHARLES SCHANELL, passenger, had just bought a ticket to Indianapolis.
OTTO JERSELSON, Alhambra Hotel, Chicago, passenger waiting for the train.

Eleven others were injured. The damage to property will be fully $30,000.

High bluffs rise on the west bank of the Wabash, just opposite the city, and there is a long and steep grade at that point. The ill-fated train must have been a mile up the grade from the river when the engineer discovered that there was something wrong with the air brakes, for he began to whistle shrilly for hand brakes. The speed at that time had increased so terrifically, however, that its control was beyond human agency.

The engine dashed around the curves and across the long bridge, although the man at the throttle had reversed the machinery and streams of fire were being dashed off from the driving wheels. Just after leaving the east end of the long bridge the cars described a semicircle at the midway point. When the engine struck that sharp curve it left the track, followed by the cars, and they piled upon each other 100 feet away after crashing through the train sheds.

The Cranbury Press New Jersey 1893-05-12
__________________

Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!