TRAIN KILLS 13 RIDING IN BUS

Michigan City, Ind., Feb. 18 (AP) – Thirteen men, members of a railroad section crew, were killed and 16 other men were injured when a bus carrying the railroad workers was struck by a one-car Chicago, South Shore and South Bend electric train yesterday at the Andry road crossing five miles east of here.

The motorman and one passenger suffered minor injuries but several of the 14 section workers in the bus were injured seriously. Five of the 13 killed were negroes and all had lived here, in Gary and Chicago.

Witnesses said bodies of the victims and wreckage of the bus, owned by the railroad for transportation of workers to and from their jobs, were scattered several hundred feet along the railroad right of way.

The Gettysburg Times, Gettysburg, PA 18 Feb 1947

--------

MICHIGAN CITY, IND., Feb. 18 – (UP) – Witnesses who saw a speeding one-car electric train knife through a big bus load of railroad workers, killing 13 persons and injuring 16 others, said today they could see no cause for the accident.

The bus driver, Glenn Morris, Michigan City, had an unobstructed view for miles either way down the track, but apparently did not see the train as it bore down on the bus at 65 to 70 miles an hour at a grade crossing five miles east of here yesterday afternoon.

Ten of the injured still were in serious condition at Clinic hospital here. All of those killed and 14 of the injured were riding in the bus. They were members of a railroad section gang, mostly Negroes and Mexicans, who had just completed work on another section of the company’s right-of-way.

Morris stopped the bus, witnesses said, and then started slowly across the tracks in the path of the Chicago, South Shore and South Bend passenger car. The collision sliced the bus in two, strewing bodies of the dead and the screaming injured along the track. Morris’ body was found 500 yards from the crossing.

W. E. Willard, 45, South Bend, motorman on the suburban train, and one of his passengers were treated for injuries at a hospital and released. The other 25 train passengers continued on they way after transferring to another South Bend-to-Chicago suburban train.

Willard said he had no time to stop. He said the bus stopped then slowly moved into the path of his train.

Ambulances rushed from hospitals and mortuaries in a 25-mile radius. Attendants carried stretchers up and down the tracks, sorting the injured from the dead.

Traverse City Record Eagle, Traverse City, MI 18 Feb 1947
__________________

Transcribed by Loraine Jordan. Thank you, Loraine!