Grand Ledge, MI Engine Explosion Wrecks Train, Aug 1909

P. M. FLYER IN A WRECK 2 ARE KILLED.

FIREMAN AND ENGINEER ARE KILLED AND SCORES OF PASSENGERS ARE INJURED.

COACHES TAKE FIRE.

EXPLOSION IN ENGINE WRECKS FAST PASSENGER RUNNING BETWEEN DETROIT AND PETOSKEY -- ACCIDENT HAPPENS NEAR GRAND LEDGE.

Special to News-Palladium.
Grand Ledge, Mich., Aug. 19. -- An explosion of the locomotive of the "Resort Flyer" on the Pere Marquette, a mile and a half east of this city at 12:30 o'clock this morning, wrecked the entire train. Fireman FRED GRAVES, Grand Rapids, and Engineer WILLIAM BRADLEY of Ionia were killed and several passengers were probably fatally hurt and scores of people were injured.
The train was the regular resort train which runs from Detroit to Petoskey, due in Grand Rapids at 1:05, and was made up of five coaches, crowded with people going to northern Michigan points for outings.
The locomotive boiler exploded when the train was running at the rate of nearly 50 miles an hour and was completely demolished. The coaches were also badly wrecked, and to add to the horror the cars which plunged into the ditch took fire.
Luckily 15 thresher hands who were sleeping in a barn near by, hastily came running with buckets of water and the blaze was soon extinguished.
A report states that the only two people on the entire train, save in the back coach, who escaped injury were Conductor GLENNON and his brakeman. They miraculously escaped without injury.
A party of physicians set out in automobiles from Lansing and a wrecking train was summoned from Detroit. Conductor GLENNON made his was in a dazed condition to a nearby farmhouse and gave the first news of the accident to the officials of the road.
The train was known as No. 9 and leaves Detroit at 9 o'clock in the evening. It is made up of two sleepers, a day coach and a baggage car and is used almost exclusively by resorters going to their resort homes from their business and their city homes.
A train carrying the officials of the road rushed to the scene from Detroit, closely following the wrecking train. It is reported that another train was sent to the scene from Ionia.
The train, which consists of one coach, two sleepers and a baggage car, was filled with people probably 100 persons beingon the train.

The News Palladium Benton Harbon Michigan 1909-08-19
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!