A TERRIBLE COLLISION

Frightful Accident on the New York Central Railroad.

One Section of an Express Train Plunges Into the Other.

A terrible accident occurred on the New York Central road at 11:40 o'clock, a few nights ago, two miles east of Palatine Bridge, N. Y. The first section of the St. Louis express, which left New York at 6 o'clock P. M., had broken down, an accident having happened to the steam chest, when the second section, which was composed of eight vestibule sleeping coaches, drawn by sixty-ton engine No. 683, in charge of WILLIAM HORTH, and running at the rate of thirty miles an hour, dashed into it.
The first section was made up of Engine 714 (Engineer WEEKS and Conductor ABEL), a baggage, mail, and express car, three passenger coaches, which were packed with people, one Wagner sleeper, and two private coaches.
The rear private coach, the Kankakee, telescoped the Wagner car of the first section, which was just ahead of it, to half its distance. The only damage caused to the ordinary passenger cars, which were between the sleepers and the locomotive, was in the smashing of windows and lamps.
After the crash the second section withdrew from the first section, but left a hole in the rear portion of the Kankakee big enough to place a boiler in. The first, third, and fourth tracks were littered with wreckage.
Conductor ABEL said his rear brakeman was sent back, but Conductor HORTH, who was very badly hurt, said that he did not see him, and the first he saw were the lights on the train.
When the crash came the New York Times's correspondent was asleep in the coach next ahead of the sleeper of the first section. Every seat in the car was taken. One half of the passengers were women. They made a wild break for the door, but were deterred from jumping out in the darkness by the cooler headed passengers. _______________ more unfavorable place. On the left, in the pitchy darkness, and fifty feet below, was the roaring Mohawk.
Not a light could be seen except those in the coaches. The lights in the sleepers had all been extinguished. One half of the passengers were awakened from a sound sleep to find themselves wrapped in gloom. For a while the people were too dazed to do anything. The train men swore mute and reserved as usual under such circumstances.
The first thing that the correspondent did was to walk back to see if the rear lights of the first section were all right and the rear brakeman was in his place. Ten feet of the rear car had been cut away by the towering engine, which was hissing in the darkness fifty feet distant. Two of the passengers had got a light, and were searching about in the rain for the cause of the disaster.
The engine, No. 683, of the second section, one of the latest and heaviest engines on the road was wrecked beyond redemption. The roof of the express car immediately behind it had sprung through the cab and thrown the engineer to the ground. The fireman, HENRY ANDERSON, had jumped and escaped uninjured. Beyond this the second section was not damaged at all, the heavy vestibule sleepers protecting it from telescoping.

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