HORRIBLE RAILROAD DISASTER

AN OIL FREIGHT TRAIN THROWN OFF THE TRACK.

The Train Enveloped in Flames.

An Express Train Rushes into the Burning Mass.

The Engine, Baggage and One Passenger Car Wrapped in Flames.

Twenty of Thirty Passengers Burned Up.

AN ENGINEER, CONDUCTOR AND A BRAKEMAN KILLED.

From the Albany Journal, Feb. 7.
The Hudson River Pacific Express train left New York last evening at 8 o'clock. It was composed of an engine, baggage car, an express car, five sleeping cars and an ordinary passenger car. The engine was driven by DOC SIMMONS. PETER VOSBURG was the sleeping car conductor.
The night was clear, and the run to the point where the accident occurred was made on time.
The train reached New Hamburg about ten o'clock. As it was approaching that place a freight train was observed moving toward it at the usual speed and in order. But when the trains were within, perhaps, half a mile of each other, the exle of one of the oil cars broke, several of the cars were thrown across the track upon which the express train was moving at a speed of forty miles an hour, and, in an instant, the oil ignited and enveloped the entire freight train in flames.
At this moment, the Express train dashed into the broken and burning mass. The collision occurred upon the bridge at New Hamburg, and the engine, with the baggage cars and the first sleeping car, were thrown over the bridge on to the ice -- a distance of about six feet. As they fell, an oil car toppled over upon them, the oil, inundating the sleeping car, immediately ignited, and, in a moment, it was completely enveloped -- the flames leaping up seemingly a hundred feet in the air.
All the other cars kept upon the track, but the front of the second sleeping car received some of the burning fluid, and took fire also. Those occupying the front berths were in imminent danger, but were fortunately extricated in their night clothes, without material injury.
All the other passengers in this car escaped without injury, being able to leave by the rear door before the flames had made any serious headway.
The passengers in the other cars all escaped, with only such slight bruises as resulted from the rebound of the collision.
Before any movement could be made toward assisting the passengers in the first sleeping car -- about twenty -- it was a solid mass of flame. So sudden was the disaster, and so instantaneously did the fire do its work -- literally filling the car in a moment -- that, when the tumult of the crash had subsided, not a sound was heard proceeding from the furnace of death. So completely did the flames envelope the car, that no part of it could be even seen, and, in ten minutes, every particle of the wood work war consumed, and all the passengers were dead and crisped by the intensity of the devouring element. When the collision was seen to be inevitable by the engineer and fireman of the Express train, the latter urged the engineer to jump with him from the engine. The fireman did jump and escaped with his life, but the engineer, MR. SIMMONS, refused, remarking that he "would go through or go down at his post." The noble fellow went down. He was crushed to death when the engine was thrown from the bridge, and his charred remains are among those who perished in the flames and wreck of this terrible disaster.
As we write we have only ascertained the names of the following as among the killed:
DOC. SIMMONS, engineer.
PETER VOSBURG, sleeping-car conductor.
MR. BUHINE, brakeman.
In one of our despatches, which we subjoin, it is stated that of the sixty-five who had taken sleeping car berths, the Conductor finds only thirteen missing. It is to be hoped that his may be the extent of the disaster. If so the number of deaths (including the Engineer, Conductor and Brakeman) will be sixteen. Other reports, however, place the deaths as high as twenty or thirty.
Judge LOW (ex-Senator), was among the passengers who occupied the rear passenger car. He recites the facts substantially as we have stated them. When the collision occured, the rebound of the car is which he was seated, was not at all severe. He at once leaped to the track; but, in this brief moment, the engine, baggage and sleeping cars thrown from the track, were lying on the ice, undistinguishable from the mass of flames which enveloped them. No assistence could be rendered those in the wreck. The heat was intense, and the fire raged with such fury that the work of death must have been complete before it was possible to even approach the burning mass. After, in conjunction with others, doing what he could to relieve the survivors who were slightly injured, he came on in the train which was made up on this side of the wreck, and reached the city this morning about six o'clock.
All the baggage was burned with the car which contained it. Not a thing escaped the fire. The destruction was complete.
Immediately after intelligence of the disaster reached Poughkeepsie (six miles distant) all the physicians of the place volunteered their services and were conveyed to the wreck. They rendered all possible relief to the injured.
It seems that the usual weight thrown upon the bridge, where the collision occurred, was so great that it gave way precipitating the several cars crowded upon it onto the ice beneath, which also gave way, allowing the cars to sink into the water. It is uncertain whether any received their death by drowning. The probabilities are that all who were killed perished by fire.
Engineer SIMMONS, who was killed formerly resided in this city. He was then an engineer on the Central Road.
MR. KASSON was the conductor of the train, and escaped injury.
It is understood at the depot here, that the brakeman who was killed was named LAWRENCE. But our despatches up to noon to-day, adhere to the name of RUHINE. There must be some mistake in the name, or else two brakemen were killed.
A special despatch given below, dated 9 o'clock this morning, says that thirty dead bodies have been recovered, but so badly disfigured that they cannot be recognized. This is doubtful.
Three of the sleeping cars are reported burned, two taking fire after the passengers escaped. They were all new cars, not having before been on the road.
The Latest.
From the Journal of Feb. 8th.
There is but little to add to the very full account which we published yesterday of the terrible railroad disaster Monday night at New Hamburgh.
The axle of the tenth car from the engine of the freight train broke, and that car, and fourteen behind it, were thrown across the express train track. The oil was, of course, scattered in every direction, but it did not take fire until the engine of the express train, a moment after, dashed into the wreck.
One account says nine persons on the first sleeping car jumped off before it was thrown off the bridge. But this is incredible, because seemingly impossible. There could not have been time for any one inside the car to get out before it was thrown into the creek and enveloped in flames.
The engineer fell under his engine, and was doubtless killed by the fall; but his body was shockingly charred when it was recovered.

Essex County Republican New York 1871-02-16
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!