Shreve, OH Train Wreck, Sept 1892

HEAD-END COLLISION

Freight and Express Train Crash Together.

FIFTEEN PEOPLE KILLED.

Five Others Seriously Injured -- The Wreck Catches Fire and Five Passenger Coaches and Five Freight Cars Are Consumed.

PITTSBURG, Sept. 21. -- Fifteen people were killed and five injured, five passenger coaches burned up, two engines and five freight cars demolished in a terrible head-on collision at Shreve, O., on the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and Chicago railroad about 3 o'clock Wednesday morning. The colliding trains were section No. 1, of freight train No. 75, and express train No. 8, due in Pittsburg from Chicago at 8 o'clock. The cause was the neglect of orders upon the part of the freight crew. Details of the accident were meager and local officials of the railroad company could only give out a general statement.

From the latter source it was learned that the limited mail No. 8 was speeding past Shreve with a supposed clear track. The freight had been ordered to lay on a siding at Wooster to allow the express to pass. For some reason the order was disregarded and the freight pulled out and was under full headway when the flash of the headlights was the firsts warning received by the engineers, who simultaneously reversed their engines.

This was too late, and the huge engines plunged into each other almost at full speed. The crash was terrible as the trains came together. The engines reared high from the track, while their momentum drove them fairly through each other, and then with the hissing steam and scalding water pouring from every seam and rivet they fell into the ditch alongside the track The freight cars telescoped one another until little but a jumble of wood and iron remained.
The panic-stricken passengers, bruised and stunned, were thrown from their berths and seats. With the first crash the lines of the doomed went out.

The postal car caught fire and spread rapidly to the two express cars, baggage car, smoker and end coach. The night was pitchy dark, but the horrible spectacle was illumined with the brilliant glare from the rapidly burning cars. The bodies of some of the dead were consumed.

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