Reading, PA Train Wreck, Aug 1890

A RIDE TO DEATH

Terrible Accident on a Gravity Road at Reading, Penn.

A horrible accident occurred on a recent forenoon shortly before 11 o'clock on the Mount Penn Gravity Railroad, a mountain route encircling Mount Penn, 800 feet above the city of Reading, Penn. The road was opened five months ago, and has been doing a good business ever since. The cars were taken from a point on the outskirts of the city to the top of the mountain, a distance of five miles.

On returning the cars were allowed to go down the mountain by gravity by was of another route to the point of starting. A car containing about eighteen passengers was taken from the station to the top of the mountain. On the top of the mountain there is a high stone tower where the passengers were allowed to alight to enjoy the scenery for thirty miles around. When the tower was reached the engine was detached, when the car ran away while the passengers were still on board.

The distance to the point of starting is five miles, and it is estimated that this was covered by the runaway car in about three minutes, the car attaining a fearful speed, estimated at eighty miles an hour. It remained on the track to the foot of the plane, going around all the curves, while the passengers shrieked in their freight, and several jumped off.

When the car reached the station at the foot of the plane it jumped the track and rolled down a fifty foot embankment, where it landed upside down, with the passengers imprisoned inside.

The killed were CHARLES RETTEW, aged fifty-five, conductor of the car, and EDGAR M. LEVIN, an attorney of Reading, aged about forty; MISS ROSA PFEIFFER, of Reading, and MISS HARRIET HINKLE, of Philadelphia.

The passengers were all thrown into a confused mass. There were about a dozen of the latter with broken limbs and battered heads, their clothing covered with blood.

The Cranbury Press New Jersey 1890-08-29
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!