Boyd, WI Train Wreck, Jan 1900

WRECK NEAR BOYD.

Central Freight Goes Through a Bridge, Fourteen Cars Burned.

Freight train No. 21, west bound on the Wisconsin Central, was wrecked between Boyd and Caldott at 7:30 o’clock Friday night and fourteen cars were burned. No one was injured.

The train left here at 1:30 o’clock Friday afternoon in charge of Conductor B. F. Bowen and Engineer Lamp. All went well until the train reached a little bridge west of Cadott. It is believed one of the cars was thrown off the track by a broken flange just before the bridge was reached and that the car crashed into the bridge. At any rate the bridge went down and 14 cars piled up in a heap around where the bridge had been.

One of the cars was loaded with oil in barrels and in some manner, possibly by the sparking of the iron and steel as the cars broke up, this oil was ignited and in a short time the heaped up wreckage was a mass of flames.

The wrecking crew was sent up from here and the track cleared at 2 o’clock that afternoon. The midnight trains, No. 3 and No. 4, were sent around the wreck by way of the Omaha, between Marshfield and Eau Claire. Passengers on No. 2 and No. 6 were transferred around the wreck on foot.

The fourteen cars that were burned were loaded with oil, general merchandise, coal and stone. While no official statement has been made, it is probable that the loss to the company will run up to from $10,000 to $15,000.

The Stevens Point Journal, Stevens Point, WI 13 Jan 1900
__________________

Transcribed by Jenni Lanham.