EXPRESS WRECK.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 59, 5 March 1909, Page 3

EXPRESS WRECK.

THIRTY-EIGHT PERSONS KILLED

ON A MOUNTAIN PASS

DEBRIS ON FIRE

Further particulars regarding the train collision which occurred between Dotsero and Grizzly, on the Denver and Rio Grande railway, in which thirty-eight people were killed and sixty injured, are to hand by the last maiL The collision was between a fast passenger express, mainly filled with tourists going westward from Denver and a ' 'doubled-headed" freight train, drawn by two of the most powerful locomotives on the line. The place where the accideiit happened was on a mountain pass with an altitude of some 8000 ft, find amidst tho grandest scenery in America. Great banks of snow lined the railway, and all about were high peaks covered with ice and snow. The sufferings of the injured and dying were intensified by a temperature several degrees below zero. The cause of the accident was the neglect of the driver of the passenger engine to remain at the little station of Dotsero in order to give the freight, which was nearer Grizzly,; time to shunt so that the express could pass. It is .down grade from Dotsero to Grizzly, and the heavy express, composed of eight coaches, including a tourist and drawing-room car 5 which were in the forepart of the train, dashed down the Jine at a terrific spaed and smashed head on into the standing freight train. The impact was terrific, and all three of the engines were completely wrecked, the lighter passenger engine becoming nothing but scrap-iron. The heavy drawing-room car, which was directly behind the tourist car, telescoped the latter, being hurled with mighty force clean through it, and killing all who were in it but one little girL She, clinging to the corpse of her mother, who nad. been killed, was hurled into a snow bank and later on found alive by tne rescuers. Some of the passengers of the next car were killed, but most of those in the rear cars escaped with injuries only. The scene was a fearful one, the wreckage being piled on either side of the line in the deep snow, which rapidly turneu to crimson from the blood of the injured and killed. Many of the bodies were fearfully mutilated, so that it has not been possible to identify them.

Bad as the situation was, happening in an out-of-the-way place twenty miles from Glenwooa curings, the only place of any importance in the vicinity, the horror was increased by the wreckage taking fire, and there was imminent danger of not only the dead bodies being cremated on the scene of the disaster, but of the injured living, who were unable to extricate themselves from the debris, being burned to death.

The conductor, N a man named Brown, with great presence of mind, called for volunteers, and all who could helped him. Improvising shovels out of pieces of. wreckage, some twenty or thirty workers shovelled snow on to the flames, while others carried armfuls of snow, and between them the fire was extinguished. Other fires were lighted some distance from the wreck, where as many as possible of the injured were carried and made as comfortable, as could be under the circumstances.

Meanwhile some of the trainmen had go^ne to the nearest station and telephoned to Glenwood Springs for help. A tedious wait was involved, because the men had to go miles to telephone, and after that, even when the relief train started from Glenwood Springs a breakdown ocurred, and it was delayed, so that the sufferers were obliged to wait some hours before relief came.

The survivors were too few in number and too many of them were injured to give much assistance. From Glenwood Springs the news of the disaster was telegraphed to Salida, 135 miles away, > and to the Grand Junction, fifty miles further west, and relief trains were sent from these places as well. When assistance arrived, with food, doctors, and medical supplies, the injured were taken to Glenwood Springs, where they were acommodated in the hotels there.

The first reports of the disaster gave the death-roll as high as seventy, but the railway officials at the headquarters in Denver made the> numbers not more than .thirty-eight. The driver of the passenger train, whose name was Gus Olsen, was killed instantly, as was his assistant, while the engine-drivers of the freight- train were badly injured. The route over which the train was running is a very popular one on account of the grandeur of the scenery, and in winter it is superb owing to the great mountains and canons being covered with dazzling snow. Many

passengers make the trip in order to view the scenery from the large windowed tourist cars, which are run on this line across the Great Divide.

The tourist car in which the casualties mainly occurred was at the time being used for this purpose, and. a stop for the night would have been made some, distance further on, and the car picked up the next day by another train and taken on its round, finally returning to Denver.