FEARFUL WRECK.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 460, 5 April 1890, Page 4

FEARFUL WRECK.

TELESCOPING OF A TRAIN. SEVEN KILLED AND MANY WOUNDED. A train on the Lake Shore Road from the West (says a Buffalo telegram of March 6th) broke in two near Hamburg to-night. The front part of the train, consisting of an engine, tender, smoker and two day coaches, was quickly brought to a standstill. The rear half, composed of five heavy Pullmans, came on down the grade and crushed into the second day coach. The Pullman being the heavier, it lifted the day coaches into the air, and they now lie on top of the other. Both telescoped the first day coach. Both day coaches and the Pullman were full of passengers. There were many sad incidents connected with the wreck, one of the saddest being the killing of Mrs Joseph Baucus, of Saratoga. She and her husband were on their wedding trip, having been married about a week. The husband was terribly injured, but his physical suffering was nothing to compared to his mental agony. He acted in a distracted manner, calling on the doctors to save her, and raving over her broken and bruised body. Mr and Mrs J. E. Stewart, of Rochester, were killed instantly, while their eighteen-months-old girl in its mother's arms did not receive a scratch. Superintenent Couch, of the Lake Shore Road, says that the sleeping-car conductor first discovered the break, and went into three different cars, pulling the automatic brake cords, trying to stop the rear section, but they wouldn’t work. He was trying to set up the hand brakes when the crash came. Couch could not assign any reason for the failure of the automatic brakes to work. They are generally reliable. Mr Haupt, a well-known lawyer of this city, who was in the first section, in an interview, said : “ The truth is the train was not in a fit condition to carry human beings from the time it left Cleveland. A coupling broke before we left that city, but afterward the conductor assured me that all was right. At Dunkirk the train parted twice. The steam couplings were broken and the air-brake failed to act. A travelling companion and I discussed the situation, and had almost made up our minds to get off 1 there and wait for another train, but finally we took our chances.”