Morris Tribune

INTO AN OPEN SWITCH
DISASTROUS WRECK ON THE BURLINGTON AT MONMOUTH, ILLS.
Fast Express Running Forty-Five Miles an Hour Thrown From the Track—Five Passengers Instantly Killed and Fifty or Sixty Injured—A Baltimore and Ohio Wreck—Casualties.
CHICAGO, Oct. 31.—Five persons were killed and fifty or sixty injured in a railroad wreck at Monmouth, Ills., on the Burlington road. The Omaha and Denver fast express which left this city at 6:10 ran into an open switch and the entire train was thrown from the tracks. Engineer Emerson and the traveling engineer of the road, who had gone into the cab half an hour, were killed outright. A lady passenger was found pinned under the trucks of the sleeper. She had evidently been hurled through a window by the crash. Her body was crushed into an unrecognizable mass. Near her were a man and woman both dead, under the sleeper. The train consisted of three sleepers, two chair cars, one smoker, one baggage, one express and two mail cars. The Sleepers Were Heavily Loaded, as were also the chair cars. Emerson the engineer, was one of the oldest passenger engineers in the country, and had been on this run for several months. The train was speeding along at the rate of forty-five miles an hour when it struck the open switch. The engine dashed along on the spur track for a few yards when it turned over on its side, burying Emerson and the traveling engineer of the road beneath it. After the engine left the tracks the baggage car and the cars behind it were also hurled from the rails. Most of the passengers in the three sleepers had retired. The first intimation they had of danger was when the coaches crashed against each other. Men, women and children were hurled from their berths. The lights went out, leaving the cars in total darkness. A terrible panic ensued and women screamed frantically for help. It is said that none of the passengers in the sleepers were killed, but many of them were severely injured.