The Evening World

MAN KILLED, "L" LINES BLOCKED ON WEST SIDE

Stalled Trains on Sixth and Ninth Avenues Reach Clear to Harlem.

Track Walker Thomas Gallagher was run down to-day and crushed to death under the wheels of a southbound Sixth avenue "L" train in sight of fifty people waiting for trains at the Bleecker street station, twenty yards away.

The front truck of the train jumped the track, and the third rail set off a display of fireworks the like of which has never before occurred since the installation of the electric system on the "L" roads.

Motorman Edward Clarke put on the brakes at once and to his coolness, the officials say, is due the credit of avoiding a more serious accident. Passengers were hurled from their seats and women were thrown into a panic. Several fainted and in the sudden stop a number of straphangers were thrown against windows, the flying glass cutting their faces and arms.

Gallagher's body was right under the truck when the train came to a standstill, and Capt. Miles O'Reilly and the rescuers of the Mercer Street Station were summoned in a hurry. The bluecoats tried for fifteen minutes to lift the wheels but to no avail.

A wrecking crew with considerable difficulty lifted the massive truck and the mangled form was released after being under the wheels for more than a half hour.

Trains on the Sixth avenue line were stalled up to Fifty-third street, and from that point to Harlem the southbound track was blockaded by both Sixth and Ninth avenue trains.

In the excitement attending the accident passengers bound for the downtown business section demanded to be released from the cars. A number of men added to the panicky situation by declaring that they had to be in their offices at 10:30, and threatened the motormen on stalled trains. The matter became so serious that Capt. O'Reilly sent in an additional call for reserves, and forty policemen were sent to the scene.

Fully 200 passengers, many of them women, got of trains, braving the "third rail" to stations where they took the stairs to the street. The electric power was shut down soon after the accident occurred.

Gallagher's body was crushed and his face was unrecognizable. He was identified by papers found in pockets. The dead man lived at No. 25 West Forty-ninth street and was about forty years old.

The police arrested Motorman Clarke, who lives at No. 105 West One Hundred and Second street, on a charge of homicide. The conductor of the train, Philip Gould, of No. 312 West Forty-second street, was also made a prisoner.