The Barre Daily Times

VICTIMS WERE ROASTED ALIVE
IN BIG WRECK

Fifty Persons Lost Their Lives In Collision On the Denver & Rio Grande R. R., Near Portland, Colorado, Last Night.

FEW OF PASSENGERS ESCAPED DEATH

In the Midst of the Wreckage Gas Tanks Blew Up and Flames Broke Out, Making Terrible Scenes---No Help Was Near.

Pueblo, Colo., March 16.—A head-on collision of passenger trains on the Denver and Rio Grande railroad near Portland, Colo., shortly after midnight, resulted in scores of lives being lost. Following the collision, the coaches caught fire and most of the victims were roasted to death. One report places the dead at 150.

Denver, March 16.—The latest reports from the wreck on the Denver & Rio Grande railroad near Portland, Colo., this morning, say that between forty and fifty were killed or roasted alive. The two trains were running at high speed and met on a curve. The locomotives, baggage cars and smokers of both trains were overturned, while the rest of the coaches were piled in awful confusion. The gas tanks exploded and in a few minutes the entire mass of wreckage was in flames and the helpless passengers were slowly roasted to death. No one was there to give assistance. All the trainmen are among the missing. Unofficial reports say that not more than twenty of all those on board the trains escaped.

Both the engineers and one fireman were killed, one fireman escaping by jumping, although he was badly hurt. Express Messenger McCarland was caught under the wreckage and was burned to death, while a number of persons attempted to stop the flames by throwing snow on him.

A dozen of the injured were rushed to Pueblo on a relief train. The scenes at the wreck after the cars began to burn were too horrible to describe. One man, who was badly hurt, was pinioned under an iron rod. He begged for help, but when the flames reached him he said to his rescuers: "I am too badly hurt to want to live. Save yourselves and let me die."

A man and wife were trying to get out of a car window when an iron rod caught them. They were burned alive, together with their little child. Another man begged to be taken from the wreckage. When his rescuers took hold of his hands all the flesh came from the bones. He burned a moment later.

A majority of the dead were passengers in the forward coaches of train No. 3. How many met their fate will never be known. This car, together with ten others, was entirely consumed. Every person killed in the wreck was partially cremated and nothing remains except blackened timbers and twisted rods, with here and there a pile of human ashes.

Happened in a Snow Storm.

One of the trains was a local passenger, made up at Leadville, and the other was a west bound Utah & California express, which left Denver at eight last night. The trains met in a blinding snow storm. A heavy snow storm impedes the work of the wreckers.

A doctor who has reached Portland from the scene of the wreck says forty are dead. The accident occurred four miles east of Florence.