On Monday, June 9, the
Denver Times detailed a head-on collision on the narrow gauge
South Park, again in the suburbs of
Denver:
TRAINS MEET
ON A TRESTLE
Engines Smashed, but No One Hurt in Wreck.
Remarkable Escape of Crew and Passengers This Morning –
Engineers Saw Each Other in Time to Slow Up.
Another miraculous escape from death is to be recorded after a wreck on the
South Park division of the Colorado & Southern railroad.
Notwithstanding the fact that two engines came together on a trestle between
South Park junction and Valverde, demolishing both almost completely, not a single passenger received as much as a bruise and no member of either crew will be kept from on
duty long.
The trains in the wreck were the regular, No. 73, which left the Union depot at 8:15 this morning, and a special due here at 8:40 a.m. [actually the regular fish train, No. 60], bringing back to Denver a large number
of fishermen who had gone up Platte canon Saturday and spent yesterday along the stream in the seasonable and popular sport.
No. 73 was in charge of Conductor H.S. Hoffman, with A. Latham as engineer and M. Elliott as fireman.
The fish train was in charge of Conductor C.S. Williams, with Sam Lovely as engineer.
No. 73 pulled out of the depot on time with a baggage car and three coaches well loaded with passengers, including a great many children, the major portion of the passengers being bound for a summer’s stay in the
resorts along the line.
All the passengers on the outgoing train were in the best of spirits, and the few minutes they were scudding over the rails through the suburbs of
Denver were fraught with no incidents.
As the train neared the trestle bridge, and went around a curve, the knowing ones among the passengers realized there was something wrong when they heard the hissing of the air, an indication that the engineer had
applied the airbrakes, and in another moment their suspicions were confirmed by a severe shock, and then silence and a standstill.
Though the shock was severe, yet not a passenger was thrown from his seat.
Such of the passengers as had the nerve immediately clambered out onto the trestle, and the wreck of two railroad engines, that of the fish train jammed into the regular, and both reared in the air, with piston rods
broken and smokestacks knocked off, met their gaze.
Then came the realization of what might have been the result had not the engineer of No. 73 seen the oncoming train in time.
It would have meant a terrific collision and a topple of both trains off the bridge into the
Platte river, twenty feet below.
Besides the damage to [the] engine [of] No. 73, the trucks of the baggage car behind it were knocked from under and the car rested on the trestle.
The baggageman was not injured.
The engineers of both trains stayed at their posts, as did the fireman on the special.
Fireman Elliott, however, jumped and landed on the steep embankment about ten feet below the bridge.
He sustained severe sprains to both his ankles and to his left wrist.
Engineer Latham was also slightly injured, sustaining a bruised leg.
As the accident occurred less than a half mile from Valverde, word was immediately sent from that point to General Superintendent Dyer, and in ten minutes a freight train that had been standing in the
yards at the Denver depot was at the scene of the wreck.
In fifteen or twenty minutes more passengers from both trains were on their way to the city, where they arrived safely about 9:30.
The scene of the accident is a dangerous one, a locality were it is possible that if an employe of the road does not closely follow orders bad results may follow.
There is quite a stretch of wooded country and just before reaching the trestle there is a curve; then again quite a little stretch of straight track.
The fish train has orders for a clear track to
Denver and No. 73 was ordered to lay at
South
Park junction until it passed.
The fish train was due at Valverde at 8:23 and No. 73 was due at
South
Park junction at 8:24.
The stations are a mile apart.
Instead of following out orders the trains met three-quarters of a mile west of the junction, and the opinion of railroad men is that the responsibility of accident rests with the engineer of No. 73.
He apparently overlooked the fish train’s time.
Among the people of
Denver on the outgoing train who had such a close call were M.B. Carpenter, the
attorney; George L. Goulding, owner of the City Stock yards; W.H. Lawrence and C.N. Welch.
Judge Frank T. Johnson of the district court was on the [fish] train.
He was accompanied by his two boys, aged 9 and 11.
He described his experiences as follows:
“It gave us an awful jolt.
I either tumbled or jumped out of my seat in the smoker into the aisle.
I don’t know how I got out there.
My boys were shaken out of their seats and everything looked pretty badly mixed up for a little while.
It seemed to me that the car must have raised about two feet into the air and them come down again, swaying and shaking in a terrifying manner.
There was an embankment there, and if it had rolled down that we would have been in a terrible fix.
It is all the railroad wreck I want to be in.”
Judge Johnson did not have enough luck on his fishing trip to pay for the scare he got in the wreck.
He got about a good mess of fish, but they were not biting well where he was.
Bailiff Kennon of Judge Johnson’s court accompanied the judge on the outing, but was not in the same car.
Mr. Kennon was out on the platform preparing to alight, when the speed should slacken, near his home.
“I saw those two trains coming at each other,” he said, “and I concluded it was time to get off.
So I jumped.
I did not receive anything of the shock, at all, for I was safe on the ground when the engines met.
They were going very slowly, hardly more than four or five miles an hour.”
Attorney Horace Benson was on the train, as were also Representative Harry E. Insley, Harry McDowell and Messrs. Bartels and Bailey.
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This report makes the damage to equipment seem fairly superficial, particularly to the baggage car of No. 73:
“. . . the trucks of the baggage car . . . were knocked from under and the car rested on the trestle.”
But in fact the car, No. 103, built in the
South
Park’s
Denver shop in 1879, must have been heavily damaged, as it was scrapped and subsequently listed in company records as destroyed at South
Park Junction on June 9.
The railroad’s operating department subsequently conducted a test to determine which, if either, head-end crew was responsible for the collision.
A report was issued that read:
“On June 18th a test was made with two trains made up with the same number of cars as in trains Nos. 60 and 73 on the date of collision.
“The train representing No. 60 had two cars and the train representing No. 73 had four cars.
“It was determined that the enginemen of both trains were in sight of each other 250 feet from the point of collision.
“Engine No. 68 with four coaches was run from a point at Valverde siding on the main line where train would stop after backing out of side track.
Required two minutes to make the run to point of collision, rate of speed about thirty miles per hour.
“The same engine and four coaches made a run, reaching a speed of about thirty miles an hour and set air in emergency 250 feet from place of accident.
The pilot of engine when stopped was 85 feet beyond point of accident.
“Engine No. 38 with narrow gauge business car B1 was started from South Park Junction with instruction to make a fast run to point of accident, which is 1860 feet from the
starting point and made the run in one minute and fifteen seconds.
“A running and stop test was then made, air set in emergency 250 feet from point of accident and when stopped the pilot was 40 feet beyond point of collision.
“The train was then taken back to South Park Junction, another coach coupled on, giving them two cars, starting from South Park Junction and run made to west end of Valverde
side track in three minutes flat.
“These tests were made to demonstrate whether engineer on train No. 60, who was on the inside
of the curve, could have seen train No. 73 in time to have stopped before collision occurred.
The tests made exonerated the engine and trainmen of train No. 60 from all blame and placed full responsibility for the collision upon the engineer, fireman, conductor and two brakemen of train No. 73.
Train No. 60 having superior right by direction over No. 73, both being passenger trains.”