Fearful Fall

A Freight Train of Twenty-two Cars on the Panhandle Hailroad Plungcs from a. Bridge Ninety Feet High- Miraculous Escapes and Thrilllng Incidente. [From the Chicago Times.] A train of twentv-three loaded freight cara approaclied tïie high bridge which spans the Tippecanoe river near Monticello, Ind., the engine being headed easitward. The cars contained wheat and oorn. The engineer slowed tüe train up as it wns nearing the trestle-work conneoting with the west end of the bridge. As he did so the bridge-tender mounted the steps of the locomotive and remarked that he would ride to the east end of the structure. Afewseoonds later the whole of the west span of the bridge, with the engine and twenty-two cars, went crashing into the river.' The forward brakeman gives the fellowing account of the descent into the rivei : The engine and several cars had paseed on to the span, when the fourth ear appeared to jump the track, and, plunging off the bridge, carried the next car with ii. The couplings did not break, ar.d, as the cars commenced to fall, the locomotive was dragged back along the rails. The engimeer, Louis Beam, opened the throttle to its full capacity, thinking to save his engine by severing the coupling-pin. But the fastenings did not break, and the cars went piling over the side of the bridge one after another, until tne locomotive was pulled from the track and dropped into the river. Think of an engine and twenty-two cars falliug ninety. feet through air and striking in six feet of water. The brakeman says that he was standing on the fifth car from the engine when the caraheadof him left the rail and dropped from the bridge. He ran back over the tops of the cars with allpossible speed, each one plunging into the abyss before his heels had hardly cleared it. When he had run his race for life over the tops of thirteen cars, , and had seized the brake of the fourteenth, he feit that sinking under his feet. Escape from the awful leap was no longer possible. With a flrm grip on the brake, and an eye to the chances for life, he stood still untü the car had fallen flftv or seventy-flve feet, when he umped. Among the cara that had preseded him was one which was resting on the bottom of the river in a slanting position. The brakeman struck feet foremost against the inclined surface of the side of the car and shot off into the water as if he had been fired from a Oolumbiad. He plowed the bottom of the river for a moment and reappeared on the surface. As he opened his eyes he saw a car or two falling through the air, and his ears were etunned by the deafening crash of timbers and boards. By the time this man had made his way to shore five other persons were discovered by him scrambling out of the wreek in the river. Their escape from death had been not less wonüerful than his own. One of these was the flreman, who had clung to the tender until within a few feet of the water, when he jumped and, fortunately for him, alighted in a heap of corn. the contents of one of the cara, which, in fitriking against the rest of the wreek, had been split open. The flreman's injuries consistsd of a gash on the scalp, a contusión on the face, and some bruises about the body. The othcr four men who emerged from the wreek were tramps. They had been stealing a ride, and were clinging to the trucks ■when the accident happened. The car upon whieh they were riding turnea bottomside up in the fall and they were hurled from their place of conoealment into the water. One of the four had two fingers cut off, but, with this exception, the whole gang escaped compara tively unhurt. Beam, the engineer, and Jerome Durphee, the bridge-tender who, contrary to hia custom, had board ed the engine to ride across the river were buried under the wreek. A thrilling episode of the accident i yet to be described. The twenty-third car of the train was the conductor' " caboose." In this car were seven pas sengers, traveling from one local station to another. The brakeman in charge o tLo rear half of the train was a ma named Barney Moran. He was nea: the center of the train when he hearc the bridge crashing and saw the forwar cars and locomotiva plungmg mto the river. He ran back to the " caboose," and, hurriedly removing the couplingpin between it and the freight car, applied the brakes with all his might. Had he made a false movement or been a moment later, the car would have gone to mingle with the rest of the train in the bottom of the Tippecanoe. But it stopped -within seven feet of the precipice. The passengers occupying this car did not know what had happened until after the -wreek had settled into perfect quiet at the bottom of the river. The fireman says that the last he saw of the engineer he was holding on to the throttle-liner and bending forward in his cab. He never fiinched f rom duty as he f ollowed his ponderous machine through that f all of ninety feet. It should be borne in mind that the bridge did not break down until niter several of the cars had been thrown f rom it. It was the wrenching of the train that produced the strain that broke the bridge. The span Tvhich feil was 150 feet long. The Btructure is of the Howe truss pattern, and its safety had not been questioned heretofore.