Lansingburg, NY Train Wreck

October 1906

TROOP TRAIN IN WRECK

Fatal Rear End Collision on the B. & M. at Lansingburg.

Special Carrying Regular Army Soldiers Dashes Into Passenger Express – Bride of a Day Killed.

Troy, N. Y. -- Flying around a curve and past a flagman frantically signaling the engineer to stop, a special train on the Boston and Maine Railroad, bearing men and horses of the Second Squadron, Fifteenth United Stated Cavalry on their way from Fort Ethan Allen to Cuba, crashed into the Boston Express. The meeting of the trains took place at the Lansingburg station, just north of Troy. Five persons were killed and fourteen others were injured.

Two of the three Pullman cars at the end of the express train, which was standing on the track 100 yards from the fatal curve waiting for the northbound express to pass, were completely demolished.

The last car was hurled down a thirty-foot embankment. All those killed were occupants of this car. Thirty others were in this car. The Pullman next to it was toppled over into the bank next to the track, while the third Pullman, the five coaches and two baggage cars of the train remained on the track.

The dead: F. L. BLOCK, a wealthy merchant of Peoria, Ill.; MRS. J. W. DACEY, Arlington, Mass, married one day; MRS. H. S. POOLE, Concord, N. H., an actress of the “Silver King” company, and known on the stage as MISS HOWARD; MRS. WALLACE E. SHAW, Bath, Me.; MRS. GEORGE D. STEVENS, Winchester, Mass.

The wreck occurred at a point where the grade is one of the steepest on the road.

The passenger train consisted of a baggage car, smoker, day car and two parlor cars.
There is a sharp curve a short distance away and the puffing of a locomotive just around the curve was the first intimation of the approaching “special” which came thundering along with eighteen cars on the steep grade. A second later it crashed into the rear end of the passenger train, smashing the two Pullman cars like eggshells.

Many of the passengers had left the train when it stopped and were walking up and down the track when the crash came. To this some of them probably owe their lives.

The troopers performed heroic service. In the absence of the police, who were all in their annual parade, Lieutenant-Colonel HARDLE in command of the cavalrymen, took complete charge and established a cordon of pickets around the wreck. His men were impressed into service, taking out the dead and injured from the wreck and carrying them to places of safety. The troopers acted as ambulance men and assisted in carrying the injured to the hospitals. None of the soldiers was injured. Their train was taken back to Melrose, where the troopers camped that night.

The death of MRS. DACEY was one of peculiar sadness, for she and her husband were married the night before at Arlington and were on their honeymoon with New York as the objective point. Engineer HOLLORAN says he saw a man and woman standing on the rear end of the Pullman car just before he jumped from his engine. The facts prove that this couple were MR. And MRS. DACEY. MR. DACEY was slightly injured. He was one of the first to find his bride's body, and it is said that she breathed her last in her arms.

The Cranbury Press New Jersey 1906-10-12

Submitted & transcribed by Stu Beitler  Thank you, Stu!

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