Happenings on the Monon Railroad

MONON TRAIN IN BAD WRECK

ENGINEER AND FIREMAN KILLED WHEN TRAIN HITS TRUCK TRAILER.

One of the worst wrecks in many years on the Monon railroad occurred about a mile north of St. John last Friday morning when the fast Indianapolis train going to Chicago hit a trailer on a large truck at the railroad crossing. When the train hit the trailer the engine and tender, the baggage, mail and express cars and the smoking car left the track. Balance of the train was day coach and sleeping cars, and they all remained on the track.

The engine went into the ditch and nearly buried itself in the earth along the track. The fireman was thrown to the top of the engine but the engineer was caught in the wreckage and scalded to death by the escaping steam. The body of the engineer was caught in such a manner that it was impossible to remove it until acetylene torches were used to burn a hole in the steel to remove it.

The dead are:

William Bellanger, engineer, age 52, of Indianapolis.
Floyd Crowder, fireman, age 38, of Indianapolis.

Both bodies were taken to the Fagen undertaking rooms at Dyer to await the action of the coroner. Later they were removed to Indianapolis.

The cause of the wreck was a big trailer on a truck belonging to the H.P. Downey Construction Co., of Hammond. The truck was on its way to Cedar Lake to do some work. The crossing is a bad one as there is a high grade to get up to the tracks. The trailer on the truck became fast between the rails and the men with the truck were unable to release it and when they heard the train coming they tried to flag it but too late. There was a heavy fog that morning and the engineer could not see the trailer on the track until he was right on it and a collision was unavoidable.

As soon as the wreck occurred word was sent out for help and the citizens responded, but luckily none of the passengers were hurt and it was impossible to do anything for the engineer and fireman who were killed almost instantly.

The coaches that were left on the tracks were taken to Shelby where they were detoured over the New York Central lines to Momence and over the C.E. and I. to Chicago.

Miss Sadie Nichols, of Lowell, was a passenger on the ill-fated train, but she escaped without any injury and later continued her journey. V.K. Roberts was returning from Indianapolis and left the train when it stopped here. There were many passengers on the train from Gary and Hammond, most of them returning from the Republican state convention at the state capital.

The wrecking crew were soon on the scene of the accident and had the tracks cleared so that the trains could begin running again about 4 o'clock that afternoon.