Newton-Fulton-Richmond County GaArchives News.....Railroad Disaster, Sleeping Car Thrown 45 Feet Down An Embankment. November 20 1874 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Phyllis Thompson http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00011.html#0002524 June 27, 2004, 8:42 pm The Georgia Enterprise We were on the train last Sunday night and witnessed the terrible accident which came very near hurling into eternity a car load of passengers on the Georgia R. R. We copy from the Atlanta Herald an account of the disaster, as it is about the most correct of any we have seen. Sunday night last at 3:5? o'clock, as the up passenger train on the Georgia Railroad was nearing Covington, while the conductor, Mr. D. M. Vining, was seated in the rear part of the ladies car, he felt the car jostle, which he at once knew to be the wheels off the track. Springing for the bell rope he rung the engineer down- who was not using any steam at the time, having shut off in order to roll slowly over the switch into Covington. The train was a mile from town, but it was down grade, and the distance could be made very readily with the steam cut off. The engineer put on the airbrake very tight which caused the rear end of the ladies car to jump the track, and produced such a jerk that the engineer thought his train had broken loose and run down on him when he applied the brake; he therefore took off the brake and allowed his train to move on. But the worst was behind this- the BROKEN RAIL, which the ladies car had passed over in safety proved inadequate for the sleeping car. The rail was broken in two places, and when the sleeping car came on it the wheels jumped the track and went JOSTLING OVER THE CROSSTIES for at least fifty yards before the bumper broke, detaching the sleeper from the train, the rear trucks breaking loose from under the sleeper, which then tumbled over a very steep fifty feet embankment striking a telegraph pole as it went over, breaking the pole about half off, the remainder punching through the car. The car went about FIFTEEN FEET before it struck the ground. Making about a quarter turn as it fell.-It then rolled over, BOTTOM SIDE UP, leaning over at an angle of about 45 degrees, and lodged against two small trees. THE DESTRUCTION INSIDE of the car was frightful. Every seat and berth was dislocated from its position, and jumbled together in a mass. As one passenger expressed it, in the language of Artemus Ward, "It looked like somebody had been fooling with a threshing machine in there." The car contained eight people- all men; there being the unusual occurrence of not a lady, white or black, on the whole train- six men, one little boy and the colored porter. The car belongs to the Georgia Railroad being of the regular coaches, fixed up for a sleeper in place of one of Pullman's, which was condemned. It is very near a total wreck. There was NO ONE KILLED, but every person in the car sustained more or less injury- none fatal. Herewith we present the NAMES OF THE WOUNDED, with their injuries and places of residence: Josiah W. Bardwell, Charleston, S. C., slight cut in the head, bruised leg and arm. Stewart Phinizy, Augusta, Ga., slight bruise to head, leg and side. Levy Cohen, Atlanta, internal bruises, slight. John S. Reese, Baltimore, Md.- cut in back of head, bruised in back, hip and shoulder, with spine, and perhaps kidneys, injured. John A. Stephens, Atlanta- slight cut in upper lip and bruises in hip. Capt. Ed. Sharpe, 51 Broadstreet, Atlanta, bruised or strained in loins, back, chest, neck and head. His little son, Arnsden, 11 years old, cut clear across the forehead and bruised in the back. Bruce, the porter, slightly bruised in body and cut on foot. Arnsden Sharpe, the little boy eleven years old, was the hero of the occasion. Whilst covered up in the debris under the seats, cushions, etc., with the gash in his forehead bleeding profusely, his father called him, not knowing where he was, if dead or alive, when he replied, "Take care of yourself, papa; it ain't getting any worse." every one in the car heard the remark, and speak of it as proving him a hero. This little boy is a mathematical prodigy. This is not the first time he has been in a terrible disaster. His father, mother and elder brother were on the ill-fated, "City of Memphis," which exploded her boiler in 1866 on the Mississippi River, having 176 people aboard. On that disaster Capt. Sharpe saved the lives of 13 people with a rope ladder. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/newton/newspapers/nw1203railroad.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/gafiles/ File size: 4.9 Kb