Re: Engine 282 1906 wreck

Thanks Dave for the fine photo. Here is the background of the wreck.


May 31, 1906: Telluride
FATAL WRECK ON THE OURAY BRANCH
FREIGHT ENGINES GOES THROUGHT A BRIDGE KILLING ENGINEER INSTANTLY AND INJURING FIREMAN HOTCHKISS.

From Monday’s Daily.[Monday May 28, 1906]
This morning a freight train running from Montrose to Ouray was wrecked about two miles below the latter town. The train was in charge of Conductor Goodenough, and Engineer O’Neil.
The accident was the result of a bridge washing out over a small stream or gulch, leaving only the ties swinging from the rails. It was very dark and as the engine went on the bridge and the engineman felt it going down, both jumped. The track at this point is graded and blasted from a cliff. And as the engineer jumped from the cab, the cliff threw him back under the engine and he was buried under the engine and tender at the bottom of the gulch, about 25 feet deep. His body was terribly mangled being scarcely recognizable. The fireman, named Hotchkiss, also jumped from his side and fell and rolled down the hill some 30 to 40 feet. He was badly bruised and scratched but is not seriously injured.

Conductor Goodenough walked into Ouray, aroused the depot agent and an engine and crew of the passenger train were gotten up and going down recovered the body of the engineer and brought it to town.
O’Neil had been running on the Ouray branch seventeen years, and prior to that time was on the main line several years. He leaves a wife and four children.

He was prominent in the Masonic order, and one of the most highly esteemed citizens of Ouray, his untimely death casting a pall of gloom over the entire community.

This might have broke a record for a timely reply to a question on the NGDF.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/2010 06:27AM by John E. Bull.