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Passenger Train No. 201, on the Erie and Ashtabula branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad, was derailed and plunged over a steep embankment into the Beaver River, just east of Rock Point, at 5:15 o'clock Tuesday afternoon. Two are dead, several were injured and one is missing.
The engine and baggage car were almost completely submerged, the smoker stretched from the roadbed to the edge of the river, while the other day coach and parlor car, which completed the train, were derailed but not upset.
WILLIAM C. HALLIS, aged 35, constable of South Sharon, died on way to New Castle Hospital.
HERMAN MAINS, track walker, struck by truck of derailed coach; died three hours later in Shenango Valley Hospital, New Castle.
EARL RAY, baggag emaster, Avalon, PA.
The Injured.
M.J. KANE, 3007 Preble Avenue, North Side, Pittsburgh; bruised about body.
HARRY STACKS, South Sharon; hip badly bruised.
LOUIS COHEN, Sharon; neck wrenched and injured about face and hands.
CHARLES VALINSKI, Detroit, Michigan; injured about legs, removed to New Castle Hospital.
JAMES RAY, engineer, New Castle; back sprained, bruised.
Neil O'Donnell, of No. 1741 Buena Vista Street, North Side, Pittsburgh, the conductor of the wrecked train, escaped uninjured.
Earl Ray, the baggage master, was last seen alive crossing from the baggage car to the engine, and it is believed that he was drowned.
The others fatally hurt were hurried from the scene as soon as possible, but there was some delay caused by the fact that both north and south bound tracks were torn up and a relief train sent immediately from Conway, had to take the injured back to Kenwood junction, and from there going to New Castle over the high grade division of the Erie and Pittsburgh Railroad by the way of Beaver Falls and Homewood.
The train left the rails at a curve one thousand feet south of the Rock Point station, several hundred feet from a large iron bridge spanning the Connoquenessing Creek. Engineer James Ray slowed his locomotive for the curve but, as it swerved round, the pony truck leaped and an instant later the engine, tender and baggage car shot into the swollen stream.
"We're off" was the warning the engineer shouted across the cab to his fireman, and before the engine struck the water the men were ready to jump.
Engineer Ray wrenched his back in freeing himself from the cab window and nearly fainted when he hit the water. Both men were carried about in the swirling current for a few moments and were being carried swiftly down the stream. Fireman Thompson, who was less seriously hurt, swam to the struggling engineer and after a battle, dragged him to the bank below the wreck.
Herman Mains, one of the dead, was walking beside the track at the river bank when the train left the rails. He was struck by a truck and hurled under the baggage car. Hallis, the other man fatally injured, was riding in the smoker and was unconscious when removed from under it. It is believed he was crushed between two seats.
Nearly all the passengers were watching the river as the train sped along, little thinking that in a few moments they would have a miraculous escape from death in the swift current.
All that saved the rest of the train from being completely submerged with the engine and baggage car was the fact that after leaving the rails, the couplings parted and the rails of the southbound track, over which the cars were carried, went toward the river edge like a net and checked the momentum of the uncoupled cars.
When the crash came water was hurled many feet in the air, and large waves, raised by the heavy engine, lashed against the opposite sides of the river.
Following the relief train, although on the other track to allow the relief train to return from the scene, the Conway steam wrecking crane reached the wreck in less than half an hour late and attention was directed to raising the rear portion of the train, composed of a smoker, two coaches and a parlor car. Efforts to raise the submerged engine and baggage car were futile, owing to the swift rising water. Late last night no diver had ventured down into the baggage car to search for the body of Earl Ray.
It is thought that the wreck was caused by a large boulder being loosened from its moorings by the heavy rains and falling on the track derailing the train. Several years ago a large freight engine and several cars plunged into the Beaver River near the same place.
Editor's Note: The body of Pennsylvania Railroad baggage handler Earl Ray was discovered more than two months later, floating in the Beaver River about a mile and a quarter down stream from the wreck site. A railroad worker, who was traveling along the tracks on a handcar, spotted the body on May 20, 1910. Ray, of Avalon, PA, was 34.