Train Wreck Series #1 Traditional Cache
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Please access cache from Dutton Dr only. There is no need to cross or get within 8M of tracks for safety. The terrain has some branches,ground hog holes near GZ please be careful.
This wreck happened at or near where cache is placed in 1902.
Thanks to my sister Marion for coming up with the idea and researching this event.
1902
Excerpts from
The Daily Telegraph, Berlin (Kitchener), Ontario, Monday, September 8, 1902
FATAL RAILROAD WRECK ON THE ELMIRA LINE
Fireman Jones Killed Instantly, While Engineer Mitchell,
Still Clinging to the Lever, Escapes Without a Scratch.
OVER THIRTY PASSENGERS MORE OR LESS INJURED.
The scene of the accident was about a mile south of the Heidelberg flag station [close to Farmers’ Market in 2009] and two miles north of the Waterloo depot. Through the Clemmer farm [Lot 11, German Company Tract] there is a long curve and just as the end of it was reached, the tender left the track, followed by the engine and passenger and baggage car. At this point there is an embankment of about ten feet on each side of the track.
Probably the most fearful and distressing railway accident that has ever occurred in Waterloo County took place on the Elmira branch of the Grand Trunk Railway on Saturday evening. Never, as long as the twenty-five or thirty passengers and train hands live, will they forget the trip. The most miraculous feature of the accident being the marvellous escape of Engineer Mitchell who clung to the lever, while the tender left the rails in rounding a curve and his favorite iron horse plunged after it down the embankment ten feet below. When things came to standstill, he was still at his post, suspended by his arms from the lever and all he had to do was to let go and drop to the ground.
The women and children were taken to nearby farm-houses and the men who had limbs broken were carried into the baggage car until medical assistance arrived.
SENDING FOR HELP
Mr. Clemmer, the farmer who lives close by, was notified of the wreck and immediately hitched up his horses and drove to Waterloo and spread the news. The physicians were all summoned as well as the B & W Hospital [Berlin & Waterloo] Ambulance which was telephoned for.
AUXILIARY ARRIVES
When the auxiliary train arrived, the first work was to take the passengers on the wrecked train to their destination which was done, the St. Jacobites arriving home about 11 o’clock and the Elmiraites an hour later. The Auxiliary men laid a new track in the place of the old one which had been badly torn up, the ties being strewn in all directions. The baggage car was first placed on the rails and by eight o’clock Sunday morning the passenger car was turned right side up and put on the rails and taken to the Waterloo station. The work of placing the engine in a movable position required the steady work of thirty men all day Sunday and it was about eight o’clock before the wreck was cleared and the track put in a passable condition.
THE INQUEST
The body of the fireman was brought down by the auxiliary to Shinn’s undertaking establishment about 3:30 o’clock Sunday morning. An inquest was called by Coroner Dr. J. H. Webb for 11 o’clock Sunday and the jury was sworn in. The jury viewed the body and then adjourned until four o’clock Monday afternoon. Immediately after the Inquest, Coroner Webb and Dr. Noecker performed a post-mortem examination after which the undertaker, Mr. J. K. Shinn, was given charge of the body. At 3 o’clock the casket with the corpse was conveyed to Elmira, where friends awaited its arrival.
CAUSE OF THE ACCIDENT
There are several theories. Some maintain it was the spreading of the rails while others think that the tender being light, struck a slight jog in the rails and jumped the track. The most likely cause in the minds of the train employees is the latter. The line is a comparatively new one and it is not likely that the rails would spread at this time.
The inquest determined that it was an accident, cause unknown.
It is estimated that about 4000 Waterloo Countyites visited the scene on Sunday.
Since 1891, when the line to Elmira from the Waterloo Junction Branch of the Grand Truck Railway opened, there has been train service to Elmira. The spur between Waterloo and Elmira, owned by CN, is operated by the Goderich-Exeter Railroad. Freight trains take shipments twice a day, four times a week to and from Kitchener and the bottom end of Erb Street in Elmira. The turntable at Erb Street was taken out some years ago so the engine manoeuvres to the other end of the waiting tank cars, ready for the return trip – backwards. From the Waterloo Historical Society Newsletter April 2005
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