PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 24.--The Shamokin express on the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad which is due here at 9:30 A. M. collided with a train of empty coal cars a short distance north of West Manayunk Tunnel, about eight miles north of this city, at a few minutes past 9 o'clock this morning. Seven persons were killed outright.
    Twenty-two who were injured were taken to St. Timothy's Hospital at Roxborough, and several were treated at other places.
    The following is the list of the dead and injured:

THOMAS WELSH of Auburn, fireman of the express train.
JAMES KILRAIN, twenty-three years, of Tamaqua, forward brakeman on coal train.
FRANK STIEF of Reading, newsboy on express train; killed in the baggage car.
Mrs. MARGARET DEVINE, aged sixty years; killed under stove on express train.
DAVID S. HERR, aged fifty-nine, member of the Legislature from Harrisburg.
JAMES BOYNTON, a machinist, of Reading.
ANNIE ATCHINSON, twenty-five years old, of Minersville, Penn.

S. D. RHODES of Ph�nixville, Penn., express messenger; jaw fractured and suffering from concussion of the brain; condition serious.
M. D. COWEN, Harrisburg, City Engineer; contused leg.
MORITZ G. LEPPERT, both legs broken.
Mrs. M. G. LEPPERT, leg broken.
ELLA DEVINE, twenty-seven, 2417 Perot Street, Philadelphia; lacerated wound of thigh.
ANNIE KEMP, thirty-three, Hamburg, Penn.; fracture of leg.
Miss MARY TEES of Valley Forge, Penn.; fracture of leg.
ANNIE E. SIDES, forty-three, Reading, Penn.; leg broken.
MARY C. PRETZMAN, twenty-six, Pottstown, Penn.; contusion of ankle.
WILLIAM H. EMBRE, thirty-three, Reading; not dangerous.
JAMES E. BURFIELD, twenty-nine, Renovo, Penn., brakeman on coal train; scalp lacerated.
H. C. PRINTZ, twenty-seven, Reading, conductor of passenger train; fractured thigh.
THOMAS FITZPATRICK, engineer of express; concussion of brain and head, serious.
HIRAM GOTTSHALK, forty-two, Reading; compound fracture of both legs.
Dr. JOSEPH E. WRIGHT, thirty, Ph�nixville; both legs broken.
W. H. BECKER, thirty-two, Pottstown; leg broken.
JAMES H. CHILLSON, twenty-seven, plumber employed by company; hurt about body.
JAMES E. WYNKOOP, forty, Port Kennedy, Penn.; hand and forearm crushed and afterward amputated.
WILLIAM HALSEY, thirty-six, Allentown; contused legs.
CLAYTON EPPLER, baggagemaster on the express; concussion of the brain.
CHARLES MILLER, Pottstown; contusion of arm and leg.
ANTHONY SCHURZ, Pottsville; chest and head cut.

    The others injured and not taken to the hospital were:
W. H. GERLACHER, Tamaqua Penn.; conductor of coal train; scalp wound and bruised.
CHARLES BILLIG, Tamaqua, engineer of coal train; head cut.
BERNARD GALLAGHER, fireman of coal train: wrist sprained and bruised about the body.
The Rev. J. M. HARE, Ph�nixville; right ankle sprained.
B. F. SHRECK, brakeman on coal train; head and ankle injured.
Miss LIZZIE SMITH, Ph�nixville; right leg broken.
H. ROSEFELT, New-York; two fingers of right hand broken.
    The express is made up at Pottsville and left that city at 7 o'clock. The train arrived at Ph�nixville on time. There orders dated Reading were received to run on the north-bound track from West Conshohocken to West Falls, a distance of only a few miles, regardless of all other trains.
    From West Conshohocken, in pursuance of these orders, the train took the north-bound track. It was composed of five cars--the baggage car, a smoking car, two passenger cars, and the Harrisburg Pullman parlor car "Crestline."
    The south-bound track was blocked with freight cars and to this fact is primarily due the catastrophe. Train No. 538 of empty coal cars started north from West Manayunk, on the northern track, shortly before 9 o'clock. There is a conflict of opinion as to the orders given the crew of this train. The crew contend that they had received no orders to stop, while the railroad officials say that positive instructions had been given that the coal train should lie up at West Falls, south of where the collision occurred, until the express train had passed.
    The two trains came together on a curve with a terrible crash. The engines literally plowed their way through each other and rolled over on their sides. The front of the baggage car was crushed in and the rear of the car and the forward end of the smoker crashed together.
    The greatest force of the collision was expended on the smoking car and the passenger coach next to it, and the scene presented here gives some indication of the speed at which the train was moving and the terrific shock of the smash-up. The smoker telescoped its way into the day coach fully one-half its length, and how any one who was in either ear escaped death is a mystery.
    The baggage car was literally smashed to kindling wood and thrown over on the southbound track in a heap with the engines. It caught fire, and was soon burned up. The next two cars kept to the track.
    The second passenger coach and the Pullman car were badly damaged, but not to such an extent as to prevent their being drawn away from the rest of the train directly after the accident. Except for scratches and bruises, the passengers in the last two cars all escaped unhurt.
    As the engines approached each other the engineer and conductor of the coal train both jumped from the cab and what injuries they sustained were received in falling.
    Gallagher, the fireman, was coaling up at the time, and by some miraculous circumstance saw the impending danger in time to jump from the tank. The only injury he sustained was a sprained wrist.
    No one was in the passenger engine but Engineer Fitzpatrick and Fireman Welsh. They were given no time to think of their own safety and were buried in the ruins before they knew what had happened.
    When the collision occurred, Conductor Hamilton was in the passenger coach next to the Pullman. With a remarkable exhibition of coolness he turned his attention at once to the wounded, and, collecting about him a staff of helpers, he soon had the injured out of the wreck. They were quickly taken away, and then seven mutilated bodies were laid out on the side of the road.
    Word was sent in several directions for medical aid, and in a short time a staff of physicians was on hand looking after the injured. The dead were taken to the city police station at Manayunk.
    The Rev. J. Madison Hare, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Ph�nixville, was sitting in the rear end of the second telescoped car. In speaking of the accident he said: "I was the last person in the car, and sat a witness of the awful sight when the smoker telescoped into our car. Right in front of me, almost the next seat, two women were killed before my very eyes. The blood you see on me came from the others. It was only last night that I talked about death to my congregation, but this is the closest I ever got to it in my life."
    Policeman William J. Lanigan of the Thirteenth District, whose hands were filled with partially burned letters, which he was saving with a view to assisting the Coroner, said:
    "I came here with Sergt. Metzler in the patrol wagon about ten minutes after the wreck oocurred. The cars were piled on top of one another, and most of the people were wedged in the seats, although some were hanging out of the windows. We pushed in and formed into gangs, clearing away the debris and extricating the victims."
    W. J. Dugan of Roxborough told this story:
    "When I reached the scene the baggage car, one heap of smashed timber, was on fire. The train crew had an engine and were about to pull the telescoped cars back from the burning heap in order to save the imprisoned passengers from being burned to death.
    "I walked alongside the telescoped cars and clambered in. The sight was an awful one. At the second seat lay an old lady stone dead, with the stove on top of her. Back of her was a young man, wearing glasses, his foot wedged in among the crush of seats.
    "I started to heave out the seats, and when we got the stove off the old lady we found a young lady lying on her side on a seat, dead. The rubbish in the car was piled so high that a man from Pottsville, who had jumped for the cross girder at the roof when the smash came, was nevertheless pinned by the rubbish as high as his knees. His right leg was broken. Right on top of the heap was a little child of three years entirely safe, crying as we took her down. She began to plead, 'I want my grandma.'
    "It was her grandmother, I think, who was pinned under the stove. As we heaved it up, the grate broke and red-hot coals tumbled down on the body of the old lady. How it was that a general fire did not start then and there I'm sure I don't understand."
    C. J. Boas was in the second car. "I felt the train jar," he said, "and gripped my seat in apprehension of a smash. None came--to us--but every one of the forty-five women and children rushed for the door. A fearful jam occurred, and the panic was so great that many came near sustaining serious injury in the struggle to escape. We sent them out and broke open the tool boxes, where we got axes, saws, picks, and crowbars. I chopped half a dozen seats loose and released two men whose legs were caught. That gave us a chance to see how things stood.
    "On both sides were six or seven people crying and moaning. Those on the left hand seemed to be all held down by the stove, those to the right by the ice cooler. We dragged the cooler away and used the water for reviving the injured. The stove presented greater difficulties. I cut the pipes with an axe, tied ropes to the stove, and shoved a crowbar under it.
    "Several men pulled on the ropes and I heaved on the crowbar for at least twenty-five minutes. We could move the stove no more than an inch at a time, and every time we hoisted it there was such an outburst of shrieks and groans and sobs that it seemed as if every victim in the car was under it.
    "When we had dragged the stove away we released two middle-aged and well-dressed women. They were but slightly hurt. Then we got out a man whose leg was badly crushed. The old lady under the stove must have been choked to death. The arm of a seat had fallen across her throat."
    Dr. J. L. Wright, a homeopathic physician of Ph�nixville, displayed remarkable coolness throughout a most trying ordeal. With an arm and a leg fractured, and suffering from other injuries, he lay pinioned under a part of a car and gave minute directions as to the removal and care of other unfortunates, refusing to be extricated until others had been dragged out.
    Of the injured at the hospital all will recover, with the probable exception of the engineer, Fitzpatrick, and Messrs. Rhoades and Gottshalk. Fitzpatrick and Rhoades both have fractured skulls and other minor injuries, and Gottshalk's leg was amputated this afternoon, from the shock of which he will probably die.
    Rumors were current this evening that some arrests might be made, but Chief of the Reading Coal and Iron Police O'Brien said that nothing would be done in the matter until the Coroner's Inquest is held. This is set for next Thursday morning.

Source:

Unknown, "Seven Dead in a Wreck. Shamokin Express Crashes into Empty Coal Train. Over a Score of Persons Injured on the Reading Railroad near Philadelphia--The Trains Come together on a Curve--Conflict of Opinions as to Orders," The New York Times, New York, Tuesday, 25 October 1892, p. 1.