Chattaroy, WA Train Wreck, Nov 1910

Milan, WA Train Wreck, Nov 1910


Great Northern Wreck Catches Fire.


Regular and Special Freights Crash at Terrific Speed.


Half Million Dollars' Worth of Rolling Stock Converted Into Kindling Wood in Twinkling in Accident Near Spokane.

SPOKANE, Wash., Nov. 6. -- Eight are known to be dead and four known to be more or less seriously injured as a result of one of the most disastrous freight wrecks in the history of the Great Northern Railroad, near Chattaroy, Wash., early this morning. The wreck was the result of a head-on collision around a sharp curve in a deep cut, fairly at the bottom of two steep grades. Two heavily-loaded trains running at an exceptional rate of speed combined almost every condition possible to make the impact so disastrous.

Traffic on the main line of the Great Northern will have to be suspended from 40 to 48 hours. The wreckage will hardly removed and the line cleared before Monday night.

Apple Train is Hit.
Train No 451, running on its regular schedule, westbound, collided with the "apple extra" eastbound, running on a fast schedule of five hours between Hillyard, Wash., and Troy, Mont. Train No. 451 was loaded with paints, oils, some furniture and some livestock, much of it extremely inflammable material and considerably lighter that the apple extra, which carried, besides fruit, heavy loads of grain and furniture.

Every man of both train crews who happened to be near the front of his train is dead. One brakeman saved himself by pumping, but he is seriously injured.

Rear Brakeman Escapes.
The brakemen who happened to be in the rear of their trains escaped with minor injuries.

The loss in the wreck is very large. A pile of 19 cars of train No. 451, jammed into the space of an ordinary living room, caught fire immediately and were speedily reduced to a a mass of tangled, writhing steel before the fire apparatus, summoned from Spokane, 21 miles away, could start of a stream of water on the ruins.

Beneath this molten pile are bodies of three trainmen.