McLean County IL Articles

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A terrible wreck.

- one of the most disastrous railway wrecks in the history of Illinois occurred on the Big Four, 
near Tremont, at 2:40 o'clock on the afternoon of the 19th inst. The story of the wreck is known 
to many of our readers. A west bound through freight train running at the rate of forty miles an hour, 
as it rounded a curve, encountered a work train. The crash was terriffic. The engines plowed over each other, 
and the flat cars of the work train were torn into shreds. The trains were within a few feet of each other 
when the situation was perceived; and both engines crews jumped for their lives. The men on the work train 
had been busy during the day picking up steel rails, and these formed weapons of destruction when sent flying 
at the contact of the two trains. The employes on the work train were covered by the wreckage, and some were 
literally torn to pieces. On that fated morning five section men left Danvers to assist to gather up steel 
rails along the line between Tremont and Mackinaw. One of them Ferdinand BACHMAN, section foreman, was instantly 
killed, and Harry HARMON, Gustave THIEBAND, John DUVENAL, and Christian BURR, were more or less injured. 
Thieband had an arm broken. Burr an ankle broken and Duvenal was injured in the back. The latter was taken to a 
hospital at Peoria, while the others were cared for at Pekin. Up to the present writing, no less than sixteen men 
lost their lives in the wreck. A searching investigation is now being made as to who is responsible for this 
appalling disaster.