Another Horror: Accident on the Allegheny Valley Railroad

Three Killed and Fifteen Wounded

Petroleum Centre Daily Record, February 11, 1873

Scrubgrass, February 10

The Brady’s Bend accommodation, bound north on the Allegheny Valley Railroad, met with an accident involving the loss of three lives and the injury of several passengers, at a point about eight miles this side, or north of a place called Black’s Siding, ten miles south of here. The train is a mixed one, leaving Brady’s at 12:35 p.m., and is due at the siding at 3 p.m. Today it was made up with engine No. 37, next eleven loaded oil cars, and last an ironclad passenger coach. It was in charge of conductor James Bonner and engineer Samuel Weigle. At the time of the occurrence of the accident, [the train] was nearly thirty minutes late and was running twenty miles per hour.

The precise point of the accident is a curve one mile south of Rosedale, and when rounding the curve, the fireman noticed that a piece about four feet was broken out of one of the outside rails. He notified the engineer, who whistled for brakes, but the warning came too late to allow of an effectual application of them, and the seventh car of the train, in passing over the gap, was thrown from the track, dragging four oil cars and the passenger coach in the rear down the bank. The embankment at this point is about fifteen feet high, and the coach was turned once and one and a half times over and landed bottom side up out in the river in about four feet of water. The coupling of the oil cars broke, the tanks which contained about eighty barrels of oil each, a large portion of which ran down into the passenger car and catching fire from the forward stove, soon enveloped the whole car in flames.

There were at this time about twenty-five passengers in the car, who of course rushed for the doors and windows, and [apart from] those killed, got safely out, although a few of them were more or less burned. Efforts which soon proved successful, were made to extinguish the flames, and then the bodies of the dead were recovered, and the injured properly cared for by the company’s surgeons and employees working under the direction of Col. J. J. Lawrence, Superintendent of the Road, who fortunately arrived soon after the accident occurred.

Later — Scrubgrass, February 10

The following is a correct statement of the accident on be Allegheny Valley Railroad which occurred this afternoon:

The Oil City accommodation, with a train of oil cars. when running on time near Black’s Siding, at 3 o’clock p.m., a few miles north of Emlenton, broke a rail, and five cars of oil and the coach were thrown from the track down the bank. The cars at once took fire, but all the passengers escaped except three who were killed. The killed were Scott, a newsboy, and William Casey, said to be a sporting man, and one unknown.

The injuries to all are slight; except Mr. Hanna, who is the most injured, but it is hoped not seriously.

The track at the place of the accident was as good as any on the road, the ties all sound and the iron good, but the hard freezing weather bas caused the rails to break worse than ever before.

The company’s surgeons and others were promptly on hand, and ever attention paid to the injured that was possible.

The coroner is now at the scene of the accident and will inquire into the cause officially.