Tragedy on the Tracks: A Night of Horror
A train derailment near Seattle leaves passengers trapped in the wreckage as a fire begins to spread through the cars.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
It was just before midnight when I went into the smoker, which was just ahead of our car, and stayed for a few minutes. I came back to the coach with a young man who sat down near me. That is the last I can remember or expect to see of the poor fellow. Just as I had adjusted myself to go asleep, and just before I closed my eyes, there was an awful, unearthly crash, which I never wish to hear again. I could feel myself thrown violently forward and then I became all unconscious. On my way up I noticed that all was confusion in the car; that seats, glass, rods of iron and lamps were torn to pieces about me. I must have regained my consciousness in a very short time, for when I awoke all was darkness and the horrible shrieks and piercing wails of agony almost deafened my ears. In the end of the car farthest from me, the stove was overturned and the flames were just starting to spread with fearful rapidity. There was no sort of door reaching from one to the other. The flames leaped up with a speed time that I can tell it was burning the floor. And there I watched the fire creep across the car. Her dress caught fire and she burned to death before my eyes. From my semi-conscious state, I could hear the flames were not but a foot or two from some man who shouted to the ceiling and said, 'Come to the rescue.'
“There was an awful, unearthly crash, which I never wish to hear again. I could feel myself thrown violently forward and then I became all unconscious.”
While this account describes a rail disaster in 1887, the volatility of transit infrastructure and the vulnerability of passengers remain a recurring anxiety in modern Seattle, where transit expansion often competes with the safety and reliability of aging systems.
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