Tragedy on the Columbia and Puget Sound Railroad
A young fireman loses his life in a switching accident during Seattle's cold snap.
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.
For a long time, the Columbia and Puget Sound Railroad has been remarkably free from serious accidents, but last evening, probably owing to the severe cold weather, an employee lost his life. As the train was coming into Renton from Newcastle, a young man named George Thorman, a fireman on the train, slipped back over the tender to pull the pin and disconnect the engine from the train. The engineer heard him pull the pin and shout 'all right.' The engine started ahead to run clear of the coal cars, which were to be sidetracked. Moments later, the engineer realized Thorman was missing. He stopped and rushed back up the track to find that the young man had slipped and fallen from the tender, and was subsequently run over by the coal train. Thorman was found with his arm and leg broken and other severe injuries. He was rushed to town with all possible speed but died just before arrival. Thorman had been on the road but a short time and boarded at the Minnesota House. He has no known relatives in the Territory, but will be given a respectable burial.
“He had been on the road but a short time... he has no relatives in the Territory so far as is known, but of course will be given a respectable burial.”
Railroad work in 1883 was notoriously hazardous, and this accident captures the human cost of the industrial expansion that built Seattle. Today, the rail corridor to Renton remains a vital logistics vein, though the physical risk to individual workers has been replaced by different sets of modern workplace challenges.
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