Trolley Derailment Injures Three in South Tacoma
A motorman’s failure to brake on a sharp curve throws passengers from a streetcar platform near 38th and M streets.
Three passengers on car No. 66, on the South Tacoma line, were hurled from the front platform to the ground and seriously injured this morning at 9 o'clock. The accident occurred at Thirty-eighth and M streets, and was due to the fact that Motorman Bonney failed to slow down as the car hit the sharp curve running at full speed. The injured were Harry Delin, a boy of 12 years, who suffered several scalp wounds; Wilbur Slinger, aged 16, who sustained a broken left arm, and S. B. Cogshall, who had his face and arms cut. The two boys were picked up by bystanders and taken to the home of Dr. Rummaell nearby, where their injuries were attended to, but Cogshall boarded the car again and proceeded on his way. Superintendent Franklin of the Tacoma Railway & Power company, when asked for an explanation of the accident by The Times at noon, refused to say anything about it.
“The accident occurred at Thirty-eighth and M streets, and was due to the fact that Motorman Bonney failed to slow down as the car hit the sharp curve.”
This accident highlights the hazards of early streetcar transit, a system that once defined Tacoma's urban mobility. While the tracks are long gone, the struggle over public transit safety and the accountability of private utility operators remains a persistent theme in modern city life.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.