Switch Tampering Triggers Logging Train Accident
Two men face legal consequences after a construction car collision on the Satsop rail line.
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.
Last Sunday as Mr. Pittman of the Satsop Company was going up the railroad on his velocipede, he encountered a logger named John Smith and Jesse Wooster, coming to town on a construction car, and narrowly escaped a smash-up. It seems that Smith had broken a switch lock, turned the switch at Day’s side track, and appropriated the car. Besides this, he had neglected to place the switch as he found it, consequently the logging train ran off the track at that point soon after, but as it was not going fast no great damage was done, though the act endangered the lives of those on board as well as the train. Wooster met the car and boarded it just before Mr. Pittman was reached. Mr. Pittman swore out a complaint against the two persons and they were soon taken in tow by the marshal. The examination was held before Justice Cyphert at the Courthouse Monday. Wooster pleaded not guilty to charges as detailed above, and after the testimony of complainant and witnesses was heard, was released from custody. Smith waived examination and was placed under $500 bonds to appear before the District Court in June.
“The act endangered the lives of those on board as well as the train.”
Railroad infrastructure and worker safety remain central issues in the Pacific Northwest’s logging industry. While the era of hand-cranked velocipedes on logging rails is long past, the tension between industrial liability and rogue behavior remains a familiar theme in regional labor history.
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