Express Train Plunges Over High Embankment After Running into Open Switch
ATLANTIC CITY, July 3.—An open switch sent seven persons to their death and resulted in injury to about 75 others, about half of them seriously, when the Camden-Atlantic City night express on the Philadelphia Reading railroad running at full speed, left the rails on a curve at Winslow Junction and rolled down an embankment. The dead and injured were from South Jersey, Philadelphia and vicinity. Nearly all of the injured were removed to this city.
John F. Walt, an operator who has been in the service of the company for twenty-four years, is in a state of collapse in his home at Hammonton, N. J. He is under the surveillance of the state police. The engineer of the express, Walter Westcott, is dead. He was killed instantly.
A statement issued by Vice President Charles W. Ewing said the towerman had set the switches for the movement of a train to the Cape May branch, thinking that the express had already passed. The engineman of the express apparently had not seen the signals.
A searching investigation of the accident is being made.
The known dead are:
John T. Tiineham, Philadelphia.
Walter Westcott. Gloucester. N. J.. engineer.
Walter T. Souder, Atlantic City, fireman.
Joseph Dilasuco, Pleasantville, N. J.
Solomon Worth, Mays Lending, N. J.
T.N. Shelden, Pullman porter, Philadelphia.
Francis Corbett, Philadelphia.
The train running at a high rate of speed crossed a switch set for a freight train, plowed ahead for about sixty feet and toppled over and down twenty-five foot embankment upon the tracks of the Cape May branch of the Pennsylvania railroad.
A parlor car was crushed under the huge engine, which was in turn sandwiched under a club car. Only one car in the train remained on the track. Among the passengers were many American Legion men, some of whom had been ambulance workers in the army. Their quick work prevented many deaths. A bride of a few days watched the removal of her husband from a mass of twisted steel. Too hysterical to give her name the bride and her husband were put aboard a special train for Atlantic City.
Georgia Fanywerler of this city, one of the survivors, gave the following description:
“Everything was going along smoothly when suddenly there came a peculiar dizzy careening of the front of the train and the next thing I knew we were scrambling below in total darkness. I fainted then and it was not until it was lifted clear by someone and was in an auto above the cut that I realized what had happened,” she said when the relief train pulled into the station at 4:45 this morning.
“In a short rime there were crowds of men about the piled up cars below us and autos started to arrive and they turned their headlights and flashlights down on the wreckage. I was taken away then and saw no more of it.”
One of the survivors told of the heroism of a man whose initials were given as “J. T. L.” His name could not be learned. He was caught between two seats with three dead on top of him. Although one arm was ripped off and he was otherwise terribly injured he shouted directions to the rescuers how to get inside with the least trouble through wreckage to the dead and injured pinioned beneath the jumble of interior fittings. He lived but a few minutes after he had been lifted clear.
Perth Amboy Evening News, Perth Amboy, NJ, July 3, 1922