Ligonier Valley Rail Road Newspaper Articles
We have compiled over 1,400 newspaper articles that mention the Ligonier Valley Railroad, or related subjects. The articles were originally published starting in 1873 and our collection runs through 1995. Enjoy!
Latrobe Bulletin
Monday, July 8, 1912
Sad Scene Witnessed As Bodies of Wreck Victims Are Borne To the Grave.
Many Funerals Held In Ligonier and In Latrobe Yesterday and Today
Fulgensie was suffering from bruises and from a bad cut above the right eye. He said he had been terribly frightened when the wreck occurred, some of those with whom he had been riding having been thrown one way, and some another, some straight up in the air and others straight to the tracks, below. The sight had been too much for him, he said, and he had run away.
Interviews Fail To Glean Anything Definite Through Which Responsibility May Be Fixed
Not until the coronerial inquest is held, and possibly not even then, will it be known for a certainty, upon whose shoulders rests the responsibility for carrying twenty-two men, women and children to awful deaths and nearly thirty others to frightful injuries, on the Wilpen branch, last Friday afternoon. Rumors of all kinds may be heard, some of them being of the most definite character, seemingly, yet when the man who is credited with having heard one official deliver an order, or another official receive it, is hunted up, he either denies the rumor or remains mute. The very fact that the rumors are so numerous, and so at variance with each other, proves the indefiniteness of the stories going around.
It seems to be generally assumed that the conductor of the freight rain telephoned to Ligonier, stating that his train had been delayed by a slight mishap and asking that the passenger train be held for six minutes, so that the freight could get down.
That this message was received also seems the general impression, but by whom is yet to be made known definitely, while the question as to whether or not it was delivered to
Conductor Kuhn, by whom, and in what manner, is yet to be brought out.
Representatives of the Railroad Commission, together with government officials will be associated with the coroner in endeavoring to establish all the facts relative to the wreck. Interviews had with railroad officials, last night, are summed up, as follows:
"It must all be threshed out," declared General Manager George Senft, of the L.V.R.R., as he stood at the station, last evening, still showing in bearing and in voice the great strain under which he was laboring "The responsibility must be fastened upon the guilty. I can see no reason why the wreck should have happened, the fact that it did occur meaning, clearly, that there was fault somewhere. We will be glad to give the public everything possible in the way of information as to the cause of the disaster. We feel that we made no mistake, as far as the company itself was concerned.
"But the human mind cannot be relied upon forever," he continued.
"Do you mean by that that some one forgot," he was asked.
"You should not ask me that," he replied. "It would be unfair to answer it, until we know everything; it would be unfair to create suspicion until we're certain that we're right. The public has a right to know, but not until there has been made a thorough investigation. It would not be fair. We will give out the information as quickly as the cause is investigated, and in the meantime we hope that there'll be nothing printed that will cast suspicion upon any man, unjustly."
Officials Decline to Talk
R. S. Minich, the assistant superintendent; F. R. Noel, the car distributor, and T. E. Peoples, the clerk; the three men who according to Coroner H. A. McMurray are clothed with authority to dispatch trains, were seen, in turn, last evening, but all refused to discuss the cause leading to the disaster. Both Mr. Minich and Mr. Noel declared that they would say nothing until called upon by the coroner, while Mr. Peoples said that he
was only a clerk and that he did not have anything to do with dispatching trains, on his own initiative.
Mr. Noel was reported to have made a sworn statement to the effect that he personally had delivered the message. Later, it was asserted, Mr. Noel emphatically denied this rumor, saying that he had made no statement. He declined to discuss the matter any further. Cont....