TRAIN WRECKS
TRAIN WRECKS
Source: Crawfordsville Weekly Journal Friday, 10
August 1900
Tuesday
morning the train on the Monon due here at about 2 o’clock met with a
disastrous wreck at South Raub and as a result four people are dead and many
injured. The train left Lafayette at 12:40 in
charge of Conductor Hubbard, and consisted of a baggage car, a mail car,
smoker, ladies’ coach, and a Pullman parlor
car. The train was very heavily loaded and was run by engineer Whetzel, of
Lafayette, and Fireman James Hudlow. The train was running very rapidly and one
of the officials of the road states that it was making close to sixty miles an
hour. At South Raub, ten miles south of Lafayette, a freight engine and caboose
in charge of Lewis Raub, engineer and Fireman Croft, was waiting on the
sidetrack about fifty feet from the main line. Engineer Raub had been waiting
for about half an hour and when he saw the headlight of the passenger was
standing in front of his engine and waved his lantern that all was well and
started back to his engine. An instant later the passenger dashed upon the
sidetrack and Raub was caught and thrown fifty feet and his body when found was
lying under the mail coach, terribly mashed. Engineer Whetzel bravely stuck to his post and reversed his engine
and put on the air brakes. He was badly scalded and died at St. Elizabeth’s
Hospital in Lafayette
(*Head
Brakeman Kane, of Lafayette, who was responsible for the wreck, after the
wreck, started at once for his home in Lafayette, where he was later arrested)