Lafayette Citizens Aboard Wrecked Train North of Crawfordsville

The Weekly Journal (Lafayette, Indiana) - Fri, Apr 24, 1863

Conductor Rides Hand Car to Lafayette to Get Rescue Train

The train due from New Albany at this city on Saturday evening at 9 P.M., did not arrive until Sunday morning in consequence of an accident at Cherry Grove, five miles north of Crawfordsville. The switch at that place had been so arranged, whether by accident or design is not known, as to run the train off the track. The train was nearly two hours behind time, the night very dark and a frightful storm raging at the time, and but for the fact that the engineer was unable with the green wood he happened to have to make as fast time as he desired, we should have had to record a dreadful accident. As it was no person was hurt. The locomotive and tender ran off the track and were turned over in the mud and a portion of the track torn up. The passengers were compelled to remain all night in the cars while the conductor went to LaFayette in a hand car, got another train and returned to the scene of the accident. Several of our citizens were aboard the train and remained in the cars during the whole of Saturday night, a wild storm raging without. Under the circumstances their escape from a frightful accident is remarkable. Had the train been going at its usual speed or the roadbed been a few feet more elevated the consequences would have been awful.

The passengers express much gratitude to the conductor, whose name we were unable to learn, for his promptness and perseverance in relieving them from the discomforts of their situation.

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