Source: The L'Anse Sentinel
L'Anse, Mi.
January 16, 1892 Saturday

A Down-hill Slide

A long, wild screech from a locomotive, a thundering rumble,
acrash. This is what disturbed the quiet of the village Mon-
day morning, and it was soon rumored about town that another
runaway train has caused wreck and ruin on the DSS&A.

The accident occurred a little before 10 o'clock. Freight
No. 31 had come into L'Anse station, a leaving a part of the
train on the main track, the engine took a refrigerator car
down to the village, half a mile distant, to unload some meat.
the pusher was standing on the side track west of the tank
waiting for the freight to clear, when the continued screech
of a coming locomotive indicated a runaway, and the engineer
of the pusher, with all possible haste backed up and coupled
on to the freight and was moving it out to clear the track
with almost incredible speed when, as the caboose was about
opposite the depot, the runaway caught him and in an instant
the wreck was complete.

The caboase and four empty bex cars, 13 flat cars with
50,000 feet of logs were in a shapeless mass in Fall river.
Fall river bridge was a complete wreck, the log cars having
left the track upon the collision, and dashed through the
bridge, while engine No. 200 of the runaway train lay on
her side 100 feet from the depot, dismantled and turned end
for end. The tender kept the track some distance farther and
turned bottom up. The depot escaped by a narrow margin, the
platform being carried away and the western end of the depot
building being considerably bruised by the flying timbers and
arone

Fortunately no one was hurt and this may be accounted for
by the presence of mind of the engineer of the 200 tying down
his whistle cord before abandoning the train. This gave the
warning that enabled all around the depot to get out of the
way.

It is altogether probable that no accident would have oc-
curred but for the blunder of the operator at L'Anse in re-
porting No. 31 as cleared. The orders were to hold the log
train at Summit until No. 31 was out of the way. Had this
been done there would have been no collision, and the log
train from all appearances, would have kept the track.

No. 31, having been reported cleared, the log train con-
sisting of 13 loaded cars and caboose, seven of which were
supplied with air brakes, started out from Summit, but before
Taylor Jct., was reached the train had attained such a vel-
ocity that the engineer knew it would be impossible to con-
trol the train. He ordered his fireman back to the caboose,
tied a wrench to the whistle cord and started back himself.
But a long train under such motion is not an easy one to
climb, and he found considerable difficulty in reaching the

 
p. 2 A Down-hill Slide 1/16/1892

caboose, besides having to assist the fireman who was badly
rattled and could not reach it alone. But they finally arrived
in safety and cut it off just in time to save the train crew
unharmed.

Superintendent Phillips was soon on the ground with a wreck-
ing train and crew clearing the debris, but the bridge having
been carried away, it was not until Wednesday that trains passed
through to Houghton on their regular line.

In the meantime passenger trains backed down to the village
and transferred passengers by teams to a point west of Fall
river, reminding old settlers of early days when this was the
terminus of the road.

Superintendent Phillips = Superintendent D. M. Philbin

DSSEA
Stations - L'Anse
Gary Brogan