Iowa
Old Press
From an unknown Marshalltown newspaper:
Date of the train wreck, January 27, 1938
GREAT WESTERN TRAIN IS WRECKED NEAR MELBOURNE
Engineer and Fireman Meet Instant Death When Boiler Blows
Up-Bodies Found 30 Feet From Tracks on Either Side of Rails-Front
Brakeman Injured and in Critical Condition-Wreckage Scattered For
200 Yards Along Right-of-Way as 17 Freight Cars are Derailed
Explosion of the boiler of a large type Chicago Great Western
freight engine early this morning a mile south of Melbourne too
the lives of two trainsmen, injured a third, scattered the
wreckage of the locomotive and 17
refrigerator cars over a wide area and tied up traffic on the
line all day.
The dead:
Frank Holmes, 46, DesMoines, engineer of the train.
William Krautz, 40, DesMoines, fireman.
The front brakeman, Tillman Hartzer, also of DesMoines, was
riding in the "dog house" on the rear of the tender,
and he stayed with the tender until it was wrecked about 150
yards south of the explosion. He was picked up between the
wrecked tender and box cars nearly an hour after the accident and
brought to the Deaconess hospital here. He is suffering greatly
from shock and has a possible skull fracture, and Friday
afternoon his physician said his condition was critical.
Hartzer sustained a _____ skull fracture and is suffering
considerably from shock and exposure, his physician said Friday
afternoon. No other bones were believed to have been fractured,
however, and he was responding to treatment "and well as
could be expected," doctors said.
The other two members of the train crew, Conductor Glenn Mattson
and Brakeman, H. L. Schuler, also of Des Moines, were riding in
the caboose and were uninjured. Mattson walked the mile or more
to Melbourne to obtain help after he and Schuler had tried
unsuccessfully to find the engineer and fireman in the dark.
Hartzer, although lying in the open and covered with ice when
found, was protected by a heavy coat and regained consciousness
shortly after he was brought to the hospital. [There are several
lines unreadable.] ..that it was the boiler that blew up, for
pieces were scattered over an area of several acres. The blast
was distinctly heard in the town of Melbourne and more than half
of the residents inspected their furnaces, thinking the explosion
had occurred in their own houses.
[transcribed by L.Z., November 2006]