Two high school boys from Clearfield were killed and two were injured in a
collision with a Burlington freight train on Highway 25 Friday evening at
about 6:25 p.m. The car in which the boys were riding was traveling north and
ran into to the side of the diesel locomotive, coming from the west.
Highway patrolmen who investigated the accident said that Don England, 16, of
Clearfield, was dead at the scene of the wreck. He was pinned in the car and
was in the seat at the steering wheel. Gene Jones, 15, of Conway, died at
Greater Community Hospital soon after the accident.
Richard Cordell, 16; and Mike Gaule, 16, both of Clearfield, were taken to the
Creston hospital. Cordell, a junior in Clearfield high school, suffered a back
injury. Gaule, a sophomore, had two broken legs and cuts about the head and
face.
Don England was the son of Walter England. Gene Jones had been living with a
family at Conway. Parents of the other boys are Mr. and Mrs. Cecil Cordell and
Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Gaule.
The train was No. 85 on its run from St. Joseph to Creston, the freight that
goes through Lenox. The single engine was pulling eight cars. The crew all
live at Creston. H. L. Dodd, the engineer, told patrolmen that he saw the car
coming, and applied the brakes to the train. The impact knocked him from his
seat. The car hit the locomotive just behind the steps that go into the cab.
The crossing is about four miles south of Highway 34. The only regular train
on the tracks now is the freight that makes three weekly trips to St. Joseph
from Creston.
Skid marks on the highway showed that the driver tried to stop the car some
distance south of the track.
Funeral services were held Monday at the Methodist Church in Clearfield for
Donald England with burial in the Clearfield Cemetery. Survivors include his
father, Walter; two brothers, Larry of Ft. Collins, Colo., and Gerald at home;
a sister, Mrs. Darrell Brown of Prescott. He was a junior in high school.
The body of the Jones boy was taken to Clarinda.
Transcription and Submission by Lorelei Rusco, February of 2014
