Souderton-Telford Historical Society

A deadly case of spilled milk

by Mary Caruso | Apr 2023 | Transportation

When one hears the expression “don’t cry over spilt milk,” it may conjure up thoughts of a 1659 proverb meant to encourage a positive reaction to something that may have gone wrong. But on Sept. 2, 1900, residents were crying over more than spilled milk: They were in mourning.

On that Sunday of Labor Day weekend, one of the most tragic accidents of the decade sent more than dozen people to their graves and injured 60 more. They were killed and injured when a special excursion train traveling from Bethlehem through Hatfield enroute to Philadelphia — where passengers would transfer for a fun day in Atlantic City — collided with milk train #416 on its regular run. The milk train had left South Bethlehem at 5:20 a.m. Engine 248, pulling three milk cars and two day coaches, was due at Hatfield at 6:54 a.m. The conductor, Ira Knauff, said it arrived on schedule at 6:56 to take on milk. The excursion train was drawn by Engine 249 and had 10 coaches, each “jammed to the platforms” with nearly 800 passengers from age 9 to 60. It pulled out of South Bethlehem at 6:05 with conductor John Shelby, engineer John Davis, and fireman Albert Wagner aboard.

While the milk cars were being loaded at the freight platform in Hatfield, the excursion train, traveling at 40-50 mph came barreling out of a dense fog. The impact was so great, the milk train was driven 300 feet from the point of collision, plunging down an embankment. The smoker, the forward car of the excursion train, was literally torn to pieces, its roof lifted off and driven 25 feet ahead. Pinned beneath it was an unconscious Abraham Rosenberger of Hatfield, who survived but sustained a broken shoulder blade and two broken ribs. Along with him was Jacob Kulp. Both were helping to load milk cans onto the train platform when the crash happened.

Spilt Milk

Crash scene in Hatfield on Sept. 2, 1900. Photo by Daniel Zeigler, photographer of Souderton.

Three of the excursion coaches were torn from their wheels and crushed, killing and injuring passengers inside. All the seats in the first passenger coach were knocked off. Two passengers sharing the same seat were found thrown from the car, 150 feet apart. Milk spilling from the milk train was creating a stream several inches deep.

Morris Frederick, a painter from Telford, was among the injured on the milk train. He crawled out from under the debris, badly bruised but with no broken bones. But along with the many injured young folks from Bethlehem were other local residents who were pronounced dead: Harvey Landis of Hatfield, Florian Waldspurger of Tylersport, and Frederick Kehlen, a member of Telford council, and his 9-year-old daughter, Mamie, described by the Telford Chips newspaper as “bright girl, well-known by everyone in town.”

The Kehlens were enroute to St. Stanislaus Catholic Church in Lansdale. Kehlen was employed on the Souderton section of the Philadelphia and Reading Railway. He and his daughter were sitting in the rear of the milk train when the crash occurred. While the father was hurled under the seat, his daughter was found thrown from the car, presumably through a window, and died instantly. Kehlen, who had lost his wife to consumption (tuberculosis) the previous year and a son Elmer years before that, was unconscious when he was moved. But he inquired about his daughter and was told she had survived before he breathed his last.

William Blackburn was a native of Lower Salford Township and the proprietor of the Hotel Ambler. He was on his way home from Telford when he was killed. Chris Hunsberger of Franconia Township escaped death on the milk train by leaping out of the baggage car a second before the crash.

On the excursion train, engineer Davis and fireman Wagner, both of Philadelphia, suffered fractured skulls and were in critical condition when sent to St. Luke’s Hospital in Bethlehem. They survived. Wagner had been employed by the railroad for only three years, yet had been injured in three wrecks.

While many of those who survived the crash were able to travel home or to the hospital, others were attended to by neighbors who ripped up bed sheets and table linens. Telephone and telegraph operators sent messages to physicians and surgeons from Quakertown, Hellertown and South Bethlehem, who arrived by carriage and trolley car to the scene, where bodies emerged from the fog and wreckage. Several of the deceased were so badly mangled their remains could not be made presentable for a viewing. While some remaining family members had limited accident insurance policies, the loss of heads of family left many survivors financially destitute.

The coroner’s jury began its inquest within a few days of the crash, taking testimony in Freed’s Hall, Lansdale. It became clear that the schedule for each train was known to the other. Yet for some reason, they were running the same route with only a few minutes’ distance between them. At Perkasie, the excursion train was running 21 minutes behind the milk train. At Sellersville, it had closed that gap and was running only 11 minutes behind. At Telford they were six minutes apart, and at Souderton, only three minutes apart, just two and a half miles from the scene of the impact.

The focus of the investigation turned to events at the Souderton station. Under general orders, according to flagman James Benner, when a train passes a station a red flag is waved, alerting the approaching train of possible danger ahead. It also alerts the engineer to slow for a five-minute wait. Benner said he placed his flag between the rails when the milk train passed Souderton and was standing in full view when the excursion train barreled past him so fast, it nearly knocked him off the track.

Souderton station operator David Beidler was not scheduled to work the day of the crash but had agreed to assist since the excursion train made for an unusually busy day. He recorded the arrival of the milk train, which left the station later than scheduled at 6:52 a.m. The excursion train was to arrive at 6:51. At 6:54, he heard the rumbling of a train and saw the excursion train coming out of the fog at a high rate of speed. He had only seconds to warn it of impending danger, but it was not enough time. In his statement, engineer Davis said the fog was so dense he was unable to clearly see the flag or the milk train ahead until the excursion train was nearly on top of it.

Testimony focused on miscommunication or deliberate disregard for standard rail practices as reasons for the collision. In the end, four railroad employees were censured by the coroner’s jury for dereliction of duty:

  • John Davis, engineer of the excursion train, for running past the red flag at the Souderton crossing, and for running a train recklessly and ahead of schedule.
    Conductor Thomas Shelby for permitting the excursion train to run recklessly and not ordering a reduction of its speed.
  • Operator David Beidler at the Souderton station for failing to raise the red board after the milk train had passed.
  • W.S. Groves, the dispatcher in Philadelphia, for not keeping in touch with the milk train and the first section of the excursion train.

While the coroner’s jury singled out these individuals, the inquest also placed fault on the Philadelphia and Reading Railway Company for running fast trains on roads that were not properly equipped for such speed. Beidler, Shelby and Groves were charged in Montgomery County criminal court and posted bail. The grand jury indicted Groves but not the other two. One of the grand jurors said “Operator Beidler had too much to do … (and) Shelby had his hands full handling passengers on the excursion train.”

The charges against Beidler drew a sharp rebuke from the local newspaper, which wrote that no one in the community could understand how he could be held responsible given the failures of others to run the trains safely. The Harleysville News carried the report from its Souderton correspondent that putting the blame on Beidler, who was filling roles other than his own that day, was an attempt to shield the rail company and its mismanagement of the schedules.

Most regional newspapers shared the view that the company had failed in its duty to the public. The Evening Bulletin cited the absence of “modern appliances” such as the block system of automatic signals that could prevent such disasters. The Philadelphia Public Ledger wrote that the railway “undertakes to give first class service on a second class road,” exposing passengers to dangers “always present where fast trains follow slow ones on the same track in the absence of a block system.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that the primary responsibility rests “upon the men who failed to install an effective signal system; upon the men who took chances in the arrangement of time schedules; upon the men who distributed in dividends money which should have gone to paying better wages and hiring more help. These men are the chief sinners.”
And in a special sermon at Lansdale Methodist Church, the Rev. Samuel Carter said the “cloud of darkness” hovering over the community was the “legitimate outcome of a series of gross blunders begotten by a desire to do too much at least expense in too short a time.”

 

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