Exeter, PA Train Wreck, May 1899
FATAL RAILROAD WRECK
One Passenger Train Dashed Into Another at Exeter, Penn.
SCORES KILLED AND INJURED.
Greatest Railroad Disaster in the History of Pennsylvania - About Fifty Persons Badly Injured - The Cause of the Wreck -Narrow Escape of Senator Penrose - The Work of the Rescuers.
READING, Penn. (Special). -- The wreck at Exeter Station was almost without precedent in Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia and Reading Railway has never had a catastrophe equalling[sic] it in horror. Fully twenty-nine persons were killed and at least fifty were more or less seriously hurt.
The express train from Williamsport, known as the "cannon ball," left this city at 8:45 p. m. Exeter is only a flag station, where the express does not stop, but WINDERMUTH, the engine driver, observed a signal and he stopped the train. Then he was ordered back to the station to await orders. A moment later, as he was backing his train, it was crushed into from the rear by a special train crowded with excursionists from Harrisburg, where they had attended the unveiling of the Hartranft statue.
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