Toronto Cemetery Walker
alex turriff
Before dawn on January 2, the first working day of 1884, Conductor George Barber and Engineer Richard Jeffrey picked up their orders at the Hamilton Station and began their usual ritual. Jeffery read the order to Barder: their Special Freight No. 420 was to "Run to Queens Wharf avoiding regulars." The Hamilton operator called the attention of both men to the regular NO. 13 train traveling west from Toronto and told them that they would have to wait at Mimico Station until No. 13 cleared the main track. only then would they be given permission to proceed to their destination. Barber signed the order with the customary "32" signifying that he understoof his instructions. Freight 420 soon pulled out of hamilton.
At 7:00 a.m. the regular No. 13 suburban train left Toronto station in a snow storm and moved along the Humber bay. The dummy engine only pulled two passenger cars. On Board were at least 43 men on their way to work at the Bolt & Iron Factory on the Humber River. Many of them were the sole wage earners for their families. They included James Kelly, a blacksmith, who had none children ranging in age from 15 months to 19 years. The youngest employees were Charles Stanely and john Mackenzie, age 14, and Eddie Robinson, age 12.
John Kenndy, engine driver for the westbound suburben, later testified:
We were running on... as usual, and just after passing High Park I discerned the headlight of another engine. The other train was between 250 and 300 yards when i saw it. I immediately put on the brake and whistled for brakes on the cars. I did all I could.
Kennedy and two crewmen then jumped, They were not injured thanks to cushioned fresh snow.
The shriek of te whistle and squel of the brakes ceased with the thump of the impact. The suburban's dummy engine disappeared, but it boiler and the engine of Freight 420 came to a stop in the front passenger car. The boiler then burst spraying steam and water in all directions while the rear passenger car exploded in flames.
Those living nearby ran to the scene in order to help, but could no have been prepard for the sight awaiting them. A reported wrote, "Every possible phase of disfigurment was to be seen.... limbs cut, bloodied, mangled, half eaten away by fire. no horror was left to the imagination.... No nightmare of the wildest could show anything more awful than this scene... The relief part were obligated to almost tear men from under the wreck notwithstanding their groan and cries."
The three words repeated most frequently in the newspapers the next day were "mangled, scalded and burned." in all 32 died as an result of the collision. After the public funeral for 18 vixtims, Alex and William Turriff were buried in a ravine at the Toronto Necropolis Cemetery. Their mutal cause of death is inscribed on a zinc marker.
Immediately following the disaster, Conductor George Barber was jailed for his own protection because the public blamed him for the accident. They suspected that he was asleep in a caboose car when it took place. At the inquest he accepted full responsibilty for the event:
I was aware the suburban train was a regular train. I was aware it was my dty to avoid ths train. A conductor has full control of the running of the train. I read over the orders to the engineer, and he understood what they meant.... I forgot all about this train. We should of stopped at Mimico for order if I had thought of the suburban train.
Today commuter trans, buses and cars speed around Humber bay oblivious of the drama that occured there more than one hundred years ago. There is no plaque. Only lines on a few eroding gravestones in downtown cemeteries suggest that Toronto once had a horrendous train disaster.
alex turriff
Before dawn on January 2, the first working day of 1884, Conductor George Barber and Engineer Richard Jeffrey picked up their orders at the Hamilton Station and began their usual ritual. Jeffery read the order to Barder: their Special Freight No. 420 was to "Run to Queens Wharf avoiding regulars." The Hamilton operator called the attention of both men to the regular NO. 13 train traveling west from Toronto and told them that they would have to wait at Mimico Station until No. 13 cleared the main track. only then would they be given permission to proceed to their destination. Barber signed the order with the customary "32" signifying that he understoof his instructions. Freight 420 soon pulled out of hamilton.
At 7:00 a.m. the regular No. 13 suburban train left Toronto station in a snow storm and moved along the Humber bay. The dummy engine only pulled two passenger cars. On Board were at least 43 men on their way to work at the Bolt & Iron Factory on the Humber River. Many of them were the sole wage earners for their families. They included James Kelly, a blacksmith, who had none children ranging in age from 15 months to 19 years. The youngest employees were Charles Stanely and john Mackenzie, age 14, and Eddie Robinson, age 12.
John Kenndy, engine driver for the westbound suburben, later testified:
We were running on... as usual, and just after passing High Park I discerned the headlight of another engine. The other train was between 250 and 300 yards when i saw it. I immediately put on the brake and whistled for brakes on the cars. I did all I could.
Kennedy and two crewmen then jumped, They were not injured thanks to cushioned fresh snow.
The shriek of te whistle and squel of the brakes ceased with the thump of the impact. The suburban's dummy engine disappeared, but it boiler and the engine of Freight 420 came to a stop in the front passenger car. The boiler then burst spraying steam and water in all directions while the rear passenger car exploded in flames.
Those living nearby ran to the scene in order to help, but could no have been prepard for the sight awaiting them. A reported wrote, "Every possible phase of disfigurment was to be seen.... limbs cut, bloodied, mangled, half eaten away by fire. no horror was left to the imagination.... No nightmare of the wildest could show anything more awful than this scene... The relief part were obligated to almost tear men from under the wreck notwithstanding their groan and cries."
The three words repeated most frequently in the newspapers the next day were "mangled, scalded and burned." in all 32 died as an result of the collision. After the public funeral for 18 vixtims, Alex and William Turriff were buried in a ravine at the Toronto Necropolis Cemetery. Their mutal cause of death is inscribed on a zinc marker.
Immediately following the disaster, Conductor George Barber was jailed for his own protection because the public blamed him for the accident. They suspected that he was asleep in a caboose car when it took place. At the inquest he accepted full responsibilty for the event:
I was aware the suburban train was a regular train. I was aware it was my dty to avoid ths train. A conductor has full control of the running of the train. I read over the orders to the engineer, and he understood what they meant.... I forgot all about this train. We should of stopped at Mimico for order if I had thought of the suburban train.
Today commuter trans, buses and cars speed around Humber bay oblivious of the drama that occured there more than one hundred years ago. There is no plaque. Only lines on a few eroding gravestones in downtown cemeteries suggest that Toronto once had a horrendous train disaster.