[5] Less than 15 minutes earlier a load of timber had dropped from a westbound freight train of the Nickel Plate Road heading for New Castle.
The crowded smoking car ripped along the side of the engine, the broken steam dome catching it at window height.
Escaping steam shot through the interior of the car, scalding everyone in it to death; according to the local paper they were 'literally cooked alive', 'Steam blistered the tongues and lips of the victims to an awful size and they protruded in a sickening manner', 'Death came quickly, but its agony evidently was intense'.
On the other side of the river an operator in a tower (signal box) on the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad witnessed the disaster.
In spite of a drizzling rain great crowds are about the morgues, some morbidly inclined, others searching for news of missing friends.