Two Barrie men killed in train wreck at Novar

N. St. Clair and W. Miller, also H. C. Desourdie, former resident.

Asleep in caboose

Karl Kuhn and Ed. Wyres, local men, suffer injuries.

Noah S. Clair, 163 Bradford St., and William C. Miller, 64 Cumberland St., were two of the three sleeping members of the Canadian National Railways work train who were killed early yesterday morning when train no. 46, crack flyer southbound from North Bay to Toronto, swung into a siding at Novar, north of Hunstville, and crashed into a caboose attached to the front end of the work train.

The other man killed was H. C. Desourdie, of Toroonto, and formerly of Barrie. Two other local men, Karl Kuhn, Centre St., watchman on the work train, and Edward Ayres, 188 Bradford St., engineer of the flyer, were among the six persons injured in the early morning collision. Kuhn, who was injured about the shoulders, and Ayers, who suffered chest injuries, were both taken to the hospital at Huntsville.

Miller died of a fractured skull as he was being taken to Huntsville hospital. Bodies of the two deceased men were badly mutilated and they died instantly. Desourdie, Mill and St. Clair were all asleep in the work van behind the engine at the time of the wreck, which occurred about 2 a.m.

The work train was composed of the work van, in which the three victims were sleeping; a work engine, in which Kuhn was sitting, and the ditcher's van, where two other men were sleeping. About four other cars, including a commissary car, completed the train. On the siding next to the work train where several sleeping cars, in which about 30 members of a track construction crew were sleeping. None of these men were injured. The work train had been stationed at Novar for about two weeks, doing repair work on the main line right-of-way.

An official statement from Canadian National offices in Toronto said the cause of the accident is believed to have been an open switch.

The engine of the passenger train plowed up about 75 feet of track on the siding. Fortunately, however, it did not turn over and none of the passenger coaches left the rails. When the flyer crashed into the standing work train the caboose was reduced to splinters, nothing but the heavy metal trucks and wheels remaining.

The bodies of Desourdie and St. Clair were found, badly mangled, under the wreckage of the caboose. Miller, terribly injured, but still living, was found atop a woodpile, 25 feet from the track. Asleep at the time of the crash, he was thrown over engine onto the woodpile. He was found by Bert Tracy, of Allandale, one of the crew of the other work train.

Railway employees are at a loss to know whether the switch had been left open, had been opened during the night, or whether it flew open when the passenger train struck it. Survivors said that Miller, the brakeman of the work train, reported he had closed the switch at 7.20 the previous evening when the work train pulled into the siding. He is said to have reported the switch properly closed and locked and the line clear. The crash occurred six or seven hours later.

The work train pulled into the

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Railways: C.N.Rys.

Stations: Novar

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