Thursday, June 25, 1908 | The Globe (Toronto) | Page 12 |
It was a fatal sleep.
David Gilmore lay down by track, engine struck him.
Thomas O'Leary, his companion, was injured—Had intended to beat their way on a Grand Trunk freight train.
West Toronto, June 24.—(Special.)—A fatal accident on the Grand Trunk Railway a short distance [1.6 miles] north of Davenport station last midnight resulted from two men lying down on the track to sleep, trusting the rumbling of any approaching train to awaken them. David Gilmore was killed, and his companion, Thomas O'Leary, badly injured.
Six men were tramping on the Northern right-of-way last night, hoping to board a northbound train at the point where the grade and the high bridge at Eglinton avenue causes a slackening of speed.
The six men were: Wilson O'Connell, David McCoy, Ellis Smith, Julian Richards, Thomas O'Leary and David Gilmore. They travelled in pairs. Gilmore and O'Leary made the acquaintance of Smith and O'Connell in a boxcar near Davenport station in the evening, when they ate a lunch together, after which all four started up towards the Eglinton avenue bridge. On their way Gilmore and O'Leary said they were too tired to go on, and stopped to have a nap along the track, with their heads close to the rail, so that they would be easily aroused by a coming train. The other two went on to the bridge, where they made the acquaintance of Richards and McCoy. After waiting for a while the threatening weather caused the four to retrace their steps southward in order to get sleep in a box-car on the Davenport siding. On their way they found Gilmore and O'Leary, the former dead with a crushed skull and the latter nearly dead from the same sort of injury. It is supposed that these injuries were inflicted by a southbound light engine. One of the men went on to Davenport station and informed the night operator. The latter called up Undertaker Speers, who sent O'Leary to Grace Hospital in his ambulance and took the dead body of Gilmore to his undertaking parlors on Dundas street. The police detained McCoy, O'Connell, Richards and Smith on a charge of vagrancy.
Gilmore's home was at Stromness, near Dunnville, and his father, James Gilmore, wired for the body to be shipped to that point.
An inquest was commenced this evening, when the evidence was taken. It will be resumed on July 6.
Railways: G.T.Ry.
Stations: Davenport