COMPOSITIONS

Early one morning a few years later the town herd boy was trailing the towns peoples milk cows to the community pasture east of the tracks. Bossy, the harness makers cow ran in front of the freight train. She was caught by the cow catcher on the steam engine and carried quite a distance to wards the depot. On inspection she was found to be very seriously cut, blood was gushing from her milk vein and all efforts to stop the flow of blood failed. She quickly bled to death. Her only folly was trying to be the first to get to the greener grass on the other side of the tracks. Now there would be no milk for the harness makers children or cream for the delicious freshly picked red wild strawberries.

Local business man TJ McIvor was racing to cross the tracks before the north bound steam locomotive reached the crossing. Unlucky for his beautiful well bred sorrel horse, it ended up in front of the locomotive. It was severely lacerated, received many broken bones and other extremely painful injuries. It was decided to shot the horse to put it out of its pain. The shiny newly purchased buggy was also destroyed.

In 1916 as Nelson Charlton was nearing the crossing with his team of purebred Clydesdales, they were frightened by the hiss of the steam engine. They suddenly bolted and he lost control. As the team charged into the side of the steam engine Nelson managed to jump from the farm wagon without injury to himself. One horse was killed instantly, its neck had been broken on impact. The other horse was terribly cut up and crushed by the drive wheels of the steam engine and weight of the heavy wagon forcing it into the train. It was soon destroyed to put an end to it's suffering.

A head on collision between a passenger train and a freight train north of Wessex resulted in the first reported loss of life of a person in a train accident in this area. Doctors from Carstairs and Crossfield were rushed to the scene on railway hand cars. The only casualty reported was the death of the engineer John Carry. He had been pinned between the cab and the tender in a standing position. The next day, they were finally able to remove his body the next day , they discovered that he had been quickly scalded by steam escaping from the engine boiler. It was not known if he died from internal injuries or from the scalding steam.

When two box car loads of horses arrived from Montana five had suffered and died since the last inspection. Eleven more died shortly after they were unloaded in the CPR stock yards in Carstairs. It was first believed that they had been poisoned however others thought that they might have picked up a deadly disease on the way north. Most of the horses were big pregnant mares soon ready to foal. They were inspected at the Alberta Montana boarder and thought to be in perfect health. The CPR quickly had a gang of men dig a hole and bury the horses on CPR land just south of the Carstairs Depot. Their remains, whether poisoned or deceased, are likely still in the shallow graves beside main street.

A gory sight was discovered just south of the main crossing when the body of D. Sutherland, a transient, was discovered. It was believed he had been trying to board a north bound moving freight train when his foot slipped on the s wet steel rung of a box car. The steel wheels passed over his neck completely severing his head from his body. His head was found between the tracks and his body on the outside of the steel rail with pools of blood in between the body parts. When his traveling companion arrived at Bowden he couldn't find Dan so he checked Olds and Didsbury before finally returning to Carstairs were he was told of the accident, he identified the head as his friend. Body and head are interred in the Carstairs Cemetery.

1943 was a bad year for accidents in Carstairs. O.E. Owens was killed in a train accident as he was crossing from east to west at the north crossing. It was believed that he didn't see the approaching train because of the bright setting sun. Later in the year a man believed to be Alfred Hanson of Vancouver was fatally injured at 1:20 AM Sunday. He was sitting on the edge of the platform at the station with his head bent forward when he was struck by a northbound train. The train was reported to be moving at about ten miles per hour. The engine had run into his head causing a long deep gash which penetrated his skull. Some one managed to stop the flow of blood, he was then taken in a cool empty box car twenty miles to the nearest hospital at Olds. He died six very painful hours later.

The biggest train crash in the history of Carstairs occurred in 1946. A north bound heavily loaded freight train coming from Calgary ran into a stationary freight train parked beside the Carstairs station. Sixteen box cars were derailed and piled on parts of the station house, platform and water tank. G. Williams the CPR fireman was jumped from the moving engine just instants before it crashed. A derailed box cars in the train he was driving landed on top of him crushing him to death.

Norman Heywood of Calgary was the next victim of the killer trains. In 1951 he fell as he was boarding a moving passenger train. Several young boys heard his screams of agony as he was crushed by the train. He was rushed by train by train to Didsbury where he later died of lacerations and squashed organs.

Charles Trottier was killed at the south crossing the following year. He failed to see the train coming at a reported twenty miles per hour. A few years later Charles Mitchell,s truck was struck by a south bound FLIER at the north crossing. He was killed on impact. There has been at least two other deaths that I knoe of since 1965, one as recently as Sept 1997. I have only read the papers to 1965.

By Brian Longeway from the Carstairs newspapers one of a collection of stories compiled for the Carstairs history book Beyond our Prairie Trails now available.

This Page Hosted by Get Your OwnFree Home Page