Public reactions appearing in the Sunbury Daily Item, 13 March 1972, of the aftermath of the freight train and coal train collision that occurred at Herndon, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania.
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Train Wreck Reaction
‘Thought World’s Come To End’
By BOB GIRARD, Staff Writer
HERNDON – It was an average Sunday in the tranquil village of Herndon. The darkness was just beginning to retreat before the first rays of morning light filtered in from the east through the overcast. As usual, sparrows, chickadees, starlings and a few stray robins were starting to warble in the dawning of a new day.
Until a few minutes before 5:30 a.m.
Had someone been there to see and bear witness, the impacting scene might have looked like something out of Dante’s “Inferno.” Two twinkling headlights of two fast-closing engines blinded each other competing until they merged hurtling more than 12,000 tons of metal together, sending up echoes of screeching brakes, grinding sparkling wheels sliding hopelessly along unyielding rails and tortured tearing metal being twisted in all kinds of impossible shapes, the din of it all thundering off the once silent hulls.
One after another, like toys they piled together. into a giant pyramid of anguished steel, with a pillar of licking, climbing flame at ts base lighting the grey sky a ball of fire billowing into a mushroom cloud of dense, oily smoke.
A man in Selinsgrove preparing for work heard the sound of the collision.
A woman near by: “I thought, well, the world’s come to an end. I looked out and saw a big fire.”
A man three miles away heard and wondered.
Calvin Herb, Herndon, across the street from the holocaust, “Sounded like an underground blast, it shook the house on its foundation.”
Jim Yeager looked out the window and saw cars “flying.”
Even as the last freight car shuddered to a stop amid the mass of twisted wreckage people were beginning to respond.
As the firemen from Herndon, Sunbury, and other area communities began the day-long fight against the flames, about 10 women from the Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church gathered in the church basement and began making coffee for the workers.
A short time later more volunteers were helping and food from other churches and private homes and business started pouring in.
Down below near the river, rescuers were just completing the heart-rending task of pulling two lifeless bodies from under the tangle of broken metal.
Two hundred feet away, the first of a multitude of Curious sightseers streamed onto the narrow main street, forming up behind the ropes to gape, and take endless pictures.
One got the feeling of a carnival atmosphere while walking among this wandering band of human beings.
An occasional blackened fireman moving toward the Lutheran Church for food and coffee and some needed rest served as a reminder of what was really happening.
In early afternoon the Salvation army Mobile Canteen Truck reported they served more than 375 cups of coffee to the small army of firemen and volunteers.
Dozens of pieces of heavy equipment had begun the weary task of clearing the thousands of tons of cleaning the thousands of tons of junk away. Some of the equipment seemed to materialize out of nowhere, it appeared so suddenly.
Back at the church a woman estimated that they served coffee, soup and sandwiches to more than 500 people.
Another lady from the church congregation commented on the events of the day. Three weeks ago, the heavy snow, last week, the flood, and now this, that’s enough, that’s it, that ends it.”
At the crash site, men set up batteries of lights to combat the settling shadows as the end of the not-so-normal Sunday drew near.
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From Newspapers.com.
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