This article was gleaned from the Oswego Palladium, Wed., April 26, 1876 and provided by Richard Palmer.
About 1 o'clock this afternoon sixty jimmies laden with coal parted company with the locomotive and the fore part of the train on the D.L.& W. RR. at West 7th street in this city and started down town on their own account. Gathering momentum every instant they whizzed through the tunnel and ran into a "dead" train standing on the Water Street track in the rear of the Grant block.
This train was made up of a pay car, baggage car and three of the old Oswego and Syracuse coaches, which are not used now except for excursion trains or similar extraordinary emergencies. The jimmies bucked into the train and drove it back 'til the rear coach struck a big snubbing post about a rod and a half south of Thornton's lumber office, which stands near the end of the bridge.
The collision made a wreck of the two rear coaches. The last one was wrenched from the trucks, turned a somersault, and landed bottom up, squarely on the driveway leading up from the coal trestles to First street. The next one was also driven from the trucks and partly ended over the embankment, its course being stopped by a telegraph pole, which toppled over but, in such a manner as to wedge the coach up.
These two coaches are badly shattered. The body of the third was raised off the rear truck and tilted up a few feet. It is almost marvelous that the coal train would have come down, over so many street crossings, through the tunnel and down the track by the river without running over somebody. The loss is not very heavy.
The collision knocked over one or more telegraph poles and demoralized the Western Union lines pretty thoroughly for a few minutes; but Manager Tuttle soon had everything "put to rights" and the mid-day despatches came through undelayed.