Businesses weigh reopening - or close again - as cases rise

Lebanon's FM to summon US envoy over comments on Hezbollah

Nearly a century ago, July 3, 1920, a chain reaction event took place involving three trains that collided, killing 18 and injuring 30 people on the Lackawanna and Wyoming Valley Railroad, known as the Laurel Line, near the South Pittston Station in Sebastopol, Jenkins Township.
				Federal and state investigations took place including a Luzerne County Coroner&rsquo;s Inquest, which were routine for that era.
				As reported in the Times Leader, Evening News and Wilkes-Barre Record newspapers, three Laurel Line trains were involved in the wreck.
				A two-car train crowded with picnickers was traveling slowly in order for the conductors to collect tickets before reaching the train station. The two-car train was bumped in the rear by a one-car train, known as a&ldquo;Limited&rdquo; at about 6:10 p.m. on July 3, 1920. About 40 minutes later, a third train carrying two passenger cars from Wilkes-Barre struck the Limited, which plowed into the first two-car train.
				The wreck happened near what was called the Welsh Street Bridge, which connected Port Griffith to Sebastopol.
				&ldquo;Almost all persons killed in the wreck were passengers in the Limited coach into which the first car of the local train plunged, crashing its way to its full length through the Limited coach, completely telescoping it,&rdquo; reported the Wilkes-Barre Record on July 5, 1920.
				A conductor standing on the rear platform of the Limited car was instantly killed. Another conductor had his legs amputated.
				Few of the picnickers on the two-car train that was approaching the train station were injured by broken window panes.
				Nearly 30 passengers were transported to Pittston Hospital where Esther Tinsley worked.
				Tinsley, who spent 55 years at Pittston Hospital first as a nurse and then as the facility&rsquo;s administrator, was a passenger on the two-car train and injured. After being bandaged for a laceration to her head, she helped other injured passengers.
				&ldquo;From a cot in Pittston Hospital with his head and arms badly bruised, George Schlager, a motorman on the third train, emphatically stated that he received no warning that the trains had been stalled until his car made the turn at almost 40 mph. Schlager declares that he received no message from the agent at Plains nor did he see a flagman before he approached the bend,&rdquo; the Record reported.
				Coroner F.D. Thomas began his inquest inside Courtroom 3 at the Luzerne County Courthouse on July 19, 1920.
				&ldquo;The doors were thrown open to the public at the beginning of the probe which is expected to result placing responsibility for the disaster upon company employees,&rdquo; the Times Leader Evening News reported the same day.
				Six men sat on the coroner&rsquo;s jury and were tasked to listen to witnesses and if need be, assign blame to those responsible.
				John A. Ratchford, of Scranton, a conductor on the third-train, told the coroner&rsquo;s jury that no steps were taken to protect the disabled trains near the Welsh Street Bridge as his train rounded the curve after picking up speed, the Evening News reported July 13, 1920.
				Laurel Line Superintendent John H. Kilker testified the wreck happened because of two employees made a mistake over a single word &#8211; northbound.
				&ldquo;It was the mistake made in the alleged sending of the word &lsquo;northbound&rsquo; and the receiving of the word as &lsquo;southbound&rsquo; that paved the way for Wyoming Valley&rsquo;s worst railroad wreck when three crowded passenger trains piled up near the Welsh Street Bridge,&rdquo; the Times Leader reported July 12, 1920.
				Dispatchers at the Scranton and Plains locations failed to keep written records.
				Testimony given during the coroner&rsquo;s inquest involved the Plains dispatch station failing to stop northbound train traffic, thus allowing the third train to continue into Pittston causing the wreck. Instead, southbound trains were stopped and transferred to the northbound tracks.
				The coroner&rsquo;s inquest placed blame on Thomas Brennan, station agent the Plains dispatch station for mixing up the words.
				A report summarizing the federal and state investigations cited the lack of a proper signal system along the Laurel Line as what caused the wreck and absolving Brennan from total blame.
				&ldquo;Lack of a proper signal system and the failure of man power are given by the commission&rsquo;s investigators as the causes of the disaster,&rdquo; the Evening News reported Dec. 11, 1920.
				Civil lawsuits filed by those who lost loved ones seeking damages continued for years in Luzerne County Court.

Lookback: Laurel Line crash kills 18 near Pittston in 1920