Bolivar Breeze, Feb 5, 1903
Belmont’s Flying Pig
A hog was eating some corn spilled on the depot platform at Belmont when a through freight came along and, frightened at the noise, the hog started to run and was thrown 60 feet. It was a valuable hog owned by Fred Brundage,
says the Rushford Spectator
Bolivar Breeze, Thursday, April 23, 1903
BAD WRECK ON ERIE – Eight People Killed - and Ten Injured at Red House, Early Monday Morning.
The Chicago Limited, No. 4, on the Erie railroad, running 50 miles an hour, collided with a freight at Red House, at four o’clock Monday morning [April 20th, 1903]. Five
cars and several freight cars took fire and burned. Eight people lost their lives and ten were seriously injured. The freight was a double header, with orders to take the siding for the limited. It was up grade. The head engine broke its coupling and ran on up the track to the
signal tower to put out a flagman. The operator in the tower seeing the engine nearby concluded that the freight was safely in the siding and gave a clear track to the approaching flyer.
The rear freight locomotive was pushing ad tugging at the heavy freight, trying to put it in the siding. All that remained on the main track was a part of the puffing locomotive.
The passenger engine struck the freight engine a glancing blow and darted from the track down the bank into a little red school house which it set on fire. The coaches followed the engine. A gas tank exploded and set the coaches on fire. Several of the passengers were burned to death.
There were two private cars on the train, one of which was seriously damaged. The occupants of the sleepers nearly all escaped serious injury.
The identified dead are: Robert Hotchkin, brakeman of Meadville; R. L. McCready, mail weigher, of Mansfield, O.; Frank Barhite, salesman, Medina [O.]; Mrs. Sarah Moore, her
daughter, Mrs. Nellie L. Wilson, and granddaughter, Dora Lynch, of Mannington, W. Va., who accompanied Mrs. Wilson and Mrs. Moore. The last three were en route to Shingle House to visit Mrs. John Krusen, who is a daughter of Mrs. Moore and a granddaughter of Mrs. Wilson. Mrs. Wilson was
about 80 years of age. Two unidentified bodies lie at the morgue at Salamanca.
Bolivar Breeze, Thursday, March 31, 1904
CUT OFF CUBA SUMMIT
Erie Surveyors Again Trying to Eliminate the 50-Foot Grade.
Assistant Erie Engineer S. C. Brown of New York and several surveyors reached Cuba on Tuesday, says the Cuba Patriot. They began work at once revising the preliminary line which was
run last summer via Black Creek and Belfast to Belvidere, in an effort to eliminate the 40 to 50 foot grade on the Cuba Summit, between this place [Cuba] and Friendship.
A little later Mr. Brown will add seven more men to his corps which will then comprise fourteen surveyors. They will spend two or three months in this section, making a thorough and
detailed survey. The line run last summer, via Black Creek and Rockville, and thence to the Genesee river valley, a mile and a half or so south of Belfast village; and then to Belvidere, was about three miles longer than the present route over the summit. Its maximum grade, however, was
only 10 to 16 feet to the mile, as against 40 to 50 feet on the present summit.
It is calculated that this reduction in grade, despite the increase in mileage, will greatly lessen the expense of freight traffic. The practical problem in modern railroading is to
reduce grades so train loads ay be as heavy as possible. The Cuba Summit grade is an expensive haul. It delays traffic and necessitates the extra use of pusher engines.
If the proposed line is constructed the present road over the summit will be maintained just as at present, but much of the freight will be sent around by the new route. Passenger
trains take the summit easily and they will probably all be kept on that route via Friendship.
A second plan, modifying the Cuba-Belvidere route is to extend the Cuba-Black Creek survey from the point where it first reaches the Genesee river, south of Belfast village, to
Portage where it may connect with the Buffalo division and allow it to escape the Tip-top summit at Alfred as well as the Cuba summit.
If the latter were adopted it would give the Erie a division direct from Cuba to Buffalo. But it might result in abandonment of the much-talked-of double tracking of the present division
of the Erie through here.
When Assistant Engineer Brown and his surveyors finish revising the Cuba-Black Creek-Belvidere line they will take up the Portage extension proposition and make a through survey of
that.