N&W in 1911--Fatality

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Bluefield Daily Telegraph
November 7, 1911

CONDUCTOR AUSTIN KILLED
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Squeezed to Death Between Couplers of Freight Train

    Richard Austin, aged fifty-eight, a Norfolk and Western railway conductor, was squeezed to death Sunday morning at South Junction, Hagerstown, Md.  Austin was about to take to Roanoke a double-header freight.  Stepping on the track, he was caught between the coupler of a car and the coupler of the rear locomotive.  Death was instantaneous.
    Austin moved to Hagerstown two months ago from Roanoke and recently returned from a visit to his son in California.  He had arranged to quit railroading in January and go to California to live.
    He had been with the Norfolk and Western 38 years.  Three sons, two living in Roanoke, and his wife survive.  He was a member of the Order of Railway Conductors.
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[The Bluefield newspaper rarely reported on N&W incidents this far from Bluefield.]

Gordon Hamilton
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