The Witness

"It was about three in the morning and very dark, when the passenger train bound for Los Angeles stopped at the station of Tehachepi. A very strong, cold wind was blowing down the mountain pass. The brake-man, in his haste to accompany a young woman to the station house, forgot to fix his brakes, and the cars were started by the wind down the heavy grade. When the conductor came out he saw that his train was gone, and, looking down the road he saw the bright light of the burning cars three miles away. The cars had jumped the track into a ravine, where they were massed in a crushed heap, and the lamps and stove-fires set them ablaze. The twenty-two bodies were sent to Los Angeles for identification, and a cross was placed for those not found."
Witness, January 24, 1883.