RITCHIE

Posted by Cathy Gowdy on Saturday, September 03, 2011 at 07:47:42 :

Marin Journal
Thursday, May 25, 1905
Page 2

R. K. Ritchie Killed By Electric Train

R. K. Ritchie, employed by the real estate firm of Madison & Burke, San Francisco, was instantly killed by a North Shore train Sunday afternoon between Alto station and the Corte Madera tunnel. Ritchie was in a buggy on his way from Sausalito to Larkspur, where he intended meeting his wife. The accident occurred at a crossing about 200 yards south of the tunnel. The train which struck him left San Rafael at 4:27 o’clock, in charge of Engineer Joe Whaley and Conductor Ben Murray.

Whaley states that he first saw the man about 100 feet from the track driving slowly toward the crossing. He sounded his whistle and rang the bell several times, but the man in the buggy seemed to pay no attention. Just before the horse stepped on the track Whaley saw that something was wrong and applied the emergency brake.

It was too late, however, and the train crashed into the buggy while going at nearly forty miles an hour. The collision knocked the buggy into kindling wood and threw Ritchie nearly thirty feet, crushing his skull and killing him instantly. The horse was clear of the track and was uninjured by the accident. The emergency brakes stopped the train within its own length, and Ritchie’s body was taken on board and carried to Sausalito, where his father, William Ritchie, resides.