Seven-year-old Willie Linsky was playing near his Brooklyn home in 1908 when something on the opposite side of the railroad tracks caught his attention.
The crossing gates were already down, warning that a train was approaching, but the boy ducked beneath them and hurried onto the tracks. A high-speed Long Island Rail Road freight train was bearing down on the crossing.
Willie was struck near the center of the track and hurled more than one hundred feet. His young playmate ran to summon his parents, who arrived moments later to find their son lying dead in the street.
Train Hurls Boy Far From Track
BROOKLYN, New York, — A freight train on the Long Island Railroad, which was going at high speed, struck a seven-year-old boy at Atlantic and Railroad Avenues, Brooklyn, this afternoon, crushed his head and hurled him more than a hundred feet away from the tracks.
The boy was Willie Linsky, son of David A. Linsky, an iron manufacturer.
Willie and another little boy were playing out in the street near the Linsky home. Willie saw something across the street that he wanted. The gates at the crossing were down, but Willie ducked under and started across the tracks. The freight train bound from Jamaica to the Flatbush Avenue depot, was coming along.
The boy was near the center of the track when the train hit him. It picked him up and threw him far from the track.
When the little fellow’s body was picked up it was found that several bones had been broken and there was a dent in his skull.
The other boy ran to the Linsky home and told Mr. and Mrs. Linsky what had happened. The parents rushed from their house to the railroad crossing.
Mrs. Linsky, on seeing her son dead in the street, became hysterical and then fainted. Mr. Linsky carried her back to the house, and then he went out and got the body of the boy.
Source: The Evening World. New York, N.Y. September 4, 1908.
