Train wrecks, 1831-1968 (PLEASE STICKY)

[luke]

In this thread, I'm going to be posting pictures & illustrations from a 1968 book about train wrecks.

This is going to be posted a little at a time, and in chronological order, to illustrate how railroads in America were safe at first, then began hosting disasters.

• June 17, 1831, boiler explosion: The South Carolina Railroad's pioneer locomotive, The Best Friend of Charleston, has her safety valve tied shut by a slave serving as her fireman; he had grown tired of listening to the valve whistling.
  
  The slave was killed in the boiler explosion that inevitably followed.
• November 11, 1833; broken axle derailment: The first passenger fatality occurred on the Camden & Amboy at Highstown, NJ, when an axle broke at high speed [25 MPH]. One passenger in the defective car later died from his injuries.
• March 2, 1836; head-on collision: A head-on collision between a northbound lumber train & a southbound passenger train on the Camden & Amboy at Burlington, NJ caused no serious injuries. According to an eyewitness' account,
  "The 2 engines mounted up like fighting dogs; the engineers & firemen sprang off at the moment of the concussion and saved themselves. The locomotives were broken into many pieces. Bellies together, they seemed to be in deadly strife.
  The passengers were electrified, and a bruise here & there betokened that a shock of no slight nature had occurred."
  
  The passengers took the wreck in their stride, as the account goes on to say,
  "Some of the passengers footed it [walked] to Burlington, while others hitched rides in sleighs; some exploited the generosity of the owner of a farmhouse hard by [the right-of-way], whilst others chose to linger amid the ruins."

The 1836 wreck shows what early rail travel was like.


A bumpy stretch of track knocking a coach off the running rails; livestock collisions; they were very commom in those days.

These things were like what a flat is today: an annoyance or delay that you have to put up with.

That was going to change, as you'll find out next time...

[Smjh1979]

Sticky has been enabled for this topic.

[luke]

Now, the first fatal head-on collision.

Aug. 11. 1837
On that day, on the Portsmouth & Roanoke Railway, at Suffolk, VA, an eastbound lumber train came down the hill fast & against timetable orders.

As of result, he ran head-on into the morning passenger train from Portsmouth.

Onboard the 13 stagecoach-like coaches were 200 people, many of whom had just disembarked from a steamboat cruise.
The first 3 coaches were crushed to splinters in the violent collision.
3 young women of the prominent Ely family were killed, and 12 others were seriously injured.

The cause was "the willful disobedience & gross negligence" of the crew of the lumber train.

An illustration of the moment of impact is viewable here.

[luke]

Now, a derailment caused by strap rail.

Strap rails were heavy iron straps fastened to wooden beams; they were used on the early, cheaply built roads.

B&O strap rail, 1829

strap rail-400.jpg (14.61 KiB) Viewed 14037 times

The ends of the straps tended to bend out of shape, due to the rolling action of the wheels, and worked loose. Eventually, the strap could get caught in a wheel, and it would be ripped from its sill, and into the floor of the car.

These 'snakeheads' could cause chaos if they tore into a coach.

----

Dec. 10, 1837
A train on the Portsmouth & Roanoke with 8 stagecoach-style coaches & 3 cars of fresh produce, was heading for Halifax, VA, when a snakehead derailed the locomotive & tore into the first coach. Two more coaches were crushed by the produce cars.

2 people later died from their injuries.

---
And now, the first runaway.

A bizarre runaway occurred on the Camden & Amboy at Amboy, NJ.

At Amboy, the tracks terminated in an incline, on which the coaches were lowered, held back by their handbrakes, down onto a dock, where steamboats waited for them.

On September 11, 1839, only one brakeman was assigned to handle eight coaches.
When the handbrake on the last coach failed, the train got out of control.
The coaches rocketed down the incline, onto the dock, off the ends of the rails, and onto the deck of the waiting steamboat.

Two of the coaches & the wheelhouse of the steamboat Commerce were demolished.

12 people were injured, but thankfully, no one was killed.

[luke]

July 4, 1839 Boiler Explosion

New York City: On its first run into lower Manhattan, a locomotive of the Harlem Road derailed in Union Square.

The engine crew, brakemen, and several spectators began working to rerail it, but they forgot to attend to the fire, and the boiler exploded, killing the engineer & the head-end brakeman, and seriously injuring the fireman and 4 spectators.

[luke]

1846

From 1846 comes this lively account of a livestock collision, written by a British visitor.

"I got on the train in Baltimore, bound for Washington city. For most of the journey, the ride was smooth, but as we neared Washington, a sharp jerk through the train indicated we'd run up against something. I got out to find we'd run against a cow which had been sitting on the line. 'I can stand hogs, but them cows are the devil," said the stoker as he, along with several others, proceeded to drag the carcass out from under the engine and deposit it on the side of the line,

[luke]

1850
In what is the most bizarre collision between a train and another mode of transport, a Hudson river schooner was blown up against the bank, with its bow fouling the Paterson & Hudson tracks, and a train came along and hit it.

The engineer recounted that,
"my meditations were interrupted as the left side of the cab was torn away, and smoke from the firebox made a most infernal din."

[luke]

Now, the year the disasters began:
1853


In this year, an increase in traffic & speed, while still using primitive control methods & flimsy trackwork, resulted in 138 smashup that killed 214 people.

The record for fatalities in a single accident was 6; in total, there had been about 50 fatalities on American railroads up to that point in history.

------

The first accident in 1853 was on
January 6, when the Boston & Maine's noon express, traveling at the high speed of 40 MPH, with 1 coach with about 60-70 people inside, broke an axle at Andover, MA.

The coach went down the bank, killing one passenger at the scene; two others later died from their injuries.

Notable about this accident is that then-president-elect Franklin Pierce was on board.
His 12-year old son was the passenger that died at the scene. Pierce was only bruised, but a clerical error resulted in a report that Pierce had been killed in the accident. The news made it to Washington before it was corrected.

Though minor, this accident was widely reported.

[luke]

Railroads were accident prone after 1853.

---

Now, an emigrant train disaster. (Emigrant train were crowded westbounds, often with coaches made of old boxcars, and prone to accident due to their usually being run as specials.)
This was the worst accident up to this time on American roads.
March 4, 1853

A Pennsy emigrant train had paused at Mt. Union, PA due to a mechanical problem with the locomotive, when a mail train rear-ended it at full speed. The mail's steam passages were slashed open, and many people were scalded.

1853-3-4-1700.jpg (188.76 KiB) Viewed 13909 times

7 people were killed, breaking the record of six.


The cause unfortunately, was the rear brakeman. He, instead of flagging the stalled train,
sat down in a shanty and fell asleep.

[luke]

I wouldn't have wanted to have been on this train!

April 16, 1853

A loose rail sent these two B&O coaches 100' down a cliff, into a ravine near what is currently Cheat River, WV.

1853-4-16-1300.jpg (163.9 KiB) Viewed 13908 times