Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

Now, a drawbridge accident.

April 23, 1853

The Camden & Amboy's 2:00 PM train from Camden ran off the Rancocas Cr. drawbridge.

The bridge had been open for the steamboat Rancocas, which is seen in the below illustration; however, the bridge tender, in his haste, forgot to put out the signal indicating the bridge was open.

The good news is that no one was killed or seriously injured.

gedunk wrote:Luke if you mention the source you are quoting or paraphrasing from, then rarely are there copyright hassles. Most authors are pleased to get the free advertising, particularly if their work is obscure or out of print. The book you are paraphrasing from is probably both.

You obviously have quite an interest in this area, and a pretty impressive knowledge for someone so young. Railroading was exceptionally dangerous in its early decades - especially at grade crossings that are now equipped with the warning devices all of us here at this webite/forum appreciate.

Before long, I'll be talking about an 1855 disaster caused by a grade crossing collision.

I've got this book. The Washington runaway when the train actually went onto the concourse looked devastating, I was genuinely surprised no-one was killed!

wigwags4ever wrote:I've got this book. The Washington runaway when the train actually went onto the concourse looked devastating, I was genuinely surprised no-one was killed!

Dirty underwear was much in evidence no doubt...

gedunk wrote:

wigwags4ever wrote:The Washington runaway when the train actually went onto the concourse looked devastating, I was genuinely surprised no-one was killed!

Dirty underwear was much in evidence no doubt...

April 25, 1853; diamond collision.

On the night of the 25, a Michigan Central emigrant train that was crossing the Grand Crossing diamond in South Chicago, was broadsided by a Michigan Southern express.

21 German immigrants were killed, the highest yet in a single accident.
The engineer of the emigrant train could have sped up to clear the diamond, or he could have yielded the right-of-way to the express.

But, he took his pretty time in bumping over the diamond, resulting in the meet.

A quote from an editorial:

"Time will not efface from the memories of those who disembarked from the 1st-class coaches, the screams of the wounded, mixed with the deeper groans of the dying."

And things got even worse.

May 6, 1853, South Norwalk, CT, on what is now Amtrak; open drawbridge

What was at the time the New York & New Haven's drawbridge (spanning the Norwalk river) became a disaster site.

At 10:00 AM on the 6th, the S.S. Pacific whistled to pass the bridge, heading downstream.

Bridge tender Harford put out a basketball-sized red wooden ball, to signal the bridge was open.

---

Shortly afterward, as Harford was about to close the swing span, a Boston-bound express tore around the curve in front of the S. Norwalk station, and ran off the approach span.

The train was moving so fast at the time, the engine rammed the pivot foundation, then sank.

The tender, 2 mail cars, a baggage car and 2 coaches ran off the span into a heap of splintered wood.

The 3rd coach tettered on the brink, then split in half.

46 people were killed, either in the splintering of coaches, or drowning in the river.

The engine crew had bailed off.
The illustration shows the pileup of cars in the open passage area, and the splintered 3rd coach.
(The smokestack behind it from the S.S. Pacific.)

An excited crowd gathered at the scene, and feelings against the engine crew mushroomed.

Many chanted that engineer Tucker should be executed,
but opposing factions couldn't decide whether to hang him or shoot him!

Tucker was held primarily responsible for the tragedy.

Just three days after the Norwalk tragedy, another accident happened, this one near Seacacus, NJ.

May 9, 1853, on the Paterson & Hudson; now New Jersey Transit's Bergen County Line:

Erie had began to buy out the P&H, in the meantime, P&H leased the line to them, while still conducting their own business parallel to the Erie.

There was confusion in integrating the Erie's newly created timetable, and the P&H's existing one, and it caused an accident.

A P&H emigrant train, pulled by the P&H's Ramapo, departed Jersey City 3 minutes late, and stopped in the siding at the far side of the Bergen Cut, to wait for the Erie express, pulled by the Erie's Union, which had priority.

After waiting the required 10 minutes, conductor William Gale signaled the engineer, Thomas Blakley, to proceed with caution.

Meanwhile, the express was traveling along at full speed, then slowed down somewhat due the the darkness, under the order of conductor Seth Geer.

------

The sun was about to set, and the twilight made visibility poor.

Despite having their headlights on, the crews of neither the Ramapo nor the Union saw each other as they drew closer to each other in the middle of Hackensack Meadow.

Then they saw each other, but it was too late, and they meet.

2 brakemen were killed.
Out of the chaos of Hissing steam and scattered mechanical debris came Gale & Geer, the conductors.

They argued furiously over:
Who was responsible?
Which train had the right-of-way?

Well, the express had the right-of-way, but neither conductor was in error.

Apparently, Erie company agent H. L. Green had notified the Jersey City station of the Erie express, but failed to notify the station of a minor change in the emigrant train's departure time.

As of result, the emigrant train started a little too early, putting it on track to meet the express.

H.L. Green was fired after the coroner's jury blamed him for the deaths of the two brakemen.

Now, another head-on smashup.

August 12, 1853 Valley Falls, RI
Providence & Worcester Railway.

A northbound passenger train of 2 coachs left Providence, while a southbound excursion of 7 coaches left Worcester.

The passenger train stopped at a siding, while the passenger train stopped at the end to the double-tracked segment of the line at Pawtucket.

Then, the excursion left the siding began racing at full speed toward the double track, about 40 M/H.

The passenger train inched out of the double track area and began to move toward a curve near the Valley Falls station.

Suddenly, the trains came in sight of each other.

They met head-on on a segment of track built on top of an embankment.

The locomotives were wrecked, and the excursion's 1st coach was shattered,
while its 2nd coach telescoped into the 3rd.

10 people on the excursion & 2 people on the passenger train were killed.
Also killed was the excursion's fireman.

A man in the second-to-last coach of the excursion told the following account:

I was on the 6th car of the Uxbridge excursion.
The first intimation we had that anything was wrong was 3 violent jerks, followed by a crash, and, what we supposed, the explosion of the boiler. There was, not surprisingly, a rush for the doors, and passengers ran about in confusion.

It seemed that no sooner than the cars had come together, than a man was hacking with an axe to remove the body of a woman who'd been killed while trying to bail out of a window. Two men hung between the roofs of the 2nd & 3rd coaches, lifeless.

The injured were taken to a nearby grove.
The dead were laid in a row on the grass.

This is also the first photographed American rail accident.

The following photo was taken less than five minutes after the meet.
The cause was bad judgment on the part of the engineer of the excursion.
He thought he could get to the double track before the passenger train started up, but he was wrong.
----

13 killed; at least 30 injured

That is why block signals were invented right there. Even a simple form of TWC and the concept of "track and time" authority could have prevented that accident. Say the dispatcher hands you your orders at the station: "Don't leave siding X until you see train Y pass at or near time Z" etc.