Re: Most bizarre train accident?

padreyakOGR Forum Member

The Aug 8, 1901 edition of the Rhode Island Pendulum, page 5, has a story of a man from Auburn, Rhode Island who was killed in a very bizarre accident at a crossing, unbeknownst to the engineer.

It seems that the express was pulling out of East Greenwich station when a flagman at the crossing notified the engineer that there was a body on the cow-catcher. An investigation revealed that the man had attempted to ride a bicycle across a grade crossing at Cheppiwanoxette, where a freight train was passing the crossing going toward Providence. As it went by, the fast mail rushed along on the west bound track in the opposite direction. The wife and daughter rode across behind the freight and the father was in their rear. The daughter turned to warn him of the mail train but he rode in front of it and was struck by it. No one in the EG station noticed a body on the front of the train until it was leaving EG. of course, telephones were scarce, and there was no way to let stations down the line of the accident. So the poor man's body traveled all the way to the next stop and was not noticed until the train was leaving the station.

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2/8/197:20 PM

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Robert S. ButlerOGR Forum Member

I posted this one on a different OGR thread last year. It is still my favorite bizarre train accident.

A dispatch from St. Louis. October 25, 1884, says: "One of the funniest accidents that ever happened occurred to a special train of the Missouri Pacific road last night. The special runs only on Fridays to give residents of the Kirkwood area and nearby stations an opportunity to visit the theaters and other attractions in the city. Last evening the special left Union Depot at 11:30 with a very good load of passengers. The train had just reached its regular gait when the passengers were suddenly thrown forward with great force. Visions of a disastrous collision flashed through everyone's mind. When none came the most active members of the passengers got off the train. When they cast their eyes around they thought they had encountered a cyclone. The remains of a two-story frame house was strewn about the track and over the forward cars. A number of people in very abbreviated garments and scared-to-death expressions of countenance stood around shivering in the cold while a flagman called out lustily for his red lantern. After some confusion it was learned that an enterprising house-mover had undertaken to change the location of a house during the hours of night in which he calculated there would be no travel. He had taken the precaution of carefully studying the time card to make sure that no regular train would be along. As an added precaution he bribed the flagman with a bottle of "Robinson Country" to go down the track about 100 yards and flag any train that might appear.

With everything ready the house mover began his work. So sure was he of the success of his planned efforts that he permitted the owners of the house, their two children, a servant, and six boarders, to go to bed unwarned. Before getting the mansion on the track where a locomotive could strike it amidships, the mover, whose name is John Lloyd, found a little difficulty in the matter of telegraph wires which he promptly cut. Then he got the house on the track. The watchman, in the meantime, had gone down the track and become so intimate with the contents of the bottle, that he couldn't tell a locomotive from a Congressman, and then the Kirkwood train came along."

2/11/1911:34 AM

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locopilot750OGR Forum Member

Maybe not the most spectacular, but at the time, something I'd never heard of happening before. I came to work at Kansas City, and saw a 500 class GE locomotive at the diesel shop, all tore up on the nose and down the engineer's side. I ask somebody about it. It was going east on a hot train, somewhere east of KC. and hit a truck load of lumber. The truck spun around and sideswiped the engine, breaking off all the brake cylinders, and lifting the cut lever. The train went into emergency and stopped, but the lead locomotive continued on down the track. It went down grade several miles while the crew finally got it stopped with the hand brake. When it separated, the MR hoses parted, and with the brake cylinder piping & cylinders broke off, there wasn't any air, or enough to use the brakes, and not enough MR air for the air reverser to work.

2/17/196:04 PM

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