29 February 2008
Speeding Engines, Falling Locomotives Resulted in Tragic Rail Wrecks
In the good old days, when horses were still pretty much the
mainstay of land transportation, any kind of a train wreck made a big impression.
People came from miles away to view the aftermaths of head-on and rear-end collisions and runaways.
Train wrecks attracted so many people that around 1900, fairs and exhibitions, mainly in the United States, staged
head-on collisions known as "cornfield meets."
At the 1896 Iowa state fair in Des Moines, more than 89,000 people watched from grandstands while two locomotives, their throttles
wide open, charged at each other at full speed.
Sometimes one or two old wooden coaches with a container of burning charcoal in each would be hooked up to the engines and
saturated with gasoline.
The impact would tip over the charcoal containers and the coaches would burst into flame, giving awestruck spectators an added thrill.
In 1887, Qu'Appelle was the scene of one of the first big smash-ups in the CPR's prairie section, when a long freight
pulled by two engines suddenly broke in two on a grade just west of town.
The engines and several empty boxcars, relieved of the weight behind, hurtled down the incline towards the station. And on the
heels of the empties came a string of freewheeling, loaded cars.
When everything got to where it was headed, some 16 boxcars were strewn in every direction, a flatcar was on top of the tender,
and the fireman was dead.
Another famous wreck was the Laurier collision near Pense in August 1910, involving a westbound freight and a light special
carrying the prime minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier.
Fortunately the crews spotted each other in time to bring the Laurier train to a full stop and reduce the freight's speed
considerably. Nevertheless, the engines telescoped. One freight car was completely demolished, and Sir Wilfrid was "rather badly
shaken up."
Occasionally there were boiler explosions with grave consequences like the one that occurred just east of Montreal in 1909. The
"Boston Express" was heading for Windsor Station, Montreal, when the locomotive boiler suddenly filled the engine cab with
steam and scalding water. The engineer was thrown from the cab and the fireman jumped. Neither had been able to apply the brakes.
A downward grade added to the momentum, and the runaway engine was speeding toward Windsor Station. The force of the impact
demolished the stop-block, and the locomotive plowed through the station wall and came to a stop in the waiting room,
sinking part way through the floor into the basement.
When the stationmaster saw the oncoming train with no sign of slowing down, he rushed onto the platform shouting and pushing back
the crowd gathered there. A CPR police officer, also aware of the pending disaster, was able to clear many people from the waiting
room.
The passenger cars telescoped on impact, but miraculously none of the 150 people on board was seriously injured. In the station,
however, five people were killed and 23 injured.
It didn't take long for a crowd of "many hundreds" to gather around the train station at Moose Jaw in July 1917 when CPR
engine 2076 bit the dust. The locomotive derailed as it came into the station while pulling the Tri-City Express, a
passenger train running between Saskatoon, Regina, and Moose Jaw.
Blame was placed on a defective switch where a cross-over track joined two passenger tracks.
The locomotive fell on its side, ripping up a section of the wooden platform and chewing a deep hole in the ballast between the
tracks. The tender leaned askew but the rest of the train remained on the rails.
About five hours later, 1076 was hanging from the crane while workmen repaired the damaged rails. Suddenly a cable hook gave way
and the locomotive fell with a mighty thud, burying itself even deeper in the gravel and sand. Fortunately no one was near the engine.
Meanwhile, with the passenger lines blocked by the derailment, the Soo Line train and two sections of a main line passenger train
were routed over freight rails. Another passenger train was stopped near the Second Avenue subway where passengers detrained and walked
to the station.
Locomotive 2076, with a wheel arrangement of 4-6-0, was a fast passenger engine built for the CPR in 1903. Originally
numbered 876, it was renumbered in 1913. After the mishap at Moose Jaw, it went on to haul passenger trains until 1939 when the CPR
scrapped it.
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