In 1949, and again in 1951, head-on train crashes in Southern Idaho made headlines.
The first collision took place at 4:05 a.m. on January 30 in a lava rock cut-through about six miles west of American Falls. A westbound steam locomotive had been trying to climb the grade with little success, losing traction until the train came to a full stop. Crew members had reported their difficulty and noticed that a nearby signal had turned yellow. Engineer William Cramer wondered at first if a second locomotive had been sent from Pocatello to help them get up the grade. His story appeared in the Idaho State Journal on January 31.
“Then I saw the other freight about one half mile ahead of us as it rounded a curve,” Cramer said. “I knew it couldn’t stop in that short distance downhill, so I yelled to the fireman and brakeman, ‘get off, get off’
“They were working about five feet away, but they knew by my voice that we had to get off quick.”
The three jumped from the gangway of the cab and scrambled through about three feet of snow, getting about 30 feet from their abandoned engine.
“It seemed like Providence that we jumped on the south side,” Cramer said, “because most of the box cars piled up on the north side of our locomotive after the diesel telescoped into it.”
And there’s a point to remember. The stalled westbound engine was steam powered, while the speeding eastbound locomotive was powered by diesel.
The three trainmen in the diesel died in the smashup. The three who had jumped from the steam engine lived to tell the story.
Crews worked quickly to clear the tracks of the locomotives and 24 freight cars that had derailed. Railroad authorities set up a shuttle bus service from Pocatello to Shoshone to get some 400 people from scheduled passenger trains around the wreck. The line was cleared the next day.
Early estimates of the damage caused by the head-on collision were in excess of $1 million, making it Idaho’s most expensive train accident to date.
The second, eerily similar head-on collision between trains in Idaho occurred at Orchard, about 30 miles southeast of Boise on November 25, 1951. This time, both engines were diesel, and both were moving. The crew in the westbound freight spotted the oncoming engines and made an emergency stop. As that train was coming to a halt, Brakeman Ted Royter leapt from the four-engine train and ran to pull a switch that would route the eastbound engines onto a spur line. He arrived too late.
The grinding crash killed three crewmen in the lead eastbound engine and two in the westbound diesel cab. Of the 185 cars being pulled by the engines, 43 of them derailed, tearing up tracks as they tumbled and skidded. Three men in the caboose of the eastbound train escaped injury, as did two men in the westbound train’s caboose.
The sensational wreck, which happened on a Sunday, brought out carloads of people from Boise to see the pile-up. Police estimated that 5,000 people came to see the aftermath of the collision. A Boise camera club would later hold a special meeting to show photos club members had taken. (Note: If anyone has one, please post)
In both of the train wrecks all the crewmembers who might have shed some light on what happened perished in the collisions. There was no evidence that either of the engineers of the speeding trains had attempted to slow down.
The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) investigated both wrecks without coming to a conclusion about the cause of either. But after the second collision the ICC “indulged in speculation,” according to the April 21, 1952 issue of Railway Age, a trade publication for the railroad industry. The investigators thought conditions might have been right for the occupants of both cabs of the diesel-electric locomotives to have been overcome by toxic gases seeping in from the train’s exhaust.
This speculation was bolstered by testimony of the operator at the Orchard station who tried to signal the speeding train to stop. It blew through the station without slowing down. The station operator did not see anyone in the cab and noted that all the windows and doors were closed.
The ICC’s report included weather conditions that indicated that the exhaust from the train could have travelled along with the engines because of the speed and direction of winds, finding its way into air vents. Under those conditions carbon monoxide poisoning could happen quickly and without preliminary symptoms. An autopsy had not been conducted on the engineers in either crash, so determining the exact cause of their incapacity—if they were indeed unable to control the engines—could not be determined.
The first collision took place at 4:05 a.m. on January 30 in a lava rock cut-through about six miles west of American Falls. A westbound steam locomotive had been trying to climb the grade with little success, losing traction until the train came to a full stop. Crew members had reported their difficulty and noticed that a nearby signal had turned yellow. Engineer William Cramer wondered at first if a second locomotive had been sent from Pocatello to help them get up the grade. His story appeared in the Idaho State Journal on January 31.
“Then I saw the other freight about one half mile ahead of us as it rounded a curve,” Cramer said. “I knew it couldn’t stop in that short distance downhill, so I yelled to the fireman and brakeman, ‘get off, get off’
“They were working about five feet away, but they knew by my voice that we had to get off quick.”
The three jumped from the gangway of the cab and scrambled through about three feet of snow, getting about 30 feet from their abandoned engine.
“It seemed like Providence that we jumped on the south side,” Cramer said, “because most of the box cars piled up on the north side of our locomotive after the diesel telescoped into it.”
And there’s a point to remember. The stalled westbound engine was steam powered, while the speeding eastbound locomotive was powered by diesel.
The three trainmen in the diesel died in the smashup. The three who had jumped from the steam engine lived to tell the story.
Crews worked quickly to clear the tracks of the locomotives and 24 freight cars that had derailed. Railroad authorities set up a shuttle bus service from Pocatello to Shoshone to get some 400 people from scheduled passenger trains around the wreck. The line was cleared the next day.
Early estimates of the damage caused by the head-on collision were in excess of $1 million, making it Idaho’s most expensive train accident to date.
The second, eerily similar head-on collision between trains in Idaho occurred at Orchard, about 30 miles southeast of Boise on November 25, 1951. This time, both engines were diesel, and both were moving. The crew in the westbound freight spotted the oncoming engines and made an emergency stop. As that train was coming to a halt, Brakeman Ted Royter leapt from the four-engine train and ran to pull a switch that would route the eastbound engines onto a spur line. He arrived too late.
The grinding crash killed three crewmen in the lead eastbound engine and two in the westbound diesel cab. Of the 185 cars being pulled by the engines, 43 of them derailed, tearing up tracks as they tumbled and skidded. Three men in the caboose of the eastbound train escaped injury, as did two men in the westbound train’s caboose.
The sensational wreck, which happened on a Sunday, brought out carloads of people from Boise to see the pile-up. Police estimated that 5,000 people came to see the aftermath of the collision. A Boise camera club would later hold a special meeting to show photos club members had taken. (Note: If anyone has one, please post)
In both of the train wrecks all the crewmembers who might have shed some light on what happened perished in the collisions. There was no evidence that either of the engineers of the speeding trains had attempted to slow down.
The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) investigated both wrecks without coming to a conclusion about the cause of either. But after the second collision the ICC “indulged in speculation,” according to the April 21, 1952 issue of Railway Age, a trade publication for the railroad industry. The investigators thought conditions might have been right for the occupants of both cabs of the diesel-electric locomotives to have been overcome by toxic gases seeping in from the train’s exhaust.
This speculation was bolstered by testimony of the operator at the Orchard station who tried to signal the speeding train to stop. It blew through the station without slowing down. The station operator did not see anyone in the cab and noted that all the windows and doors were closed.
The ICC’s report included weather conditions that indicated that the exhaust from the train could have travelled along with the engines because of the speed and direction of winds, finding its way into air vents. Under those conditions carbon monoxide poisoning could happen quickly and without preliminary symptoms. An autopsy had not been conducted on the engineers in either crash, so determining the exact cause of their incapacity—if they were indeed unable to control the engines—could not be determined.
The Times News carried the story of five men from Glenns Ferry being killed in the 1951 crash.
RSS Feed