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For a list of 1950-1999 rail accidents, see List of 1950-1999 rail accidents. For a list of post-2000 rail accidents, see List of rail accidents.
[edit] Pre 1830
August 11, 1837 – Suffolk, Virginia, United States: First head-on collision to result in passenger fatalities occurs on the Portsmouth and Roanoke Railroad near Suffolk when an eastbound lumber train coming down a grade at speed rounds a sharp curve and smacks the morning passenger train from Portsmouth, Virginia. First three of thirteen stagecoach-style cars are smashed, killing three daughters of the prominent Ely family and injuring dozens of the 200 on board. They were returning from a steamboat cruise when the accident happened. An engraving depicting the moment of impact is published in Howland's "Steamboat Disasters and Railroad Accidents" in 1840.
August 7, 1838 – Harrow, Middlesex, England: From a memorial in the parish churchyard of Harrow-on-the-Hill, "To the memory of Thomas Port, son of John Port of Burton-upon-Trent in the County of Stafford, Hat Manufacturer, who near this town had both legs severed from his body by the railway train. With great fortitude he bore a second amputation by the surgeons and died from loss of blood, August 7th 1838, aged 33 years."
May 8, 1842 – Meudon (Versailles), France: During the inauguration ceremonies of the Paris to Saint-Germain railroad, a returning train caught fire at Meudon after the locomotive broke an axle and the train derailed. 55 passengers were killed trapped in the carriages, including the explorer Jules Dumont d'Urville. This led to the abandonment of the then-common practice of locking passengers in their carriages in France. This was the first really major world railway disaster, usually referred to as the Versailles train fire.
- January 6, 1853 – Andover, Massachusetts, United States: The Boston & Maine noon express, traveling from Boston to Lawrence, Massachusetts, derails at forty miles an hour when an axle breaks at Andover, and the only coach goes down an embankment and breaks in two. Only one is killed, the twelve-year-old son of President-elect Franklin Pierce, but it is initially reported that Pierce is also a fatality. He was on board but is only badly bruised. The baggage car and the locomotive remain on the track.
- March 4, 1853 – Mount Union, Pennsylvania, United States: A Pennsylvania Railroad emigrant train stalls on the main line with engine problems in the Allegheny Mountains near Mount Union, and when the brakeman sent to flag protect the rear of the stopped train falls asleep in a shanty, an oncoming mail train shatters the rear car, killing seven, most by scalding from steam from the engine's ruptured boiler, the highest single U.S. accident toll up to this time.
- April 16, 1853 – Cheat River, West Virginia, United States: Two Baltimore & Ohio passenger cars tumble down a hundred foot ravine above the Cheat River in West Virginia, west of Cumberland, Maryland, after they are derailed by a loose rail.
- April 23, 1853 – Rancocas Creek, New Jersey: Engineer of Camden & Amboy's 2 p.m. train out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania misses stop signals and runs his train off of an open drawspan at Rancocas Creek. Fortunately, there are no fatalities.
- April 25, 1853 – Chicago, Illinois, United States: An eastbound Michigan Central Railroad express bound for Toledo, Ohio, rams a Michigan Southern Railroad emigrant train at level Grand Crossing on the city's South Side at night. Twenty-one German emigrants are killed. The Michigan Southern engineer, who was running without a headlight, could have avoided the accident by either observing a stop signal or by accelerating his train, but did neither. Grand Crossing will be grade-separated after this accident.
- May 6, 1853 – Norwalk, Connecticut, United States: First major U.S. railroad bridge disaster occurs when a New Haven Railroad engineer neglects to check for open drawbridge signal. The locomotive and four and one half cars run through the open drawbridge and plunge into the Norwalk River. Forty-six passengers are crushed to death or drowned and some thirty others are severely wounded.
- May 9, 1853 – Secaucus, New Jersey, United States: A Paterson & Hudson River Railroad emigrant train has a cornfield meet with an Erie Railroad express in Hackensack Meadow near Secaucus, killing two brakemen, but no passengers.
- August 12, 1853 – Pawtucket, Rhode Island, United States: Thirteen passengers are killed and fifty injured in a head-on collision on the main line of the Boston & Worcester between a seven-car excursion train with 475 on board, bound for Narragansett Bay via Providence, and a two-car train bound from Providence to Worcester. They collide at the Valley Falls station, near Pawtucket. Believed to be the earliest wreck photographed, with the daguerreotype taken by a Mr. L. Wright of Pawtucket forming the basis for an engraving a fortnight later in the New York Illustrated News.
5 October 1853 –Straffan, Ireland; 16 killed after a rear-end collision when a train breaks down and the crew neglect to place any warning signals to the rear.- December 1853 – Secaucus, New Jersey, United States: The same two trains that crashed on May 9, 1853, a Paterson & Hudson River Railroad emigrant train and an Erie Railroad express, collide again, within one mile of last spring's wreck site near Secaucus. A brakeman and one passenger die, 24 others are injured.
- October 27 - A Great Western Railway passenger train collides with the tail end of gravel train at Baptiste Creek, Canada West. At least 52 people are killed.
- November 1, 1855 – St. Louis, Missouri, United States: With more than 600 passengers aboard a Pacific Railroad of Missouri excursion train celebrating the railway line's opening, outside St. Louis, Missouri the bridge collapsed and the locomotive plus 12 of the 13 attached cars plunged into the Gasconade River. Over 30 people died and hundreds were seriously injured.
- December 15, 1855 – Massachusetts/New Hampshire, United States: The locomotive Dewitt Clinton, the third built in the United States, exploded on the Worcester and Nashua Railroad, killing the engineer and fireman.[1]
- May 11, 1858 – Utica, New York, United States: Two New York Central trains, a westbound freight and the eastbound Cincinnati Express, pass on a forty-foot wood trestle over Sauquoit Creek, three miles from Utica. It collapses under their weight, utterly destroying the passenger consist, killing nine and injuring 55.
An immigrant train runs through an open swing bridge near
Beloeil, Quebec, in 1864.
- December 18, 1867 – Angola, New York, United States: The Angola Horror - The Buffalo-bound New York Express of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern derails its last coach, due to poor track maintenance, and it plunges forty feet off a truss bridge into Big Sister Creek just after departing Angola. The next car is also pulled from the track and rolls down the far embankment. Stoves set both coaches afire and fifty are killed - three manage to crawl from the wreckage. Forty more are injured. The train actually continues for some distance before the crew realizes an accident has happened.
- August 26, 1871 – Revere, Massachusetts, United States: A series of dispatching errors allow the Portland Express to collide with the rear of a stalled local train at Revere on the Eastern Railroad, telescoping the rear cars of the stopped consist. Coal-oil lamps ignite the wreckage and 29 die while 57 are injured. Several prominent Boston citizens are killed bringing much national publicity to the accident.
- September 10, 1874 – Thorpe, Norfolk, England: Head-on collision on single line track, in which 25 were killed and more than 100 injured. The cause was administrative error which led to both trains being given permission to run in opposite directions at the same time. The accident led directly to the introduction of automatic control systems to manage traffic on single-track railways.
- August 7, 1876 – Radstock rail accident, Somerset, England: Catalogue of errors on mismanaged line result in head-on collision on single line. 15 passengers killed.
December 26, 1876 – Hansted, Denmark: The two locomotives in a snow plough train separate under unclear circumstances and crash, killing 9 locomotive crew and injuring 26 workmen.- December 29, 1876 – Ashtabula River Railroad bridge disaster, Ashtabula, Ohio, United States: As Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway Train No. 5, The Pacific Express, crosses the Ashtabula River bridge, the Howe truss structure collapses, dropping second locomotive of two and 11 passenger cars into the frozen creek 150 feet below. A fire is started by the car stoves, and of the 159 people onboard, 64 are injured and 92 killed.
- January 14, 1878 – Tariffville, Connecticut, United States: A double-headed ten-car Connecticut Western Railroad special train of the faithful, returning from a revival held in Hartford, crosses the Tariffville Bridge over the Farmington River near midnight, and the structure collapses. Both locomotives and the first four cars plunge into the ice-covered river, killing seventeen and injuring 43.
- July 6, 1881 – Boone, Iowa, United States: A Chicago and North Western Railway locomotive runs tender-first, westbound over the line out of Boone to check the tracks during a heavy summer rainstorm in the Des Moines River Valley and plunges into Honey Creek as the weakened bridge collapses. Spunky, Irish-born, seventeen-year-old Kate Shelley, who lives close by the accident site, realizes that the late night eastbound express coming from Moingana, a mile to the west, has to be flagged down, lest it pile into gap at Honey Creek. To reach the station, she must cross the long bridge over the Des Moines River in the storm. Arriving at the depot, she relates what she has seen, and the express train is halted. She then accompanies the rescue train to the failed bridge and helps locate the surviving engine crew, two of whom had survived the 25 foot plunge into the flood and who have found refuge above the waters on tree limbs. For her part in keeping a small accident from becoming much worse, Kate Shelley becomes a national folk heroine. The new bridge over the Des Moines River is named in her honor as the 'Kate Shelley High Bridge'.
- January 19, 1882 – Spuyten Duyvil, New York, United States: Hudson River Railroad's Tarrytown Special collides with rear of the halted Atlantic Express near Spuyten Duyvil at night, telescoping the last two coaches which also catch fire. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper publishes full front-page engraving on January 21, 1882 showing trainmen, passengers, and local farmers rolling giant snowballs in an attempt to extinguish the blaze. Eight prominent politicians are among the dead.
- January 4, 1887 – Republic, Ohio, United States: A westbound Baltimore & Ohio passenger express train hits a stalled eastbound freight which was supposed to have taken a siding for it to pass, on a bitterly cold night, one half mile west of Republic. The forward cars of the express telescope and then burn completely, the last two sleepers are spared. The exact count of fatalities remains unknown but at least nine victims who perish in the fire are counted.
- February 5, 1887 – Hartford, Vermont, United States; Worst rail accident in Vermont history when the Central Vermont Montreal Express goes off the White River bridge at White River Junction at 2 a.m. on a bitter winter night; 38 are killed and 40 injured.
- March 14, 1887 – West Roxbury, Massachusetts, United States: "The Forest Hills Disaster"; also, "The Forest Ridge Disaster" - A morning Boston & Providence Railroad train, inbound to Boston, is passing over the "Tin Bridge", a Howe truss, at Bussey Street in the Roslindale section of West Roxbury when it collapses, killing twenty-three commuters and school children and injuring several hundred. Bridge design was found to be faulty.
- August 10-11 1887 – The Great Chatsworth Train Wreck in Chatsworth, Illinois, United States: Fifteen car train of fully-occupied Pullman sleepers and coaches on the Toledo, Peoria and Western bound for Niagara Falls, comes to a wooden trestle over a shallow "run" just before midnight; the engineer sees that it is on fire too late to stop the double-headed train from crossing the weakened structure and the consist with over 600 on board crashes to a stop as the lead engine collapses it. The cars in the front half telescope into one another and some 84 are killed with injuries estimated at 279. This accident inspires morbid ballad "The Chatsworth Wreck" that includes the verse, "the dead and dying mingled with the broken beams and bars; an awful human carnage, a dreadful wreck of cars."
- August 17, 1887 – Washington, D.C., United States: Baltimore & Ohio Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Express enters the city from Maryland, out of control. At sixty miles an hour it derails on curve at Terracotta, demolishing several buildings as well as the train set. The engineer had been trying to make up time when he discovered that his brakes had failed. The engineer is killed and many passengers injured.
- October 10, 1888 – Mud Run, Pennsylvania, United States: Following a mass meeting held by the Total Abstinence Union in the Pennsylvania mountains at Hazelton, in which eight special temperance trains are operated from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, by the Lehigh Valley Railroad carrying some 5,000 conventioneers, the consists are directed to keep a ten-minute interval between them upon return. At about 8 p.m., the sixth train with 500 on board stops near Mud Run along the banks of the Lehigh River and shortly thereafter the following section plows into it, telescoping the last car of the stopped train halfway through the coach ahead, killing 64 of the 200 in these two wooden cars outright. Another 100 are injured. Newspaper accounts suggest that temperance pledges were forgotten by some of the victims after they returned to the train.
- April 19, 1891 – Kipton, Ohio, United States: A passenger train and a freight train collide just east of the Kipton depot, 8 dead. This accident was attributed to one of the engineers' watches having stopped and being four minutes behind, and led to the adoption of quality control standards for railroad-grade watches in the United States.
June 14, 1891 – Munchenstein, Basle, Switzerland: An iron girder bridge collapses as a crowded passenger train passes over it, 71 dead, 171 injured. Switzerland's worst ever railway accident.- December 4, 1891 – East Thompson, Connecticut, United States: Four trains collide on the New York and New England Railroad. Two freight trains collide due to sloppy dispatching, jack-knifing several cars. The Long Island & Eastern States Express passenger train then hits the wreckage, killing the engineer and fireman. Shortly thereafter, despite an attempt to flag it down, the Norwich Steamboat Express also piles into the rear of the Eastern States Express, setting the last sleeper on fire as well as the locomotive cab although both engine crew survive. In all, only two deaths are confirmed although the body of one passenger is never found and presumed dead. See Great East Thompson Train Wreck.
Easter Monday, April 6, 1896 – Llanberis, Wales: On the opening day of the Snowdon Mountain Railway, locomotive No. 1 "Ladas" runs away and derails before plummeting down a steep slope where it is destroyed. The driver and fireman jumped clear and the carriages were stopped by the guard. One passenger jumped off the moving train and fell beneath the wheels. He later died from his injuries. The line then closed for over a year before re-opening on 19 April 1897.- July 30, 1896: 1896 Atlantic City rail crash - two trains collide at a crossing just west of Atlantic City, New Jersey, crushing five loaded passenger coaches, killing 50 and seriously injuring around 60.
- September 15, 1896: The Crash at Crush - Showman William George Crush convinces officials of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad (MKT, known as "the Katy"), to let him stage a colossal train wreck for a crowd that will ride to the site near the town of West, Texas, producing much passenger revenue for the company. A one-day town is thrown up and named Crush, boasting a 2,100 foot platform and tank cars supplying 100 faucets. Two six-car trains of obsolete rolling stock, pulled by dolled-up locomotives are let loose at each other over a one-mile course with spectacular result. When the wrecked engines' boilers explode, flying shrapnel kills at least three of the 30,000 spectators and injures many more.
- June 11, 1897 – Gentofte train crash, Denmark: An express train passes a signal at danger and collides with a stationary passenger train at Gentofte station. 40 die and more than 100 are injured.
- April 30, 1900 – Vaughan, Mississippi, United States: Illinois Central passenger train No. 1, the Cannonball, crashes into rear cars of freight train No. 83 which is fouling the main line out of a siding at 3:52 a.m. on the Water Valley District of the Mississippi Division. Engineer of 2-6-0 Mogul No. 382, John Luther Jones, the only fatality, is found to be solely at fault by the ensuing investigation for having disregarded safety warnings behind the stalled train. The accident spawns the vastly popular "Ballad of Casey Jones" by roundhouse worker and friend of the deceased, Wallace Saunders, and the root theme for a Grateful Dead song titled "Casey Jones".
- May 22, 1900 – Oakland, California, United States: Southern Pacific passenger local is mistakenly switched into a narrow gauge track. The iron rail curls up beneath the locomotive, flipping it over and killing the engineer and fireman. The engineer, Frank Shaw, is last seen shutting down the locomotive’s steam and is credited with saving the lives of the passengers, none of whom are killed or seriously injured.
- August 13, 1900 – Gwynn's Falls, Maryland, United States: Baltimore & Ohio 2-8-2 Mikado locomotive and tender are knocked off the Carrollton Viaduct at Gwynn's Falls by a side-strike and land inverted in the stream below.
- August 10, 1903 – Paris Metro train fire, France: electric fire at the Paris Métro Couronnes station, 84 killed. This led to the design of low-voltage control circuit for electric multiple-unit cars and better lighting in the Métro stations.
-
September 27, 1903 – Wreck of the Old 97, Danville, Virginia, United States: Southbound Southern Railway passenger train No. 97, en route from Monroe, Virginia to Spencer, North Carolina, derails on Stillhouse Trestle near Danville; 11 people are killed including the engine crew and a number of Railway Post Office clerks in the mail car right behind the engine. The 1920s recording of The Wreck of the Old 97 sung by Vernon Dalhart is sometimes cited as the American recording industry's first million-seller.
- October 31, 1903 – Purdue Wreck, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA: A series of specials operated by the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis Railroad - the "Big Four Railroad", are chartered to carry over 1,000 people from Lafayette to Indianapolis for the annual Indiana University / Purdue University football game at Washington Park. 17 passengers in the first coach are killed, including 14 Purdue University football players, when the lead special collides with a coal train after rounding a curve near 18th Street in Indianapolis. Due to a breakdown in communication, the crew of the coal train was never notified the specials were approaching. They backed their train onto the main line just before the lead special arrived. The engineer of the special was able to set the brake and jump clear of his engine, but he was not able to prevent the collision.
- February 9, 1904 - Sand Point, Ontario head-on collision
- August 7, 1904 – Eden, Colorado, United States: Train caught in bridge washout; 97 known dead; 14 missing
- September 24, 1904 – Morristown, Tennessee, United States: Two Southern Railway passenger trains, the Carolina Special and Local train No. 15, collide head-on near New Market, Tennessee near Lost Creek when the crew of the local, a three-car consist, fails to take the siding to allow the Carolina Special to pass. The impact knocks the boilers off of both locomotives and the engine on the local is catapulted onto the first three wooden coaches of the Special. The following four steel Pullmans of the Special ram the wooden wreckage and some 113 of the 210 on board are killed. None of the 140 on board the local die, however. The reason that the crew of the local failed to follow orders for the meet is never determined as they are killed.
- December 23, 1904 - Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England, United Kingdom. Derailment. The 0245 Great Central Railway express from London Marylebone to Manchester derailed as it approached Aylesbury from the south, approximately at the location of the junction with the Great Western Railway branch from Princes Risborough. Its speed carried the wreckage along the platforms of the station, and 6 of those on board the train, including the driver and fireman, were killed. 4 others were injured. A southbound train, ex Manchester, then collided with the wreckage at low-speed.
- June 30, 1906 – Salisbury rail crash, Salisbury, England: Racing express train collides with a milk train on a sharp curve, 28 killed (24 passengers, 4 crew).
- September 21, 1906 – Napanee, Ontario, Canada: A Grand Trunk Railway passenger train hits a stopped freight train at a crossover in Napanee, Ontario; the engineer stayed at the controls trying to slow his train as much as possible and became the only fatality. The train's passengers later erected a monument in the engineer's honor.
- October 28, 1906 – Atlantic City, New Jersey: On a Sunday afternoon, a newly-electrified Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train derails as it begins to cross a drawbridge over a deep tidal channel as it approaches Atlantic City at forty miles per hour. The equipment bumps along the ties for 150 feet before departing the bridge and plunging into deep water. Fifty-seven die in what will remain the worst U.S. drawbridge accident until the Newark Bay commuter tragedy of September 15, 1958.
- November 12, 1906 – Detroit, Michigan, United States: A train of the Michigan Central Railroad drives through the stub end of the Michigan Central's Third Street passenger yard and into the station itself.
1907 accident in New Hampshire
- September 15, 1907, Canaan, New Hampshire, United States: Quebec to Boston wreck; 25 people killed, with as many seriously injured. The southbound Quebec express, heavily loaded with passengers returning from the Sherbrooke Fair, collided head-on with a northbound Boston & Maine Railroad freight train. The accident, 4 miles north of Canaan Station, was "due to a mistake in train dispatcher's orders."
- January 21, 1910 – Spanish River derailment Northern Ontario, Canada: Canadian Pacific Railway's westbound Soo Express derails while crossing the bridge at Spanish River. 44 people die, many more are injured.
- March 1, 1910 – Wellington near Cascade Tunnel, Washington, United States: Approximately 100 are killed when a snow avalanche pushes two trains off a cliff.
- December 24, 1910 – Hawes Junction train disaster, Cumbria, England: Busy signalman forgets about light engines on main line, and express signalled onto it.
- July 26, 1913 – Bramminge train accident, Denmark: A train derails near Bramming due to heat-stressed rails. 15 die and about 80 are injured.
- July 30, 1913 – Tyrone, Pennsylvania, United States: Two Pennsylvania Railroad trains collide in front of the station at Tyrone when the engineer of Chicago Mail train No. 13 runs through a stop signal, and his locomotive crushes the rear coach of train No. 15, the Pittsburgh Express. The first postal car of the moving train is thrown across the track into the front of the depot. The engineer is killed and 163 passengers are injured. Collision occurred at 2:38 PM. All-steel cars on both trains are credited with the low mortality.
- September 1, 1913 – Ais Gill rail crash, Cumbria, England: Distracted engine crew pass signals at danger, and crash into train stalled on gradient. 14 killed, 38 seriously injured
- January 1, 1915 – Ilford, The 7:06 express from Clacton to London passed both distant and home signals. The express crashed into the side of a local train that had been crossing the tracks. 10 killed 500 injured.
May 22, 1915 – In the Quintinshill rail crash, four trains including a troop train collide causing 227 fatalities and injuring 246 people at Quintinshill, Gretna Green, Scotland; the accident is found to be the result of non-standard operating practices during a shift change at a busy location. This becomes the greatest loss of life in any railway accident in the UK, before or since.
- February 17, 1917 – Mount Union, Pennsylvania, United States: A Pennsylvania Railroad fast freight strikes the rear of a stalled passenger train at Mt. Union. Twenty are killed as the last sleeper, a steel car named Bellwood, telescopes into the next car.
- December 12, 1917 – Saint Michel de Maurienne (Modane), France: A military train derails at the entrance of the Fréjus Rail Tunnel after running away down a steep gradient; brake power was insufficient for the weight of the train. Around 800 deaths estimated, 540 officially confirmed. The world's worst rail disaster up to the end of the 20th century.
1917 – Sweden - An incorrectly set switch causes a passenger train to run into a pumping house killing 11 and injuring 40.
"Site of
Circus train wreck at Ivanhoe, Indiana {near Hammond}, June 22, 1918"
- June 22, 1918 – Hammond circus train wreck, near Hammond, Indiana, United States: An empty Michigan Central Railroad troop train ploughs into the rear end of the stopped Hagenbeck-Wallace circus train. 86 killed, 127 injured. The engineer of the troop train had been taking "kidney pills" which had a narcotic effect and he was asleep at the throttle. This accident will be recreated, Hollywood-style, in Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth, released in 1952.
- July 9, 1918 – Great train wreck of 1918, Nashville, Tennessee, United States: Two Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railroad trains collide head-on. 101 killed, 171 injured.
September 13, 1918 – Weesp, Netherlands. Heavy rainfall caused the railroad underbody of the track sloping to the Merwedekanaal bridge to become unstable. When a passenger train approaches the bridge, the track suddenly slides off the slope, which causes the carts crashing into each other and the locomotive hitting the bridge. A total of 41 persons are killed, 42 are injured. In the aftermath of the disaster, it is decided to establish a dedicated study of soil mechanics at the Delft University of Technology.- October 1, 1918 – Getå, Sweden: Getå train disaster, the most fatal train accident in the history of rail transport in Sweden. A passenger train runs off the rails because of a landslide in Getå (currently Norrköping Municipality). 41 die , 41 injured.
- November 1, 1918 – The Malbone Street Wreck occurs on the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT) in New York City when an inexperienced motorman (pressed into service due to a strike by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers) drives one of the system's subway trains too quickly into a very sharp curve, derailing the train in a tunnel, killing at least 93 and injuring over 100.
- November 1, 1919 – Vigerslev train crash, Denmark: An express train collides at speed with a stopped train due to a dispatcher error. 40 people are killed and about 60 injured.
- June 16, 1925, – Rockport, New Jersey (near Hackettstown). A seven car Lackawanna Railroad passenger train travelling to Hoboken, NJ encountered an obstruction on the tracks during a torrential rainstorm. The train was derailed and subsequently the engine boiler exploded scalding passengers. Fifty persons were killed. The train was an excursion train with passengers returning to Bremen, Germany. A small memorial plaque marks the site of the wreck.
March 12, 1928 – Katukurunda, Sri Lanka(Ceylon): Two Sri Lankan trains collide head-on into one another at high speed, crushing several compartments and killing 28 people.[5]- August 24, 1928 – New York, New York: A subway train crashes at the 42nd Street-Times Square station, killing 16 in the second worst accident in New York City Subway history.
- October 13, 1928 – Charfield, Gloucestershire, England: two trains collide, the gas lights on the passenger train cause a significant fire to develop leading to the death of about 15 people. {10 known dead}
1928 – Lindfield train disaster, Sydney, Australia: collision when train speeds after stop-and-proceed-at-red signal.
- July 18, 1929 – Stratton, Colorado, United States: Flash flood waters sweep away the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad bridge at Stratton, wrecking a passing Rock Island passenger train. Ten bodies are recovered after flood waters recede.
August 25, 1929 – Buir, Germany: The D29 "Nordexpress", running from Paris to Warsaw, derails some 300 metres north of Buir station, near the town of Düren. Due to ongoing construction work, the train is supposed to be diverted to a siding, but the train driver notices the signal too late, entering the siding with 100 km/h instead of 50 km/h. 13 passengers are killed as the train derails, 40 are hurt. This led to the introduction of the La, the German railways' book of temporary speed restrictions on the network.
- December 14, 1933: 11 area children were killed when their school bus was hit by an Atlantic Coast Line freight train near Crescent City, Florida, resulting in the deaths of ten of the school children and the serious injury of a score of others--"several of whom are not expected to recover."
- June 19, 1938 – Miles City, Montana: Olympian Flyer plunges into creek when a 30-year-old bridge, weakened by heavy rain, collapses; 47 people killed.
July 30, 1938 – near Balaclava Station, Jamaica: five overcrowded cars derail; between 30 and 40 killed, 70 injured.
December 19, 1938 – A freight and passenger train collide near Barbacena, in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Wooden cars splinter and catch fire, killing at least 82. Some of the dead are Boy Scouts.
December 21, 1938 – 45 miles from Mexico City, a broken wheel causes 14 cars to derail, killing at least 40. Most passengers were government employees on holiday.
December 25, 1938 – In Bessarabia near Chişinău--which is now in Moldova but was then part of Romania--two passenger trains collide; 93 people killed, 340 injured.
- August 12, 1939: An act of sabotage sends the City of San Francisco flying off of a bridge in the Nevada desert; several passengers and crew members are killed, and five cars are destroyed. This case remains unsolved.
Genthin rail crash memorial
- December 22, 1939 – Genthin, Germany: collision when train D180 drove into previous delayed and overcrowded train D10 from Berlin to Cologne. 186 killed, 453 injured. Highest number of fatalities ever in an accident in Germany.
- December 22, 1939 – Markdorf, Germany: collision of a special passenger train and a goods train on the Radolfzell-Lindau line, 101 killed. These were the first accidents in German railway history to claim more than 100 victims; they happened on the same day.
- April 19, 1940 – Little Falls, New York, United States: The westbound New York Central Lake Shore Limited, running fifteen minutes late, fails to reduce speed to 45 miles per hour at Gulf Curve near Little Falls, sharpest on the NYC System, and at 59 mph the locomotive derails, crosses two tracks and strikes a rock wall whereupon it explodes and nine cars pile up behind it. At least 30 known dead, including the engineer, and 100 injured in the accident.
- November 4, 1940 – Norton Fitzwarren train disaster, England: Great Western Railway train driver misreads the signals on a four-track line that merges to two, and runs his train off the end of the track. Coaches telescope, killing 27 and injuring 75. Although driver error is primary cause, an inadequate signal plant is a contributing factor. Track plan was not visible under wartime black-out conditions.
January 3, 1944 – Accident in Torre del Bierzo tunnel nº 20 in Leon province, Spain. 78 killed officially, maybe over 250.
February 1944 – Train collision near Breifoss between Hol and Geilo, Norway, at the Bergensbanen line. 25 killed.
March 3, 1944 – Balvano, Italy: Over 500 people who stole a ride on a freight train die of carbon monoxide poisoning when the train stalls in a tunnel. World’s second highest death toll at the time and for 50 years thereafter.- July 6, 1944 – Troop train crash near Jellico, Tennessee, United States: Passenger train derails due to excessive speed on defective track. 35 killed, 99 injured; all soldiers in U.S. Army en route to deployment.
November 7, 1944 – Passenger train derails in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico due to excessive speed in a declining hill. 16 killed; 50 injured.
- May 21, 1945 – Piqua, Ohio, United States: a seventeen-car west bound troop train, travelling on the Pennsylvania Railroad line, derails at high speed. Eight cars plunge down a 20-foot embankment, injuring 24 of the 400 soldiers on board; poor track maintenance due to wartime personnel shortages is blamed.[6]
- August 9, 1945 – Michigan, North Dakota, United States: Great Northern's Empire Builder plows into a stalled observation car, 34 killed.
- September 8, 1945 – Llangollen, Denbighshire, Wales: An early morning mail train crashes after the adjacent canal flooded and washed away the track at Sun Bank, killing the driver and causing a fire.
- September 30, 1945 – Bourne End, Hertfordshire, England: train fails to slow down for temporary diversion to slow lines and derails, 43 killed.
- July 16, 1945 – Assling, Germany: A US Army train carrying tanks runs into a passenger train which had stalled due to an engine breakdown after the American signalman tells the freight train to proceed despite the track still being occupied. About 110 German POWs are killed as the mostly wooden coaches of the passenger train are destroyed.[7]
- Ballymacarrett Accident - 23 passengers died.
February 25, 1947 – Hachiko line rail crash, Saitama Prefecture, Japan: A train derailed on sharp curve and four cars fell onto a farm. 184 are killed, 495 are injured.- May 5, 1947 – Camp Mountain train disaster, Queensland, Australia: A picnic train derails after taking a sharp curve too fast on the Dayboro line to the north-west of Brisbane. 16 killed.
- September 1, 1947 – Dugald train disaster, Dugald, Manitoba, Canada: A Canadian National Railway passenger train failed to take the siding and collided with the No. 4 Transcontinental that was standing on the main line. 31 people were killed.
AT&SF #19L comes to rest after it has crashed through a barrier at the
LAUPT in
1948.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ Frank Leslie. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (1855-1922) (reprint).
- ^ http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=3283
- ^ [1]
- ^ Hallam, Greg (1999). Chapter 3: The Sunshine Route - Brisbane to Bundaberg. Volume 6: The Sunshine Route - Brisbane to Cairns. SunSteam Inc. Retrieved on April 11, 2003. Retrieved from the Internet Archive on 2006-06-09.
- ^ [2]
- ^ http://www.indianamilitary.org/NEWSLETTER/2005/February/ TROOP TRAIN DERAILS AT PIQUA, OHIO
- ^ http://www.e94114.de/E94-Geschichte/E94_1945-1969.htm
/
The aftermath of the Wreck of the Old 97.
November 31, 1916 – Herceghalom, Austria-Hungary: The train arriving from the funeral of Franz Joseph I crashes into the fast train to Graz. 71 people killed.
September 13, 1931 – Biatorbágy, Hungary: Sylvestre Matuschka blows up the viaduct under the Budapest-Vienna express train, killing 22 passengers and injuring 17.
June 4, 1943 – Hyde railway accident, New Zealand: Train derails at speed in a curved cutting, 21 killed, 47 injured.
October 22, 1949 – Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki, Poland: The express train between Gdańsk and Warszawa derails. Over 200 killed.
