William Crush

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William George Crush was the owner of the Katy railroad. On September 15, 1896 at Waco, Texas, to create a public spectacle, he placed two locomotives on a 4 mile (6.4 km) long track in the opposite direction. He then let them steam at full power with their throttles tied open. Inevitably, they crashed. Of the more than 30,000 people watching, hundreds were wounded by flying debris and several were killed. The total kinetic energy released at the point of impact was equal to 200 megajoules (MJ), or about 50kg of TNT.

The event became known as the Crash at Crush.