Ohio Train Disasters by Jane Ann Turzillo

Author:Jane Ann Turzillo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2014-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

TRAIN WRECK AT HOODOO CROSSING

Railroaders called the baseline crossing at the boundary between Wyandot and Seneca Counties “Hoodoo” Crossing for good reason. Just three miles north of Carey, the crossing was the site of two separate freight trains that had ditched in the early 1900s. A third, more serious accident, happened to a Big Four passenger train No. 1 at that same spot on a cold Sunday, January 14, 1912, shortly after noon. Thirty-four people were injured, some seriously.

The train originated in Detroit, Michigan, with Conductor William Caskey from Detroit in charge. It was composed of a parlor car, a dining car and a combination baggage car and day coach. Bound for Cincinnati, No. 1 was a flyer, known for speed, but was late by anywhere from thirty minutes to several hours, depending on which newspaper you read.

Engineer Harvey Thomas of Springfield had the throttle wide open in an effort to make up the time. He said the train was rolling south about a mile a minute on the downgrade stretch from Berwick.

The dining car left the track first about two or three hundred feet before the crossing and bumped along on the ties for a hundred yards or so. It turned on its side and hauled the day coach over with it. The two cars were dragged along behind the rest of the train for another 150 feet and into the crossing. The elevation of the road at that point caused the two cars to detach from the baggage car and tumble over a steep embankment, snapping off telegraph poles as they rolled. They landed in a ravine on their sides, parallel to the track.

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