American railway accidents Pt. I
cient distance to insure full protection to his train. Considering the conditions of grade and alignment, and knowing that the rear end of his train was standing at a particularly dangerous place, he should have made a special effort to get back at least as far as the point of the tangent west of where his train was standing. He had time to get back to that point had he made an ef- fort to do so, as the evidence is positive that his train was standing at Steam- boat Rock between 12 and 17 minutes before the collision. “Conductor Curran and Engineman Henderson of train Extra 433 also ex- hibited poor judgment in not putting their train on the sidetrack while doing their work at Steamboat Rock. They
knew they were on the time of train No. 94, but were within their rights, as un- der the rules in force third class and ex- tra trains are permitted to proceed upon the time of second class train mov- ing in the same direction. It was doubt- ful that they would be able to complete their work in time to permit that to go to Eldora [to clear for passenger train 101], good judgment should have in- duced them to put their train into the siding in the first instance.” The engineer and conductor of Train
94 also shared in the disapproval of the ICC. M&StL Rule 93b is clear: Rule 93a does not relieve any train
(except first class trains) of approach- ing and passing through all station and yard limits absolutely under con-
trol and all cases the responsibility for safety will rest with the crew of the ap- proaching train regardless of any and all conditions.3 This is an interesting example of a
story within a story. A lawsuit devolv- ing from this accident was decided by the Iowa Supreme Court more than two-and-a-half years later. On March 2, 1913, a 20-year old
farmer from Sheffield, Iowa with the surname Ingebretsen (I can find no record of his Christian name), loaded a stock car with cattle and booked the drover’s fare to accompany his proper- ty to Chicago. The first part of the jour- ney was to be in a M&StL caboose. Upon arriving at Steamboat Rock, Hardin County, Iowa, on this road, the
The IC’s fatal wreck at Kimmundy, Ill. A number of preventable missteps led to this disaster/Dave Lambert
I
t is almost trivially obvious that a train wreck is something the management of a railroad would rather do without. Even if the damage and the inconvenience are minimal, a wreck is still a very public admission that something went wrong. The cause could be mechanical failure or it could be human er- ror–either way the result is still a black eye for the company. Imagine this scenario, however. Your rail-
road endures a rear-end collision involving two of its most noted passenger trains. Worse yet, the wreck occurs on a table-top level stretch of your line on a 29-mile tangent and on a night where the depot train order signal beside which it occurred could be seen for more than two miles in either direc- tion.
The worst is yet to come. The train rear-
ended was carrying the personal business car of the second vice-president of a con- necting railroad that night. In this business car was that company’s vice president and your company’s warmly regarded retired president. Both men died in their sleep. The engineer of the striking train was one
of your best, most highly admired and senior enginemen. To tie this entire sorry incident into a neat package, the Interstate Com- merce Commission’s accident report indicts your entire operating practices as being par- tially complicit. Since two prominent captains of industry
were killed in this wreck, it became a national newspaper sensation. This is unfortunate accident morphing to absolute catastrophe. Yet, this is precisely what happened to the
Illinois Central Railroad on the lamentable early morning of Monday, January 22, 1912, at the small coal-mining town of Kinmundy, Illinois. Kinmundy is on the Illinois Central’s double track mainline from Centralia to Chicago. Between Effingham and Kin- mundy–a distance of 29.74 miles, the rail-
78
road was entirely a tangent except for a less than 1° curve north of Kinmundy. Between Edgewood, the last night operator station to the north of Kinmundy, and Kinmundy–a dis- tance of 14.4 rail miles, the railroad is as straight as a die. There are no line-of-sight obstructions near the accident site. A quick look at Google Earth®
dantly clear. There were no block signals on this por-
tion of the Illinois Central. The road was op- erated by time card and dispatcher’s orders. Company rules state that trains in the same direction running on the same track must be a minimum of ten minutes apart. Due to ex- tremely cold weather, southbound traffic on the line was under an operating order direct- ing all trains to take water at Kinmundy. The penstock for this was located just north of the depot. A second order called for a speed re- duction to 10 m.p.h. south of Kinmundy be- cause of work at an interlocking plant (with the now-defunct crossing of the C&EI’s Salem to St. Elmo line) 3,000-feet to the south. Thus, the table is set for what was about to happen. Train 25, the New Orleans Express, was
an all-coach train which departed Chicago Central Station at 5:50 p.m. Sunday evening. The consist of Train 25 this night was as fol- lows:
Engine 2012 with Engineer Strode IC steel postal car 76 IC steel baggage-express car 684 IC steel “compartment” coach 3117 IC steel chair car 2126 IC steel chair car 2122 Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific business
car 1902–all wood construction Total train mass: 567.8 tons
The all-Pullman Train 3, the Panama Limit-
ed, which departed Chicago Central Station that same evening at 7:00 PM, consisted of: Engine 1079 with Engineer Robert E. Stuart
makes this point abun-
IC steel baggage-express car 677 Wooden Pullman Juno IC wooden dining car 3063 Wooden Pullman Mignon Wooden Pullman Rochester Wooden Pullman Camillo Wooden Pullman Bezard IC steel observation smoker 3853 Total train mass: 748.6 tons1
Riding in the Rock Island business car that
evening were the railroad official to whom it was assigned, Mr. Frank O. Melcher, the Rock Island’s second vice-president; that railroad’s general counsel, Mr. Edward B. Pierce; Mr. Pierce’s assistant counsel, El- bridge E. Wright and James T. Harahan.2 Until nearly a year prior to this wreck, Mr.
Harahan had been the president of the Illi- nois Central Railroad. On January 12, 1911, he retired and was succeeded by his close friend and confidante, Charles H. Markham. It can hardly be disputed that the reason for Mr. Harahan’s presence on the car that night was as Mr. Markham’s representative. Frank Melcher was a civil engineering graduate (class of 1895) of Tufts University and was a rising star in the Rock Island universe. As all four of these men were killed in the
wreck, the nature of their talks is not known. At Effingham, 29.7 miles north of Kin-
mundy, Train 25 had to flag Train 3 and hold it for 14 minutes while the former took on mail. At that point, Train 25 was 34 minutes late and Train 3 was 14 minutes late. The record clearly shows that the trains departed Effing- ham the required 10 minutes apart. As a result of the events at Effingham, the conductor of Train 25 was well aware that Train 3 was hot on his tail and instructed his flagman to drop cautionary fusees and be prepared to flag Train 3 during its stop at Kin- mundy. The flagman, riding in the rear vestibule of the last coach (instead of re- quired last car of the train) did not drop the
JULY 2012
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116