1938 — June 19, Flash flood, bridge fails, train-cars fall into Custer Creek ~Saugus, MT–47

— 47 Cornell, James. The Great International Disaster Book (Third Edition). 1982, p. 438.
— 47 Haine, Edgar A. Railroad Wrecks. New York: Cornwall Books, 1993, p. 107.
— 47 Nash, Jay Robert. Darkest Hours. 1977, pp. 739.
— 47 NY Times. “Denies Wreck Negligence. I.C.C. Finds no Human Error…” 8-21-1938, p. 31.
— 47 Shaw, Robert B. Down Brakes: A History of Railway Accidents… 1961, pp. 361 and 483.
— 47 Wikipedia. “List of Rail Accidents (Pre-1950).”
— 46 History.com. This Day in History, Disaster, June 19, 1938, “Montana Flood Causes…”

Narrative Information

Cornell: “The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, and Pacific Railroad’s Olympian Flyer crashed through a storm-damaged bridge near Miles City, Montana, and 47 people drowned as the cars fell into flooded Custer Creek.” (Cornell, James. The Great International Disaster Book (Third Edition). 1982, p. 438.)

Haine: “….The train was enroute from Chicago to Tacoma, Washington and included a baggage car, a mail car, a smoking car, several day coaches, and two tourist sleeping cars….Survivors later stated the cars sailed momentarily through the air and struck the far bank of the creek, piled up on each other, and then fell back into twenty feet of water.

“Rescue efforts were quickly and frantically mounted by uninjured passengers and train crew members, who had to smash windows of partly submerged cars to provide an escape route for trapped persons. It was estimated 20 to 25 people were saved in this manner….” (Haine, Edgar A. Railroad Wrecks. New York: Cornwall Books, 1993, pp. 106-107.)

History.com: “On this day in 1938, a flood in Montana kills 46 people and seriously injures more than 60 when it washes out train tracks.

“Custer Creek is a small winding river that runs through 25 miles of the Great Plains on its way to the Yellowstone River. Minor streams like Custer Creek are prone to flash floods because their small capacity can quickly and easily be exceeded during heavy rains.

“On the evening of June 19, a track walker was sent out to check the rail lines near Custer Creek in Terry, Montana. He reported dry conditions and no problems with the tracks. However, within just a few hours, a sudden downpour overwhelmed Custer Creek. A bridge used by trains was washed out, and when the Olympian Special came through, it went crashing into the raging waters with no warning….

“Two sleeper cars were buried in the muddy waters. A pitch-black night on the Great Plains made rescue efforts extremely difficult and 46 people lost their lives. The rear cars stayed above the water, but scores of passengers were seriously injured. They could not be evacuated until the following morning.” (History.com. This Day in History…June 19, 1938, “Montana Flood Causes Train Wreck.”)

Nash: “An eleven-car, Milwaukee Railroad passenger train, the Olympian, was wrecked at 12:35 a.m. on June 19, 1938, when a steel trestle over Custer Creek near Saugus, Montana, weakened and collapsed under waters from a flash flood….

“As the bridge started to sag, the first five cars followed the engine and made it safely to the far bank, but the next two cars, which were sleepers, were wrenched away from the other cars and thrown into the raging creek. It was never fully determined how many persons drowned; 47 bodies were later recovered (out of 193 passengers on board) from the flooded Yellowstone River, but more deaths were thought to have occurred…..” (Nash, Jay Robert. Darkest Hours – A Narrative Encyclopedia of Worldwide Disasters…, 1977, p. 510.)

Shaw: “A third accident, on the Milwaukee, near Miles City, Montana, early on the morning of June 19, 1938, was generally similar to the Steele’s Hollow and Lockett disasters, except that a steel girder rather than a wooden bridge was involved here. This bridge, spanning Custer Creek, a tributary of the Yellowstone, was a steel and reinforced concrete structure with an overall length of 180 feet. It consisted, from east to west, of two fifty-foot plate girder spans with adjoining ends resting on a central abutment, followed by five sixteen-foot concrete deck spans. The two easternmost piers standing in the center of the stream were carried down to a firm gravel footing nine feet below the stream bed. The creek was normally dry nine months of the year. The rapid run-ff characteristics of that part of the country had, however, been taken into consideration when the bridge was built, in 1913, and the first three piers, in addition to the depth of their footings, were heavily rip-rapped. No danger was anticipated at this site, and no speed restriction prevailed on this bridge other than the 65 m.p.h. for the division generally.

“On the night of the accident heavy rains had been reported in the territory east of Miles City and the track was being patrolled, but when a foreman crossed the Custer Creek bridge at about 10:20 the water level was only six or seven feet high, comparing with a sixteen-foot opening under the two main spans, and this was not considered enough to cause alarm.

“But although it was not raining in the immediate vicinity of this bridge, an unprecedented cloudburst a few miles north, about midnight sent a twenty-foot wall of water down upon the bridge, which skewed the first main pier from its normal position. Tus weakened, the bridge collapsed without warning under the weight of the eleven-car westbound Olympian, at 12:35 a.m. The locomotive and first five cars were carried by their momentum beyond the west bank of the stream, but two tourist sleepers fell directly into the flood, where they were completely submerged. The last four cars remained on the rails, at the east side of the river, and were later hauled back to complete their journey over the Northern Pacific. There were believed to have been 193 persons aboard the train; forth-seven of them, including both engineman, were killed, mostly by drowning. As several bodies were taken out of the Yellowstone River at Glendive fifty miles away, it is possible that still others were never recovered, and the death toll may not be precise.” (Shaw, Robert B. Down Brakes: A History of Railway Accidents… 1961, p. 360-361.)

Wikipedia: “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.” (Wikipedia. “List of Rail Accidents (Pre-1950).”)

Newspaper

Aug 20: “Washington, Aug. 20. – The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad was absolved by the Interstate Commerce Commission today of negligence in the wreck of its crack flyer, the Olympian, near Saugus, Mont., June 19, when forty-seven persons were killed and seventy-five injured. The commission’s bureau of safety reached its conclusion in seventeen words: ‘This accident was caused by the undermining of the piers of a bridge, due to a cloudburst.’

“The report said that the bridge and the tracks had ample safety margins and were well maintained and that the train, according to all testimony, was proceeding at less than the permissible speed, but that the sudden increase of water in the creek bed from a two or three-feet maximum to more than twenty feet was more than the bridge could stand.” (New York Times. “Denies Wreck Negligence. I.C.C. Finds no Human Error in Milwaukee Train Plunge.” 8-21-1938, p. 31.)

Sources

Cornell, James. The Great International Disaster Book (Third Edition). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982.

Haine, Edgar A. Railroad Wrecks. New York: Cornwall Books, 1993.

History.com. This Day in History, Disaster, June 19, 1938. “Montana Flood Causes Train Wreck.” Accessed 12-7-2008 at: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&displayDate=06/19&categoryId=disaster

Nash, Jay Robert. Darkest Hours – A Narrative Encyclopedia of Worldwide Disasters from Ancient Times to the Present. New York: Pocket Books, Wallaby, 1977, 792 pages.

New York Times. “Denies Wreck Negligence. I.C.C. Finds no Human Error in Milwaukee Train Plunge.” 8-21-1938, p. 31. Accessed 7-31-2020 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1938/08/21/issue.html

Shaw, Robert B. Down Brakes: A History of Railway Accidents, Safety Precautions and Operating Practices in the United States. London & Geneva: P.R. MacMillan Limited, 1961.

Wikipedia. “List of Rail Accidents (Pre-1950).” Accessed at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pre-1950_rail_accidents