1953 — Mar 27, three trains (2 passenger, 1 freight) involved in collision ~Conneaut, OH, in PA–21

–22 AP. “22 Dead, 62 Hurt in 3-Train Crash.” Sunday News Journal, Middletown, OH. 3-29-1953, p. 1.
–21 AP. “Main Tracks of Central…Cleared…21 Killed in Wreck…” Daily Review, Towanda, PA. 3-30-1953, p1.
–21 AP. “Property Loss Over Million in Train Crash.” Gettysburg Times, PA. 3-30-1953, p. 1.
–21 Reed, R.C. Train Wrecks: A Pictorial History of Accidents on The Main Line. 1968, p. 67.
–21 Wikipedia. “List of Rail Accidents (1950-1999).”

Narrative Information

Reed: “The danger of a head-on collision is not eliminated on railroads with double track. Such accidents can occur as well on multiple track it a train is derailed and fouls the path of another. Such accidents of blocking the path of another train are especially dangerous on heavily trafficked lines where trains run at frequent intervals, often at speeds of 70 or 80 miles per hour.

“On the night of March 27, 1953, such a collision occurred on the busy multiple track on the New York Central Railroad near Conneaut, Ohio. Four trains were involved on the four track line. As two freight trains were passing each other in opposite directions, a flagman on the caboose of the westbound train 1736 noticed sparks flying from the running from the running gear of a car on the eastbound freight 1871. As he signaled this news, a passenger train, The Mohawk, bound west, began to overtake and pass No. 1736. This passenger train traveling at 76 miles an hour very suddenly swerved and plunged into the side of the freight. The passenger train was totally derailed as was most of freight 1736. Wrecked cars and debris were scattered over the multiple track.

“Just a moment after this side collision the Southwestern Ltd., coming at seventy miles an hour, smashed into the wreckage. Eight cars of the two passenger trains were demolished: the first two cars from the Southwestern and the first six from the Mohawk. Nine more cars of the Southwestern were derailed. Twenty-one passengers were killed in the violent collision.

“The cause of the multiple wreck was improperly loaded cargo. A load of metal pipe on a gondola car, not securely loaded, fell from the car. One section of the thirteen-inch pipe fell on the adjacent track. This piece of pipe is what caused the Mohawk to swerve into the freight.” (Reed, R.C. Train Wrecks: A Pictorial History of Accidents on The Main Line. 1968, pp. 66-67.)

Wikipedia: “March 27, 1953 – Conneaut, Ohio, United States: Three New York Central trains tangle near Conneaut on the four-track mainline on the night of March 27. Twenty-one passengers die. Cause is found to be an improperly secured gondola load – a section of 13-inch (330 mm) pipe fell from a freight car onto the adjacent track, getting struck by a passenger train.” (Wikipedia. “List of Rail Accidents (1950-1999).”)

Newspapers

March 28: “Conneaut, O. – Twenty bodies were recovered today from the twisted wreckage of two crack New York Central passenger trains which Friday night rammed into a derailed freight in a rainstorm on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. W. C. Mulligan, deputy coroner on Erie County, Pa., in whose jurisdiction the ‘freak’ wreck occurred said rescuers told him 20 bodies were recovered and sent to the morgue at Erie, Pa. Over 100 of an estimated 400 persons aboard the speedy trains were injured – the majority of them suffering shock, cuts and bruises, according to Mulligan.

“The NYC [New York Central rail] said 11 of 16 bodies received at the morgue had been identified. The number of bodies in the wreckage which lay over a half mile area varied from 20 to 25. A New York Central police lieutenant J. Darmstadt, said ‘my guess is that 24 or 25 bodies have been recovered.’ NYC General Manager Charles F. Wiggley, who toured the site today, said ‘I don’t know and I can’t say how many fatals there are. There’s always a chance we’ll find more every time we lift some of the wreckage.’

“The wreck occurred Friday night, two miles east of this border town and several hundred yards inside the Pennsylvania border.

“Erie trainmaster William Sprunk said steel casings 12 to 14 feet in diameter, and 20 feet long either fell or shifted on the car of a freight train and derailed it.

“Within moments, speeding passenger trains approaching from opposite directions along the four-track main line smashed into the derailed freight. ‘It just happened almost simultaneously,’ Sprunk said. ‘There was no time to flag anyone down.’

“Wreckage was flung for half a mile and five passenger cars were turned on their sides at right angles too the twisted tracks.

“The train approaching from the west was the Southwest Limited, crack St. Louis to New York passenger train. Nine of its 12 cars were derailed as it plowed into the disabled freight. E. C. Green, Cleveland, engineer of the Southwest Limited, and his fireman, D. M. Bowen, Conneaut, escaped serious injury. He said the train was ‘going along at about 75 m.p.h., and I saw the other train approaching. There were sparks and I realized he had braked. ‘Suddenly I saw the fifth coach in his train jackknife over my tracks; it hit us like a slap in the face.’

“The Chicago Special, speeding from Buffalo to Chicago, hit the opposite end of the freight almost at the same moment. Ten of its 11 cars left the track….

“Sgt. John Gosling of the Ohio State Highway Patrol, who directed patrol operations from the Ashtabula sub-station about 10 miles from the wreck scene, said workers were forced to ‘just pile up the dead alongside the tracks’ and turn their attention to the injured.

“Relief trains from Erie and Ashtabula were backed up to each end of the wreckage and the injured were loaded aboard. Pennsylvania officers said 150 injured were aboard the train which returned to Erie. An undetermined number were aboard the train which returned to Ashtabula. The two relief trains carried Red Cross disaster teams and medical supplies including plasma.

“At the scene, doctors and nurses from nearby Ohio and Pennsylvania towns and villages administered first aid as volunteers brought casualties from the wreckage.

“The wreck scene was accessible only by a narrow dirt road running about one half mile from U.S. Highway 20, the main artery between Columbus, O., and Buffalo, N.Y. As reports of the accident spread, hundreds of curious jammed the area with automobiles making it even more difficult for ambulances to reach the scene.

“All four of the Central’s main line tracks were blocked by the wreckage and the railroad was rerouting westbound traffic through Canada and eastbound trains over the Nickel Plate line.” (Chronicle-Telegram, Elyria, OH. “20 Known Dead in Rail Wreck. 2 Fast Trains Hit Derailed Freight. Over 100 Injured.” 3-38-1953, p. 1.)

March 29, AP: “A grimy, red-eyed band of rescue workers today dug doggedly at the twisted skeletons of 19 railroad coaches in search of more victims of an unbelievable, three-train wreck.

“They have found 22 bodies, and there was a possibility at least one more might be in the wreckage, Erie County Coroner Warren Wood said. One body was found late today when fingers were seen sticking up from a cinder bed. Some of the dead still were unidentified.

“Sixty-two injured – only one, critically – were in hospitals here and in Ashtabula and Erie, Pa.

“The odds against the accident were a million to one. The trains – one freight and two passenger flyers – happened to be almost exactly at the same spot at 10 o’clock, EST, last night.

“The scene was a desolate section of the New York Central mainline in Western Pennsylvania, one-half mile from the Ohio line. There are four tracks. The inner tracks are used by passenger trains. Freight trains use the outer ones.

“At exactly 10 o’clock an 18-inch pipe 35 feet long fell from an eastbound freight. It bent a rail on the westbound passenger tracks. At that instant, the westbound Buffalo-to-Chicago Express came roaring past at 80 miles an hour and hit the bent rail. The locomotive wrecked the freight and the freight cars spun from the tracks and, in turn, wrecked the flyer.

“In seconds, the headlight of the St. Louis-to-New York Southwestern Limited split the night, flared briefly across the tangled wreckage in its path and piled headlong at 80 miles an hour into the welter of twisted steel and broken bodies….

“….400 persons [were] involved in the wrecks….

“The wrecked cars, thrashing like alligators in the rapid-fire impacts, had sheared off telegraph poles. There was no communication with the rest of the world. A railroad man – his heart nearly bursting – ran three miles to carry word of the catastrophe and to summon outside aid….

“About 150 passengers needed help. More than 60 later were taken to hospitals.

“The rescue work went on for hours. Professional rescue men pried with crowbars and cut through metal with acetylene torches….

“The more seriously injured were taken to hospitals at Conneaut, Ashtabula, O., and Erie, Pa….”
(Associated Press. “22 Dead, 62 Hurt in 3-Train Crash.” Sunday News Journal, Middletown, OH 3-29-1953, p. 1.)

March 29, AP: “Erie, Pa., March 29 (AP) – Two main tracks of the New York Central Railroad, cleared of twisted wreckage in a one-in-a-million triple train crash, opened today for traffic.

“Only the body of a woman remains to be identified of the 21 persons killed in the smashup of two crack NYC passenger trains and a derailed freight Friday night….

“D. W. Dice, assistant superintendent of NYC’s Erie Division, said it will be sometime next week before the cleanup job is completed and derailed cars up-righted.

“The NYC gave this version of the crash: Some stakes broke off the north side of a gondola car in an east-bound freight train, allowing a few links of an 18-inch pipe to fall off. One of the pipes struck the north rail of the westbound passenger track. Seconds later, the Buffalo to Chicago express, No. 5, was derailed on account of the kinked rail. Some of its cars sashed [slashed?] into a westbound freight train, derailing several freight cars. At the same time, most of No. 5’s cars derailed in both directions, blocking the eastbound passenger track. No. 12, the Southwestern Limited, roared through the night on the eastbound passenger tracks and piled into No. 5’s cars….”
(Associated Press . “Main Tracks of Central Are Cleared. Of 21 Killed in Wreck, One Body Still is Unidentified.” Daily Review, Towanda, PA. 3-30-1953, p. 1.)

Sources

Associated Press. “22 Dead, 62 Hurt in 3-Train Crash.” Sunday News Journal, Middletown, OH 3-29-1953. Accessed 5-19-2023 at:
https://newspaperarchive.com/middletown-sunday-news-journal-mar-29-1953-p-1/

Associated Press . “Main Tracks of Central Are Cleared. Of 21 Killed in Wreck, One Body Still is Unidentified.” Daily Review, Towanda, PA. 3-30-1953, p. 1. Accessed 5-20-2023 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/towanda-daily-review-mar-30-1953-p-1/

Associated Press. “Property Loss Over Million in Train Crash.” Gettysburg Times, PA. 3-30-1953, p. 1. Accessed 5-20-2023 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/gettysburg-times-mar-31-1953-p-10/

Chronicle-Telegram, Elyria, OH. “20 Known Dead in Rail Wreck. 2 Fast Trains Hit Derailed Freight. Over 100 Injured.” 3-38-1953, p. 1. Accessed 5-20-2023 at: https://newspaperarchive.com

Reed, Robert C. Train Wrecks: A Pictorial History of Accidents on The Main Line. New York: Bonanza Books, 1968.

Wikipedia. “List of Rail Accidents (1950-1999).” Accessed 7-18-2018 at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_1950-1999_rail_accidents