1921 — Dec 5, Trains collide/burn, Philadelphia and Reading RR ~Bryn Athyn, PA –26-27
–26-27 Blanchard estimate.[1]
–27 AP. “Seriousness of Wreck is Unknown to Engineer of…Reading Train.” 12-14-1921, p. 6.
–27 ICC. Summary of Accident Investigation Reports No. 10, October-December 1921, p. 18.
–27 Tyrone Daily Herald, PA. “27 Perished in Bryn Athyn Crash.” 12-7-1921, p. 1.
–26 Adams and Seibold. Great Train Wrecks of Eastern Pennsylvania. 1992, p. 165.[2]
–26 AP. “Train Crew Held Responsible…Reading Wreck.” Lock Haven Express, 12-20-1921, p. 1.
–26 AP. “Jury Finds Engineer and Conductor Guilty.” Titusville Herald, PA. 2-20-1922, p. 4.
–26 UP. “P. & R. Statement is to be Issued Soon.” Lebanon Daily News, PA. 12-9-1921, p. 7.
–23 Adams and Seibold. Great Train Wrecks of Eastern Pennsylvania. 1992, p. 161.[3]
–22 AP. “Twenty-Two Die in Wreck; Many Persons Injured.” Titusville Herald, 12-6-1921, p1.
Narrative Information
ICC: “Head-end collision between two passenger trains near Woodmont, Pa., on December 5, 1921, resulting in the death of 20 passengers, 2 employees on duty, and 5 employees off duty, and the injury of 65 passengers and 5 employees.
“This accident was caused by the failure of the crew of one of the trains to obey a train order establishing a meeting point with the opposing train, and by their failure to observe manual block-signal rules in departing from a block station, with the block signal in the stop position, without securing a clearance card; a contributing cause was the failure of either of one or both of two operators properly to operate the manual block-signal system….
“Westbound passenger and milk train No. 154 consisted of engine 265 and 5 cars. It left Churchville, 5.7 miles from Bryn Athyn and the last block station, at 7.12 a. m., 5 minutes late, and at 7.28 a. m. stopped at signal 716, which was in the stop position. After flagging to the station, doing station work, and receiving a train order to disregard signal 716, train No. 154 backed up to a point about 100 feet east of signal 716 so that train No. 151, a shorter train, might back in on the spur track. After train No. 151 had arrived and backed in on the spur track, train No. 154 proceeded, passing Bryn Athyn station without stopping, according to the operator’s block record, at 7.46 a. m….
“Eastbound passenger train No. 151 consisted of engine 167, 1 combination baggage and passenger car of wooden construction, and 2 coaches of steel-underframe construction…. A stop was made at Paper Mills, 0.7 mile east of Bryn Athyn, after which the train proceeded and had gone about 0.5 mile when, while running at a speed estimated to have been 25 or 30 miles an hour, it collided with train No. 156.
“Engine 167 came to rest bottom up, headed west, and on top of its own tender, while engine 278 was on top of engine 167. The first two cars of train No. 151 and the first car of train No. 156 were partially telescoped. The wreckage took fire immediately, several of the cars being burned. The employees on duty killed were the firemen of the two trains….
“The statements of the operators at each end of the manual block section were very conflicting, while some of the records had been altered, and it was impossible to say which operator was responsible for the improper operation of the block system which permitted train No. 156 to enter the block at Churchville before train No. 154 had cleared the block at Bryn Athyn….” (ICC. Summary of Accident Investigation Reports No. 10, October-December 1921, pp. 18-20)
Adams and Seibold: “‘Coffin Cars’ in ‘Death Gulch’ December 5, 1921, Bryn Athyn, Montgomery County.
“On February 18, 1922 Evans [conductor of up-train No. 151] and engineer Walter Yeakel were found guilty of negligence for their parts in the events which led to the collision. Two days later, they were sentenced to jail for six to nine months, and fined $500 each. The jury hard recommended mercy, and they received it. In May, Pennsylvania’s governor pardoned both men, based on petitions to the state pardon board.
“The pitiful signaling system on the line was cited by the investigators, but the railroad was not held responsible for the wreck. No laws or regulations had been violated.
“But something was becoming quite clear as witness after witness decried the continued use of wooden coaches in the age of steel. The Reading hadn’t purchased steel cars since the turn of the century. Those used the morning of the collision were deemed in good shape, and had been in use for twenty years….” (Adams and Seibold. Gulch Great Train Wrecks of Eastern Pennsylvania. 1992, p. 167.)
Newspapers
Dec 5: “Special to News by United Press. Philadelphia, Dec. 5 — Nine and perhaps a dozen or more persons were killed or burned to death and a score injured near Bryn Athyn, 17 miles north of here, at 7:45 a.m. today when passenger trains No. 151 and No. 156 on the Newton divisions of the Philadelphia and Reading railroad crashed headlong, according to an unofficial report there this afternoon….” (UP. “Nine Killed, 20 Injured in Train Wreck,” Lebanon Daily News, PA, 12-5-1921, p. 1.)
Dec 5: “By Associated Press. Philadelphia, Dec. 5. Additional bodies recovered from the smouldering debris and deaths of two of the injured tonight increased the list of fatalities as a result of the head-on collision between Philadelphia and Reading railway suburban passenger trains today to twenty-two. Four of the twenty-five or more injured were reported into tonight to be in a critical condition. It is feared other bodies still are concealed by the hot ashes and twisted framework of the two wooden coaches which caught fire and burned to atoms….Most of the victims perished from the effects of the flames which broke out almost immediately after the collision. Both trains were made up of wooden coaches and burned rapidly when the blazing coals from the twisted hulks of the locomotives were showered upon them.
“Rescuers were obliged to stand helpless at the top of the cut where the crash occurred while the victims imprisoned in the wreckage shrieked as the flames trapped them in the inferno. The accident occurred when an outbound train from Philadelphia ran into an inbound train from Newtown in a thirty-five foot deep cut, narrow and curved. Its sides were covered with snow and ice, and it was with the greatest difficulty that they were dragged to the top….
“A statement issued from the railway offices said the accident ‘seems to be due to Train 151 (that from Philadelphia) overrunning its orders.’ An investigation has been ordered by the state, while Bucks county officials have announced that they will conduct a third one.
“The scene of the accident is located between the Woodmont and Paper Mills stations just north of Bryn Athyn. The road is single tracked. The southbound train, a popular one for commuters along the branch who work in Philadelphia, makes no stops between Southampton and Bryn Athyn. The outbound train usually waits on a siding for it to pass. The engineer is said to have waited for ten minutes and when a local that was late passed, to have assumed it to be the other and proceeded. The curve with its steep, rocky walls hid each of the coming trains from the engineer of the other. Full in the middle of the cut the two locomotives crashed. The locomotive of the northbound train rose in the air, and then toppled backward, falling upside down over the track, its smoke stacks crashing through the tender and a part of the first car. The nose of the southbound locomotive veered to the east and wedged itself in between the rock wall and the wreckage….” (Associated Press. “Twenty-Two Die in Wreck; Many Persons Injured.” Titusville Herald, PA. 12-6-1921, p. 1.)
Dec 7: “Philadelphia, Dec 7.–Official investigation to determine the responsibility for the cause of the wreck in which at least 27 persons lost their lives…was begun behind closed doors in the office of the superintendent of the New York division, in the Reading Terminal. Prior to the opening of the investigation session a statement was issued by Charles H. Ewing, vice president of the Reading railway, in which he declared that ‘gross violation’ of definite running orders and an ignored block signal was responsible for the wreck.
“He issued the following statement:
Two copies of the following order, written on the standard form, were given train No. 151 at Bryn Athyn and train No. 156 at Churchville:
No. 151 will meet No. 156 at Bryn Athyn. No. 151 take siding.
This order was received by train No. 151 at Bryn Athyn and signed for at 7.46 A.M. Notwithstanding the fact that train No. 151 was stopped at Bryn Athyn and was on the siding with this order in its possession, the train left Bryn Athyn without waiting for train No. 156, in violation of this order and of the block signal properly displayed at this point.
We are wholly at a loss to account for this gross violation of the order and rules, except that it was an un-explainable failure of the human agency.
“….Identified dead–
Louis Johnson, Southampton;
Edgar Brehm, Churchville;
Elmer W. Ransom, ticket agent at Woodmont Station;
John Krusen, 6, son of Mr. and Mrs. J. Herbert Krusen, of Newtown;
John Harrington, a trainman;
George H. Potter, of Cairo, Ill.;
John Price, colored, Philadelphia;
Edward Vogel, train fireman, of Byers, Pa.;
John L. Saunders, colored, Philadelphia;
Alexander Radcliffe, Philadelphia;
Dr. J. Irvin Hatch, a dentist, of Newtown, who had offices in Philadelphia;
Miss Emma Leedom, Southampton;
Andrew Saalmiller, Philadelphia.
“Fourteen are Missing….[list of thirteen]….
“It was generally admitted that because of the circumstances of the wreck and the total fire that followed it the exact toll of the tragedy will never be determined….” (Tyrone Daily Herald, PA. “27 Perished in Bryn Athyn Crash.” 12-7-1921, p. 1.)
Dec 8: “Philadelphia, Dec. 8–Investigation of details entering into the fatal crash of Philadelphia & Reading. Railway trains near Bryn Athyn Monday morning, carried out on the scene of the wreck by officials of the railroad, members of the Interstate Commerce Commission Tuesday, disclosed the following:
“The regular routine of train crews on the Newtown branch was disrupted, causing a change in procedure which led to the confusion of trains and the head-on collision, by the breaking down on Monday of the block signal at Huntingdon Valley, the first station below Bryn Athyn, where the down-coming milk train No. 154, customarily passed the upbound local No. 151.
“There is no signal of any kind on the tortuous single track line between Bryn Athyn and Churchville, a distance of 5.6 miles.
“All signals on the Newtown branch from Huntingdon Valley northward are of the semaphore type , operated by hand by the station agents.
“The Bryn Athyn siding is equipped with a derailing device, which had to be closed to permit the milk train to pass and opened again before the local could get off the siding and proceed north. The crew of the local pulled the switch themselves and proceeded even before orders had been completed. Both the engineer and conductor were equally responsible for this breach of regulations.” (Star and Sentinel, Gettysburg, PA. “Blame Two For Head-on Crash.” 12-10-1921, p. 5.)
Dec 9: “Philadelphia, Dec. 9….In a formal answer to a list of questions submitted to him the day after the wreck, which took 26 lives, President Agnew T. Dice of the road [Philadelphia and Reading] last night declared that incomple [unclear] of readjustment following government control had forced the railroad to cease its former policy of replacing a certain number of wooden coaches annually with steel cars.
“The wooden coaches used by the road were held responsible in large part for the great loss of life. The statement said the Reading now has in service 340 wooden cars, 90 steel under-frame cars, and 205 all-steel coaches. Dice said it would cost the company $17,000,000 to equip all trains with steel cars, which he said the road was unable to do at this time.” (United Press. “P. & R. Statement is to be Issued Soon.” Lebanon Daily News, PA. 12-9-1921, p. 7.)
Dec 20: “By Associated Press. Norristown, Pa., Dec. 20.–The Montgomery county coroner’s jury today rendered a verdict holding the north bund train crew responsible for the wreck on the reading railway at Bryn Athyn on December 5, in which 26 persons lost their lives. Warrants will be issue for the arrest of two members of the crew. The members of the crew are Charles Evans, conductor; Walter Yeakel, engineer, still in the Abington hospital; F. Laberto baggage master, and Warren Gee, trainman. Except Yeakel they probably will be arraigned this afternoon.
“The verdict was reached after 12 minutes’ deliberation. After reciting where and how the hear-on collision occurred, the verdict said:
The jury finds the collision was due to the negligence of the crew of train Number 151 in failing to obey orders of the train dispatcher.
“The railway company completed its investigation a week ago and gave out a statement blaming the crew of the north bound train as responsible for the head-on collision.
“William Yeakel and James Rook, engineers of the two trains were unable to be present because of their injuries. Charles Evans, conductor of the north bound train, was at the inquest and was represented by counsel.
“Coroner Neville presided at the inquest and the witnesses were examined by District Attorney Renninger.
“After Lee S. Hagerman, a Jenkintown undertaker had testified that he had taken charge of 26 bodies or fragments of bodies, William Smith, conductor of the south bound train testified that he had orders giving him the right of way to Bryn Athyn and proceeded on those orders. Ordinarily, he said, the right of way was given to north Bound trains.” (Associated Press. “Train Crew Held Responsible for Reading Wreck.” Lock Haven Express, 12-20-1921, p. 1.)
Feb 19, 1922: “By Associated Press. Norristown, Pa. Feb. 19.–Charles Evans, conductor, and Walter Yeakel, engineer, were found guilty of negligence in connection with the Bryn Athyn wreck on the Philadelphia and Reading railroad last December in which twenty-six persons were killed. The jury recommended mercy. Pending motions for a new trial, the two men were released on $5,000 bail. The jury was out more than twenty hours and took about 200 ballots.
“Evans and Yeakel were in charge of the train, which left Philadelphia for Newton, on Dec. 5. It was testified that this train had orders to wait on a siding at Bryn Athyn until a south bound express from Newton for Philadelphia had passed. This according to testimony, the north bound train failed to do, but proceeded after a milk train had passed south, and collided with the express in a deep cut.” (Associated Press. “Jury Finds Engineer and Conductor Guilty.” Titusville Herald, PA. 2-20-1922, p. 4.)
Sources
Adams, Charles J. III and David J. Seibold. Great Train Wrecks of Eastern Pennsylvania. Reading, PA: Exeter House Books, 1992.
Associated Press. “Jury Finds Engineer and Conductor Guilty.” Titusville Herald, PA. 2-20-1922, p. 4. Accessed 9-15-2017 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/titusville-herald-feb-20-1922-p-4/?tag
Associated Press. “Seriousness of Wreck is Unknown to Engineer of Ill-fated Reading Train.” Titusville Herald, PA, 12-14-1921, p. 6. Accessed 9-13-2017 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/titusville-herald-dec-14-1921-p-6/?tag
Associated Press. “Train Crew Held Responsible for Reading Wreck.” Lock Haven Express, PA, 12-20-1921, p. 1. Accessed 9-15-2017 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/lock-haven-express-dec-20-1921-p-1/?tag
Associated Press. “Twenty-Two Die in Wreck; Many Persons Injured.” Titusville Herald, PA. 12-6-1921, p. 1. Accessed 9-13-2017 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/titusville-herald-dec-06-1921/
Star and Sentinel, Gettysburg, PA. “Blame Two For Head-on Crash.” 12-10-1921, p. 5. Accessed 9-15-2017 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/gettysburg-star-and-sentinel-dec-10-1921-p-5/?tag
Tyrone Daily Herald, PA. “27 Perished in Bryn Athyn Crash.” 12-7-1921, p. 1. Accessed 9-13-2017 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/tyrone-daily-herald-dec-07-1921-p-1/?tag
United Press. “Nine Killed, 20 Injured in Train Wreck,” Lebanon Daily News, PA, 12-5-1921, p. 1. Accessed 9-13-2017 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/lebanon-daily-news-dec-05-1921/
United Press. “P. & R. Statement is to be Issued Soon.” Lebanon Daily News, PA. 12-9-1921, p. 7. Accessed 9-13-2017 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/lebanon-daily-news-dec-09-1921-p-7/?tag
United States Interstate Commerce Commission. Summary of Accident Investigation Reports No. 10, October, November, and December 1921. Wash., DC: GPO, 1922. Google digitized [at p. 454]: http://books.google.com/books?id=c3zNAAAAMAAJ&printsec=titlepage&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0
[1] From news reports at the time (up to Feb 19, 1922 when we stopped our search), it appears there were 26 fatalities. However, we find it questionable to ignore the figure of twenty-seven fatalities in the ICC report. Given that victims were dismembered an in some cases incinerated, it should not be too surprising that there was some uncertainty as to the number of fatalities. Thus we choose to use the range of 26-27.
[2] “Montgomery County Coroner William Neville…commented that the wooden coaches were contributing factors to the high death toll. That count was to reach 26, after all remains were accounted for in the morgues and mortuaries to which the ashes and bodies were taken.”
[3] “After the accident, locals took to calling the deep cut in which 23 people were killed ‘death gulch,’ or the ‘valley of death.’”