Railway accident from Rogers Pass

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Clean-up after the accident on March 5, 1910

The rail accident at Rogers Pass , British Columbia , Canada , was an avalanche disaster on March 4, 1910, in which 62 railroad workers were killed, only one survived. It is the worst avalanche accident in Canada to date.

Starting position

The Rogers Pass was with 1330  m the highest point of the transcontinental railroad connection of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the Selkirk Mountains . Since the line was opened in 1885, there have been problems every winter to maintain the operation of what was then the only transcontinental connection, because at times up to 12 m of snow covered the line. In the 25 years of operation of the line up to the disaster of 1910, 200 people had already been killed by avalanches. The most critical part of the route was protected with 31 avalanche protection structures with a total length of 6.5 km. Most of the route was without this protection and had to be cleared again and again.

From the end of February 1910 it snowed continuously for days during a blizzard and the railway line became impassable again. The temperature then rose sharply, making the snow wet and heavy, which increased the risk of avalanches. A few days earlier, south of Rogers Pass, 96 people died on two trains in the Wellington railway accident , also an avalanche, in the train station of Wellington , Washington State , in the Cascade Mountains .

the accident

On March 4, 1910, a construction train was sent to the track at Rogers Pass after masses of snow had slid from Cheops Mountain onto the railway line. A snow plow was included . The train was pulled by a 91-ton steam locomotive . Since the passage of train No. 97 to Vancouver was expected, work on clearing the route continued until late at night. At about 11:30 p.m., a second avalanche came down from the slope opposite that of the first avalanche and buried the clearing team, the train and about 400 m of track under them. The locomotive and the snow plow were thrown 15 m from the track by the force of the avalanche and came to rest upside down. The train's wooden wagons were crushed.

consequences

Of the 63 men on the train, only one survived - this one, however, unharmed. 32 Japanese workers were among the dead . After the news of the disaster in nearby Revelstoke arrived, a relief train with 200 railroad workers, doctors and nurses was dispatched from there. However, they did not find any survivors who should have been cared for. All they could do was dig up the victims and the train, which was buried under a blanket of snow up to 10 m high. Initially, only 58 dead could be recovered, the remaining four were only found after the snow melted.

The rail accident at Rogers Pass made it clear that this form of operation of the line was unsustainable. From 1913 the more than 8 km long Connaught Tunnel was created through Mount Macdonald , which went into operation in 1916. In 1988 it was supplemented by the 90 m lower, 14.7 km long Mount Macdonald Tunnel .

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Katie Findlay: "Preparations for Rogers Pass memorial ceremony in Grizzly Plaza underway. In: Revelstoke Times Review of March 1, 2010 ( Memento of March 10, 2010 in the Internet Archive ).
  2. ↑ The History of the Rogers Pass crossing - English .
  3. ↑ The Deadly Avalanches of 1910 - English.
  4. ^ Rogers Pass Avalanche ( Memento of March 5, 2012 in the Internet Archive ).
  5. ^ Haine, p. 147f

Coordinates: 51 ° 17 ′ 0 ″  N , 117 ° 31 ′ 0 ″  W.