Camp Hill Railroad Accident

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The Camp Hill rail accident was a head-on collision between two trains. It happened on the morning of July 17, 1856 on a single-track line at Wissahickon (now Ambler , Pennsylvania ) on the North Pennsylvania Railroad near Camp Hill station. The exact number of victims could not be determined. At least 59 people died and more than 100 were injured. It was the worst train accident in the world to date.

Contemporary representation of the accident

Starting position

One of the Roman Catholic Church of St. Michael in Philadelphia ordered excursion train, a so-called "Picnic Special" should their children's services bring -children to a picnic in the near Wissahickon. The train was on the locomotive Shakamaxon drawn. Shakamaxon is the Native American name of the Kensington District in Pennsylvania. The locomotive pulled ten passenger coaches . In the first one a priest drove with the older youth, in the other car there were many children and accompanying women. The number of passengers on this train was between 1,100 and 1,500. Due to the high number of passengers, the departure was delayed by 23 minutes. This was delayed even further because the locomotive was overwhelmed by the attached load and had to make intermediate stops in order to build up sufficient steam pressure again.

In the station of Wissahickon another, occupied by 20 travelers waited scheduled excessive passenger train from Gwynedd with the locomotive Aramingo the Train meeting with the "Picnic Special". There it was only known that the special train was delayed, but not by how much. Without reinsuring himself by telegraph , the train driver sent the train on the line after the usual waiting time of 15 minutes in such cases.

Accident

The engine driver of Shakamaxon knew that a return was expected, but was confident despite the problems with his locomotive that he would reach the overtaking Elle in Edge Hill first and the Train meeting could take place there. To be on the safe side, he continuously operated the steam whistle on the locomotive. The train was rolling down a slope just past Camp Hill station, in a tight, blind curve when it came to the train encounter. The engine driver of the scheduled train had obviously not heard the warning signal. The emergency brakes initiated were no longer sufficient to stop the trains. So the collision occurred at 6:18 a.m. The steam boilers of the locomotives hit each other directly and exploded . The bang could be heard several kilometers away.

consequences

The first three wagons of the "Picnic Special", they were mostly wooden constructions, were badly damaged when they tipped sideways from the track . They immediately began to burn from the embers scattered by the locomotives. The heat development was so great that the travelers trapped there could not be helped. Most of the victims died this way in the flames. As a result, numerous victims could no longer be identified and their number could no longer be precisely determined. Many of the victims were teenagers. The priest accompanying them in the first car and the engine driver on the Shakamaxon were also killed.

Mary Johnson Ambler, a woman who lived about two miles from the scene of the accident, immediately set off with first aid equipment . She arrived at the scene of the accident before a doctor could come and organized the rescue. The work she did at the scene of the accident was so impressive that after her death in 1868, the North Pennsylvania Railroad renamed Wissahickon Station to "Ambler", a name that the entire settlement took over.

The train driver who had sent the train on the line apparently believed himself guilty of the accident. Unharmed, he drove to Philadelphia, made his accident report, went home and committed suicide by ingesting arsenic .

As a token of mourning, rail traffic on the North Pennsylvania Railroad was completely shut down on the Sunday following the accident . The railway company paid compensation to the victims and their dependents.

examination

The investigation into the accident absolved the train driver of the plane train from any fault, but rather considered the behavior of the locomotive driver of the excursion train to be grossly negligent . The course of the accident triggered general criticism of the railway's safety precautions . It was demanded that a separate track be available for each direction of travel and that a telegraphic train notification procedure should be made mandatory.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eyewitness report from the following study by John Spencer of Camp Hill: “ I was looking out of my shop window and saw the train approaching. I saw the down train first, just coming through the cut above Camp Hill station. It was slacking off as much as it could when it came through there. I had just time enough to turn around and saw the up train coming under the bridge at Camp Hill station. It was pretty smart. They were running about as they cleverly could. I heard the whistle on the train coming up before it reached the bridge ... I could not see that the speed of the up train diminished between the time I first saw it and the time of the collision [...] ".
  2. ↑ Kate Hertzog: More Than Petticoats: Remarkable Pennsylvania Women . TwoDot; Morris Book Publishing 2007. ISBN 978-0-7627-3637-9 , p. 176; Enid D. Horowitz: “Mary Johnson Ambler 1805-1868. Heroic Community Member " .

Coordinates: 40 ° 7 ′ 20.8 "  N , 75 ° 11 ′ 42.2"  W.