Harney Railway Accident
In the Harney railway accident on August 12, 1939 - according to official reports after an act of sabotage - the City of San Francisco long-distance train derailed near Harney, Nevada , USA . 24 people died.
Starting position
The City of San Francisco was jointly operated by three railroad companies: the Union Pacific Railroad , the Southern Pacific, and the Chicago and North Western Transportation . The train was driving a route on the Southern Pacific at the scene of the accident . The accident occurred in a curved track on a railway embankment above the Humboldt River .
The train was pulled by three diesel-electric locomotives and carried 14 cars. In order to make up for a delay of almost half an hour, the engine driver drove as fast as possible. He was traveling at a speed of almost 100 km / h.
the accident
A section of track had been loosened on the outer track of the curved track, which derailed most of the vehicles and carried them out of the curve when the train passed the place at around 9:33 p.m. Some of the derailed wagons collided with a steel, 36-meter-long bridge structure that was used 50 meters after the derailment point of an underpass. The bridge was completely destroyed. Five other wagons fell nine meters into the Humboldt River . The dining car was particularly badly damaged . The train slid another 300 meters beyond the derailment point before it came to a standstill. Only the front locomotive and the last two cars remained on the track.
consequences
24 people died, including 15 employees of the dining car. 115 people were also injured, 32 of them seriously. Another 16 railway employees were among the injured.
The uninjured driver ran back to Harney train station, about two kilometers away , from where help was organized. The investigation into the accident was very opaque, so the rumor persisted that there was no sabotage at all, but a mistake on the part of the railway infrastructure operator. A responsible saboteur could never be caught. The accident remained without a criminal investigation.
This was the first serious accident with a streamlined train in lightweight construction, in which the superstructures of the cars were mainly made of riveted aluminum .
See also
literature
- FS Foote, Jr .: City of San Francisco Wreck . In: Northeastern Nevada Historical Society Quarterly (90-1).
- Howard Hickson: Recalling a Train Wreck . In: Northeastern Nevada Historical Society Quarterly (80-1).
- Peter WB Semmens: Disasters on the rails. A worldwide documentation. Transpress, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-344-71030-3 .
Web links
- Howard Hickson: Recalling a Train Wreck . (With pictures from the scene of the accident). From: Northeastern Nevada Historical Society Quarterly (80-1).