Woodville Railroad Accident
In the Woodville railway accident near Woodville, Indiana , USA , on November 12, 1906, a freight train collided head-on with a passenger train traveling in the opposite direction . 43 people died.
Starting position
The train safety should be guaranteed on the single-track route of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad by the fact that the trains ran in a certain, fixed order. A snow storm raged on that day, which also impaired the view of the train crew. A freight train was traveling east. To enable the oncoming passenger train No. 47 to cross , it waited on a siding . On that day, however, the passenger train ran in two parts, one behind the other at some distance. In order to secure the second part of the passenger train with the train protection method practiced here, the first moving train had a special peak signal that alerted the locomotive drivers of the trains that the passenger train crossed to the second part of the train: two green flags and two additional green signal lamps.
the accident
The two additional green signal lamps had gone out in the snow storm. The engine driver of the freight train overlooked the two green flags: He drove into the line and collided with the second part of passenger train No. 47. In addition to the immediate collision damage, a fire also broke out.
consequences
43 people died, mostly immigrants from Eastern Europe.
useful information
This accident is almost identical to the Warrensburg railway accident two years earlier and a railway accident that occurred on October 4, 1910 in Staunton , Illinois .
See also
literature
- Peter WB Semmens: Disasters on the rails. A worldwide documentation. Transpress, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-344-71030-3 , p. 25.