Coming off the rails: Ohio history filled with train crashes and derailments

A train derailment turns into a toxic burn that causes health risks to residents of East Palestine.

A coal train leaves railroad tracks in Nebraska near a small town on the same stretch of tracks that has been the scene of four similar incidents in the last 10 months.

Media outlets call these and other recent accidents a "spate of catastrophic train derailments." Such an assessment might assume deadly railroad incidents are new or rare.

History shows otherwise.

Even in Ohio, a search for significant train wrecks at online sources such as "Ohio Memory" — a collaborative program of the Ohio History Connection and the State Library of Ohio — turns up a number of notable railroad incidents, including the Ashtabula River train disaster of 1876, the Sunbury train bridge collapse of 1878, the Kipton train wreck west of Cleveland in 1891, the Wayne County train collision near Shreve in 1892, and the July 4 head-on crash of trains near Middletown in 1910.

And, what list of derailments, collisions and crashes could be complete without a reference to the "Doodlebug Disaster" at Cuyahoga Falls in Summit County in 1940.

The name of the latter event appears lighter in tone than the trauma that resulted from the rail car head-on collision more than 80 years ago. In excess of 40 people died in that crash of a passenger self-propelled rail car and a freight train.

Worst wreck for its time

The Ashtabula River railroad disaster of Dec. 26, 1876, involving a Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway train, was considered by many as the worst rail accident in U.S. history for a number of years, until its status was surpassed by the Great Train Wreck of 1918 in Nashville, Tennessee.

"In December 1876, a Howe-truss bridge, near Ashtabula, Ohio, collapsed while a train with three passenger cars was crossing it," described a posting about the crash at Ohio History Connection's Ohio History Central website.

"The train and its passengers plunged 60 feet into a ravine and creek," the posting further explained. "The lamps and stoves used to light and heat the train cars quickly caught the wreckage on fire. Eighty-three people died, with an additional 60 suffering various injuries, ranging from fractures to frostbite."

The account quoted a writer for the Cincinnati Gazette in reporting the scene of the wreck.

"The great heaps of ruins covered the hundred men, women and children who had so suddenly been called to their death. ... The fires smoldered in great heaps, where many of the hapless victims had been all consumed, men went about in wild excitement seeking some traces of loved ones among the wounded or dead."

Ohio History notes that train accidents were common in the 1800s

Ohio History Central's posting noted that train accidents were "commonplace" late in the 1800s, as track was built "quickly and cheaply." In 1873 alone, 210 people died in train accidents in Ohio, with almost 400 more individuals injured.

"In 1878 the Cleveland Mount Vernon & Columbus Railroad bridge in Sunbury (in Delaware County) 20 miles north of Columbus, collapsed under the weight of a freight train," recalls the website columbusrailroads.com.

The locomotive that caused the collapse dropped an estimated 30 feet.

Not many of the details of the wreck have survived the passage of time in railroad history, the website notes. On its list of steam railroad accidents in the Columbus area, the website dates the wreck only as "Summer, 1878." Still the significance of the bridge collapse is in its similarities to other crashes of its era.

"It is an example of a type of wreck that was more frequent in the early days of railroading. To get the railroad built and operating, short cuts, incompetence or inferior building materials led to problems like collapsing bridges."

But, more common a cause of railroad accidents than the falling of bridges was the collision of locomotives going at high speeds.

Head-on crashes cause deaths

"On April 18, 1891, near Kipton station, 40 miles west of Cleveland, Ohio, the fast mail train No. 14 collided with the Toledo Express," recalled a 2013 blog posting by Nancy Pope, historian and curator of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum, at its website. "The fast mail was running at full speed, and the Toledo express was almost at a spot where it would traditionally pull over on a siding to let the fast mail pass. The massive collision killed nine men, six of them postal clerks working on the fast mail train."

The media publicized the significance of the crash in the weeks following the collision.

"Newspapers and magazines produced a number of stories highlighting the lives and work of railway mail clerks. The Post Office Department emphasized the wreck in their continuing calls for railway companies to produce steel mail cars instead of wooden ones which provided little protection for clerks in collisions."

Freight and passenger trains collide in Wayne County

A little more than a year later, Repository headlines followed the head-on collision of freight and passenger trains in Wayne County, near Shreve, including one that reported that emergency responders were "Taking Out The Dead."

An illustration accompanying the words on the front page of the Repository on Sept. 22, 1892, the day after the crash, showed rescue workers pulling bodies from the rubble resulting from the crash.

"Eleven and possibly 12 persons met their death, six were severely injured, and 10 cars with their contents were incinerated," the newspaper reported. "The crowds of workman had taken from the ruins eight bodies, and three were lying in the wreck."

The article reported that the "force of the collision was fearful."

"The two engines were almost driven through each other, and the steam and scalding water instantly poured through. ... The tender, baggage, express, mail, smoker and ladies' cars and five freight cars were piled in an awful mass, soon taking fire."

Death and survival

Another head-on crash darkened the celebration of the Fourth of July holiday in 1910 in Butler County near Middletown. A northbound Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton freight train collided with the passenger-carrying Cincinnati Flyer No. 21 on that fateful holiday.

The wreck cost two dozen people their lives, but one furtunate infant survived. More than three dozen others who were injured were taken to hospitals in Dayton and Hamilton.

One victim was known in Canton, according to a report on July 5 in the Repository, as a telegram was sent to police in the city asking them to notify the man's family that he was recovering in Mercy Hospital in Hamilton: "Please notify relatives or friends of John Oswald he was in wreck at Middletown Monday afternoon and was badly injured."

Still, another report in the Repository carried more positive news. The front-page brief printed beside the main report of massive death offered readers news of a young survivor.

"A seven months old child, alive and uninjured, was found in a cornfield adjoining the scene of the wreck this morning (July 5)," the small article said. "The child had been there since 1 o'clock yesterday afternoon when it was believed it was hurled into the field following the collision."

The Doodlebug Disaster

One of the closest and most horrific of train crashes, however, occurred nearer to Stark County.

It has been named in history as the "Doodlebug Disaster."

"Also known as Pennsylvania Railroad's Motor Car 4648, the Doodlebug was a gasoline-powered shuttle train running between Akron, Ohio and Hudson, Ohio," explains a posting on Summit County website summitmemory.org.

"On July 31, 1940, the Doodlebug crashed into a 73-car freight train at Hudson Drive and Front Street in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. Forty-three passengers were killed when the 350-gallon gasoline tank exploded."

The crash warranted a banner headline reporting that death toll in the Repository on Aug. 1, 1940.

"Only Three Escape Death By Jumping From Flaming Car," another headline said.

The shuttle train reportedly had not heeded an order to take a siding to let the freight train pass.

"There were 46 persons in the passenger coach," the Repository reported in a United Press International article. "The engineman and two others saw that a collision was inevitable and jumped, saving their lives, and the other 43 passengers, who included several railroad employes, were killed.

"A 44th death was attributed to the crash. Mrs. Eve George, 70, was found dead, apparently of a heart attack, in her home a short distance from the scene shortly after the wreck."

Reach Gary at gary.brown.rep@gmail.com.

On Twitter: @gbrownREP

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Off the rails: Ohio has seen many train derailments throughout history