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Wreck on the New Orleans & Northeastern R. R.

Wreck on the New Orleans & Northeastern R. R.
The Railway and Engineering Review—August 17, 1912

Owing to defective track, there was caused a derailment to a passenger train on the New Orleans & Northeastern R. R. near Estabuchie, Miss., on May 6, 1912. In this accident six passengers, the engineer and the fireman and a third person riding the locomotive, were killed, while 56 others received injuries more or less severe. The train consisted of cars arranged in the following order; one steel underframe combination baggage and passenger coach, two steel underframe passenger coaches, two wooden tourist sleeping cars, a dining car and five sleeping cars. The nature of the construction of the dining cars and the five sleepers is not stated in the report of the chief inspector of safety appliances, from which this information and the illustrations are taken, but it is assumed that they were of reasonably modern types of construction.

Most of the casualties occurred in the fourth and fifth cars of the train or in the tourist sleepers. The fourth car was built in 1880, becoming a tourist sleeper when rebuilt in 1906; the fifth was originally constructed in 1886, being rebuilt as a tourist sleeper in 1902, both cars being of all wood construction. It appears that in the sequence of events induced by the faulty condition of the track, the forward truck of the tender was derailed, there by breaking and bunching the ties in such manner as to derail the first three cars of the train against which the tourist sleepers were telescoped by the oncoming diner and sleepers. The derailment of the engine is believed to have been caused by the derailment of the cars behind it. The evidence submitted at the investigation tended to show that the train was running at a very nominal rate of speed at the time of the accident, thought to be about 30 miles per hour, which conclusion is borne out also by the relatively little damage done the superstructures of the three leading cars in the train. Figure 1 herewith shows a general view of the wreckage, while Fig. 2 shows the complete destruction wrought upon the two old-style, light weight wooden sleepers placed approximately midway of the train between cars of heavier construction.

Wreck on the New Orleans & Northeastern R. R.

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This page originally appeared on Thomas Ehrenreich's Railroad Extra Website

 


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