I'VE BEEN WORKING ON THE RAILROAD by Marisa Masterson

NY Central Railroad 1884 (Library of Congress)

Bang! Smash! Squish! 

Photo from Wayne County Public Library Collection

Quincy, MA Derailment 1890

Those words describe railroads and travel by train in the last half of the nineteenth century. It was a dangerous time to travel on the rails. 

Between 1890 and 1900, six thousand incidents involving postal cars alone were reported. According to the National Postal Museum, over eighty clerks were killed and 2,072 were injured in those accidents. (Mail cars and the clerks inside them caught the worst of an accident, often, since they were placed immediately behind the steam engine. It was believed that this protected the people in the passenger cars.) 

In 1875, there were 104 head-on collisions--nicknamed cornfield meets--in the United States. Imagine two trains ramming each other at high speed!

 

Mid-Continent Railway Museum
in North Freedom, WI
(Visit if you have never been! I recommend it!)

Another shocking statistic was included in the Note from the Frontier. They report that there were over 8,200 train accidents in 1880. When compared to 1,202 in 1875, it is obvious that something was terribly wrong with the system in place. 

Another issue was wood. Most passenger cars were made from wood frames. These easily split apart in an accident. Worse, some actually filled with scalding water from the steam engine during a catastrophe. Also, wood tracks splintered. Wooden bridges collapsed. These needed to be more frequently updated and better maintained. The wood-framed cars caught fire from the stoves or kerosene lanterns.

And it could be as dangerous to work for the railroad as it was to be a passenger. Coupling the cars killed many people.Between July 1884 and June 1885 in Colorado, 9% of employees with reported injuries died, with coupling cars being the most dangerous job. (Google)

What caused these dangers? In the latter half of the century, as railroads built and expanded rapidly, the combination of high-speed, heavy trains, primitive technology, and human error led to frequent, often fatal, collisions and derailments. The emphasis was on having the means to travel without monitoring to be sure it was safely accomplished. In response, air brakes and metal-framed cars came into being. In the late 1800s, the government demanded a better system for monitoring tracks and automatic signaling devices. 

Why this look at railroad issues? The composer of the hymn Bringing in the Sheaves was killed in such a disaster. The train jumped the track, and the car in which Knowles Shaw sat rolled down an embankment. The forty-three-year-old evangelist died in the crash.

His hymn becomes the inspiration for my newest historical wholesome romance, releasing in April.

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