The Great Train Wreck of 1918

Note: each part title will involve terminology associated with the railroad industry. That way something can be learned from this episode. 

But first, fun with Math!

Train A and Train B are traveling toward a station from two different cities.

Train A departs from City X, which is 180 miles away from the station, traveling at a constant speed of 60 miles per hour.

Train B departs from City Y, which is 150 miles away from the station, traveling at a constant speed of 50 miles per hour.

Both trains start their journeys at the same time.

Question:

How long will it take for both trains to arrive at the station? Will they arrive at the same time or at different times? If at different times, which train arrives first and by how many minutes?

Part 1. Tractive Effort

1. I don’t think there was ever a piece of technology that changed the American landscape quite like the steam powered railroad engine or as we know them today “trains” or “locomotives”

2. Invented in 1804, steam powered trains were the main movers of goods and people from one end of a country to the other. 

   1. They were so influential that during the times of war in Europe and America, the railroad (or the “rail”) for short became integral strategic points of interest for competing armies. 

   2. Those who controlled the rail lines had a huge advantage logistically. 

3. The key to the success of the steam powered locomotive was in water. Normally we don’t think of water as anything particularly exciting or powerful, however when water is heated and converted to steam, then immense power can be derived. 

   1. If you have 1 cubic foot of water (so a cube 1 foot x 1 foot x 1 foot) and that was heated to the point where it all turned to steam, then you have about 1,700 cubic feet of steam.

   2. Since steam is a vapor or gas, the water molecules repel each other and therefore it contains a significant amount of energy when that steam is harnessed and put to “work”

   3. It sounds simple enough, but steam engines are some of the most complicated things humanity has ever invented. 

   4. Water by itself contains a significant amount of stored energy when it’s at its normal state, but water can absorb a significant amount of heat and when it turns to vapor, it carries a lot of energy. If that energy can be harnessed and controlled, then it can do an incredible amount of work. 

   5. In the case of a steam engine, water is stored in a connected array of pipes that all lead to a piston of sorts. Surrounding the pipes full of water, is a raging fire. The fire heats up the water beyond boiling temperatures and the water itself turns into steam. Once turned to steam the pipes then force everything into the piston which is then pushed back. Some steam can then be rediverted back behind the piston and now the piston is reset back to where it was before. By using timing mechanism and cam shafts, the closed array of water pipes and steam can manipulate the piston in such a way that it can be used to turn wheels. 

   6. How much power are we talking about? We’ll to put things in perspective:

      1. An automobile in the 1910s had about 10-30 horse power. 

      2. An industrial traction engine for farming could range from 30-100 horsepower. 

      3. A steam locomotive engine could range from 1,000 to 3,000 horsepower!

      4. Today a standard 4 cylinder internal combustion engine can range from 130 to 230 horsepower. 

      5. An 8 cylinder engine today can generate around 400 to 1000 horsepower. 

   7. The amount of energy a locomotive steam engine could output is known as “tractive effort” 

   8. Needless to say, steam powered locomotive engines could pack a lot of power. Furthermore, as long as there was enough coal to keep the fires lit, a train could essentially run forever. 

      1. It wasn’t uncommon for steam trains to stay running all the time because they took so long to start up. The only time they were shut down was when maintenance or repairs needed to take place. 

4. The 1800s witnessed the dawn of the steam engine and subsequent locomotives. By the 1860s and 1870s trains became so prevalent that their rail maps looked like a network of varicose veins on the countryside. 

   1. In America, in 1830, a whopping 23 miles of railroad was in use

   2. By 1860, over 30,000 miles was in use

   3. By 1890 over 190,000 miles was in use

   4. By 1918 over 250,000 miles was in use!!!

5. The rail system only became more of a necessity when America got involved in World War I. 

   1. WWI was the largest war the world had seen to date, and America’s involvement forced the country to scale up in many different industries that it was not expecting. 

   2. The need for war related items such as guns, bullets, shells and explosives (check out episode 14 on the Boston Molasses Flood which was an indirect by-product of the war movement) and more importantly the country needed bodies to man factories and make things. 

   3. Men were flocking to the cities and yet industries (especially the industries that made explosives) were moving to the countryside so commuter trains were incredibly important. 

Part 2. Mainline and Dangers

1. By the time of today’s dumpster fire of 1918, steam engines, trains, people, and goods were moving around the country at breakneck speeds but for the longest time, safety was an afterthought… especially in the 1800s of it all 

4. Working around and with trains and their rails is an inherently stressful and dangerous job. 

5. It seems as though whenever humanity mixes large volumes of steel with huge pieces of machinery and when operated by flappy fleshy bags of water known as humans, even the smallest of injuries was catastrophic. Some of the more major injuries from the 1800s and going into the 1910s include:

   1. Heat related issues stemming from working outside during the summer. 

   2. Disease from working next to people from around the world

   3. Broken and fractured bones

   4. Burn related injuries

   5. Back and neck related strains from manipulating heavy volumes of cargo as well as working on the steam engines

   6. Ligament and tendon injuries 

   7. Strait up being crushed (connecting and disconnecting cars required someone on the ground between the two cars to either pin together or decouple train cars, if something goes wrong then you’re crushed to death)

   8. Head injuries resulting from falls and objects hitting you

   9. And who could forget about the loss of limbs. 

6. Working with trains became so dangerous and injuries were so prevalent that doctors would remain on site in train stations, shops and even on the trains themselves to try and save a life once it had been compromised for one reason or another. 

   1. Many doctors were general practitioners, but would often get special training in the treatment of injuries common to railroad workers. 

   2. So you could go see your doctor to treat an allergy induced cough and get what was left of your mangled arm and leg amputated at the same time. Talk about full service!!!

2. However, as the demand called for more and more railways, an equal demand for more trains followed suit. The plethora of railways offered options for passengers to get anywhere in the country and the options made it possible for passengers to select a route that would best suit their needs. 

   1. For example, you could book a train that would last for 12 hours but it would be coach and you would be sitting in a cramped aisle seat or stuffed into a tiny cabin with three other people. However, if you had the money and the time you could book a ride that would get you to the same destination, but it would take longer, however you would get your own cabin complete with a bed and a sitting area for a much more comfortable experience. 

3. The other side of the coin is that as the railways increased, so did the number of trains that were hauling goods and people all over the place. For us road dwellers, seeing an abundance of cars on the road each year doesn’t come as a surprise. As a species, we keep adding more lanes to a road to account for the volume of traffic. 

   1. Now let’s look at it from a different perspective. Imagine all those cars going down a single lane road… oh and this single lane road also needs to account for head on traffic. Suddenly things get stupidly complicated and dangerous. 

4. In the case of today’s dumpster fire, the number of train engines on a single lane railway imposes a lot of complexity and subsequent danger to day to day operation. 

5. In the 1800s the number of train related collisions skyrocketed each year. 

   1. When you have more than one operating train on a single track, a great deal of work, planning, and timing needs to go into effect to make things work. 

   2. One of the worst train accidents of the 1800s took place in 1891 when a fast moving moving mail train collided with the slower moving Toledo Express killing over 50 people in Kitpon OH just west of Cleveland OH. The cause of the collision is not what you think.

      1. It was the result of a 4 minute discrepancy between the mail train, the Toledo Express and the train station in Kitpon, OH. 

      2. Webb C. Ball was inspired by the incident to develop the famous Ball Watch Company which made railroad watches with a high degree of accuracy that eventually set the standard for Swiss and Japanese watchmakers. 

      3. Since the 1890s going up to the 1970s, American made watches were some of the finest and most accurate out there.

   3. The rise and potential devastation of these train crashes in the 1800s led to increased government involvement as people wanted to use trains, but not get killed in the process. 

      1. In response to growing concerns over issues around stopping the trains, George Westinghouse modified his passenger trains with air brakes. Before trains could only be stopped by a dude in each car pulling on a lever with all his might to try and mechanically stop the train. That is assuming that word got down the line to hit the brakes, and the dude was comfortable standing in between cars where the levers were to pull on them and pray to god that they don’t fall off the train or get injured. Air brakes could be engaged all at once and from the engineer up front. 

         1. This didn’t reduce the amount of train crashes, but at least the trains were in a state of slowing down before they crashed which saved lives. 

      2. The next change took place between 1888 and 1890 when Ely Janney developed that automatic car coupler. The need for people to stand in between two moving train cars to ensure they connected properly was gone. This reduced the amount of people getting crushed and losing limbs. 

      3. In 1890 the Interstate Commerce Commission or ICC was assembled to research train related accidents and publish their findings. Their findings would make their way to the 1893 Safety Appliance Act, which Federally mandated safety equipment on all trains. 

      4. In 1900 to 1918, America was seeing an increased interest in worker safety ventures and trains were certainly on the list. 

         1. Mandatory inspections

         2. Mandatory safety equipment on all engines and cars

         3. Mandatory standard operating procedures

         4. Mandatory communication and timing protocols

         5. Mandatory track inspections

         6. Block tracking which divided the track into sections called blocks and would have indicators on them that would automatically trip when a train passed which “should” give notice to head on trains if a train passed or not. 

         7. There was also the implementation of turntables and side tracks where a train could park off the main track to wait for a head-on train to pass… all assuming that everything was running on time. A conductor would be given a time table of what trains were due where and when and they should be able to figure out if a train had cleared a specific spot or not like some horrible math problem from school. 

   4. By 1910, America began seeing a stark decline in train related accidents, collisions, and injuries as a result of these interventions

6. America was humming along with a vast railway system and a booming economy where one fed the other exponentially 

7. As mentioned earlier, World War I was going to change the nation in so many ways and the railroad industry wasn’t going to miss it. 

Part 4. The Turntable Without a View?

1. Now that we’ve looked at some of the issues surrounding the railroad industry and what was done to make things safer for both workers and passengers. Let’s take a look at what happened in 1918 that made this train collision so “Great” and the worst collision in US history. 

2. But first let’s get a sense of the geography of a very short piece of track just outside Nashville Tennessee where everything took place. 

   1. To keep things simple, we’re going to focus on a small track that spanned between Nashville and Memphis called the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway (NC&StL). If you look at a map of tracks in Tennessee at the time, it would be super confusing to figure things out. I am not sure how they were able to figure things out back then as well. 

   2. Just to the west of downtown Nashville about 8 miles the track took a blind turn that wouldn’t be super tight by us car dwellers but to a train it must have felt like a u-turn. The track hugged the side of a tall hill and it was impossible to see anything that was on-coming. Anyone who worked on a train at the time was familiar with this turn as it was called Dutchman’s Curve. Anyone who travelled this curve would have markedly higher blood pressure until they cleared it. 

   3. There were two trains that traveled between Nashville and Memphis on the same track. So unless certain precautions were put in place, a collision was inevitable

      1. One such precaution was a cut out of track in between Dutchman’s Curve and the main station in Nashville. This spot was called the Shops because it was known as a turntable. 

         1. A turntable is an interesting doohickey in that a train could stop on a piece of special track that could rotate in 360 degrees. On one side the train (mostly the engine needing some work done) would approach the turn table and on the other side would be a series of structures called shops designed to work on train engines or cars. The turn table would rotate accordingly to spit out the train to the right “shop” to get worked on. Today these types of buildings are called “roundhouses”

      2. The shops was also a great place for trains heading out of Nashville to pull out and stop for a bit. The idea is that the outbound train would always give priority to the inbound train. This was generally understood as standard operating procedure and everyone who worked on a train knew this procedure. 

      3. The outbound train would pull off the main track, hang out at the shops and wait for the inbound train from Memphis to pass. Once the inbound train had passed, logically it was safe to assume that the track was clear and the outbound train could proceed around Dutchman’s Curve.

      4. Yes the conductor had a time table of the day’s schedule of when trains were supposed to be departing and arriving when and where and yes the watch industry had produced some pretty accurate clocks and watches to make sure everything was on time. The standard procedure was to make sure that the outbound train hanging out at the shops got VISUAL CONFIRMATION of the inbound train to make sure the track was clear.

3. It is this “shops to Dutchman’s Curve” space where everything took place on July 9th, 1918 at 7:20 in the morning. 

4. Now let’s look at the two trains involved in this collision. 

   1. Departing from Nashville was Train No. 4 which was pulled by Engine 282. Behind Engine 282 was a car used for baggage and mail, then another baggage car, and after that were six passenger cars or coaches. It’s important to note that all the cars being pulled by Engine 282 were wooden. 

   2. Coming out of Memphis, Tennessee was Train No. 1 which was pulled by Engine 281. Behind Engine 281 was a baggage car followed by five wooden passenger cars or coaches, and following those were two pullman sleeper cars (one was made of all steel and the other had a steel undercarriage and steel ends, everything else was wooden).

   3. Since this is still the height of the Jim Crow Era, the front passenger cars on both trains were designated for blacks only. It was viewed that the lead cars were the worst places to be because of the proximity to the engine noise, soot from the smoke stacks, and smoke. The further back you were designated for whites. Both trains' lead passenger cars carried black men who were heading to and from work at a munitions facility in Old Hickory. The munitions factory offered a lot of jobs and pay for black workers in support of World War I which was taking place at this time. 

   4. These trains were also transporting soldiers who were getting ready to head out overseas

5. From here the episode is going to behave more like a math problem than a narrative. So I am going to try and keep the chain of events as concise as possible. Much like the Titanic, we all know what happens…

   1. Train No. 1 left Memphis at around midnight on July 9th for Nashville and was scheduled to arrive in Nashville at around 7:10. However, due to complications and just things happening, Train No. 1 was running about 30 minutes late.

   2. The trains didn’t have a very good communication system outside the telegraph and on top of that wireless communication was extremely difficult because of the 1910s of it all. So both train stations and Train No. 4 did not know specifically what was going on with Train No. 1. However, that is not the end of the world because there are procedures for these sorts of issues, which as you could imagine involves the Shops location.

   3. At around 7:07 Train No. 4 departed the Nashville station and it was running about 7 minutes late. 

   4. It is also important to note that both trains’ conductors and engineers were given very clear descriptions of what each others’ setups would look like. For example, both engines were the same make and model and even built in the same year. They both knew how many of what type of car each train was pulling. This was yet another safety procedure developed years before for trains who shared a single track. Knowing what each other looked like is a very useful tool. 

   5. Since Train No. 1 was supposed to be at the Nashville station at 7:10,  the conductor and engineer on Train 4 surmised accurately that Train 1 was running behind but they didn’t know for how long. 

   6. However, both trains knew that Train 4 was scheduled to stop at the Shops and wait for Train 1 to pass. 

      1. This was the fix for whenever a train was running late on a single track. Pulling off at a specific point and waiting for the other train to go by makes it so that there is no way for there to be a collision. This is further fortified by the procedure of giving the right of way to the inbound train. Even if both trains were running behind, the safety protocol factored in a near fool proof mechanism to ensure two trains don’t meet up on the single track at the same time. 

   7. As predicted, Train 4 got to Shops and essentially parked off the main track to wait for Tran 1 to pass. The dispatcher in the Shops station reported that he had not seen Train 1 go by. J.S. Johnson was positioned in the observation tower at Shops was keeping an eye on Dutchman Curve and waited for Train 1 to go by. 

   8. The conductor on Train 1 used the down time to check tickets and make sure all the passengers on the train were supposed to be there. 

      1. I can’t confirm the source, but I read somewhere that the conductor on Train 4 had been recently reprimanded for taking too long to check all the tickets. Since the war broke out, the demand on passenger trains grew significantly and put more stress on the conductors to process more and more passengers. 

      2. Seeing this stop at Shops as a good way to get caught up, he delegated the responsibility of spotting Train 4 when it went by and tell the engineer up front that all is clear and to start heading towards Dutchaman’s Curve. 

   9. At around 7:10’ish, the crewman on Tain 4 spotted through the trees what appeared to be Train 1’s engine passing by thus clearing Dutchman’s Curve and to have Train 4 proceed. 

      1. Since Train 4 was 7 minutes behind schedule, the engineer by the name of David Kennedy kept the engine running and hot so that he could get the trail up to speed faster and try and make up some time. 

      2. However, the crewman didn’t spot Train 1 passing by, instead he saw what is known as a “Switch Engine” go by towards Nashville. A switch engine is a smaller engine used to haul empty cars back and forth between train station in case one station needs more equipment for whatever reason. They could be hauling any number of empty cars, but to someone who doesn’t know what to look for or doesn’t have a clear enough line of sight, it could be mixed up with something else. 

      3. The conductor “heard” the switch engine go by and thought it was Train 1 and gave the go ahead for the Mr. Kennedy up front to get a move on. It was kind of the same situation in the Shops dispatching side of things. They heard a train go by and told Johnson in the tower to turn on the “all clear” light for Train 4 to proceed. 

         1. A lot of people all thought the same thing and drew the same conclusion because, after all, how is it possible for so many people to be wrong about the same thing all at once?

   10. As Johnson flipped the all clear light on he looked down at his logs and made a gut wrenching discovery: There was not record of Train 1 going past the shops and therefore Dutchman’s Curve was NOT clear. 

   11. Acting quickly, Johnson reached out to the dispatcher to try and get a hold of the conductor or engineer on Train 4 to stop and try backing up. Johnson sounded the emergency whistle from the tower hoping that someone on Train 4 would hear it and get the idea to at least have the train stop. 

   12. However, it was too late, Kennedy in Train 4 had basically hit the gas hard and the train was fast accelerating towards Dutchman’s Curve. It is estimated that the train was only a few hundred yards away from the shops when Johnson made the discovery that Train 1 had not gone by and sounded the emergency whistle. As a result, we’re not too sure what was happening in Train 4 that prevented them from hearing or heeding the whistle. 

       1. I have three theories behind this: 1. Train 1 was trying to make up lost time and therefore kept the engine running hot and loud so that it could accelerate faster thus muffling out the sound.

       2. The whistle on the observation tower and the one on the trail could have been made identically and therefore the people on the train were not in a position to hear the warning any differently. 

       3. The train would have left the station tooting its horn to notify people to get off the track down the road. So the emergency whistle could have been drowned out. 

6. Regardless of all the warnings and desperate attempts to get Train 4 to stop, the train proceeded and even accelerated towards Dutchman’s Curve. Train 1 was doing the same thing but heading straight towards Train 4. 

7. When the two trains met, they were moving at 50 to 60 mph each thus behaving as though one train hit a massive wall going 100 to 120 mph!

Part 4. A Cornfield Meeting

1. Trains 1 and 4 met on the blind turn of Dutchman’s Curve at 7:20  in the morning. 

2. There weren’t many if any eyewitnesses of the event, but given that the collision took place in a suburban-like location with neighborhoods and other tenements, many people heard what happened. 

3. Shockingly, the conductors of both trains survived the incident but the engineers and fire stokers were pretty much erased off the face of the planet. 

4. There must have been some visual contact between the two trains on the curve because the conductor on the number 4 said he felt the air brakes go into effect almost instantly, but the conductor on No. 1 didn’t feel anything. 

5. The two engines collided and propelled themselves upward like an upside down V. A moment later two engines tipped over onto a cornfield which gave the term for two trains crashing head on as a “cornfield meet”

   1. It’s interesting to note that even though both engines were severely damaged, they were repaired and were put back in service until their retirement in 1947 and 1948. 

6. However, damage to the mail / baggage cars as well as the passenger cars fared a much different fate. The dichotomy of the steel cars vs the wooden ones were stark. The same could be said about who lived and died. 

7. Let’s go over the train cars first. I have the descriptions from the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) that paints a fairly detailed idea of what happened. 

   1. “Locomotive 281 [Train NO. 1] was derailed on the west side of the track, the boiler being stripped of cab, machinery and appurtenances, and came to rest in an upright position at an angle of about 45 degrees with the track… Its frame and all machinery were practically demolished. The baggage car was completely demolished. The first coach lay crosswise the track. The combination of train No. 4 being driven into its side near the center and its rear and torn completely end to a depth of 12-15 feet. The second coach was derailed and its forward end went down the bank and rested on the fronted end of boiler of locomotive 281 and its rear and rested on the roadbed on top of the frame jammed against the rear of the second coach; the rear trucks of his car and the four following cars were not derailed.”

   2. “Locomotive 282 [Train No. 4] was derailed to the east side of the track, the boiler thrown from the frame and entirely stripped of all machinery and appurtenances and stopped about parallel with the track, the entire locomotive except the boiler being demolished… The forward half of the combination car was demolished by coming in contact with the first coach of train No. 1. The baggage car was completely telescoped with the first coach to its rear, both cars remained upright, but were practically destroyed… The end of the second coach was demolished for a distance of 6 or 8 feet and partially telescoped with the read end of the coach ahead of it. The three rear cars of train No. 4 were not derailed and only slightly damaged…

   3. I think the ICC did a pretty good job describing the aftermath of the incident and it showed the difference between how a steel car vs. a wooden car held up to such a violent crash. 

      1. Again the ICC, “It is to be noted that all the cars of both trains, except the two sleeping cars on train No. 1, were of wooden construction, and six of these wooden cars were entirely destroyed. 

   4. The general consensus is that if all the cars were made of steel, then the number of casualties would have been significantly less. Be sure to check out the The Days Dumpster Fire website for images and detailed show notes. 

Note: the following parts will be of a graphic nature and may not be suitable for younger or sensitive listeners.

8. Much like the wooden train cars, the bodies of passengers shared a similar fate. Most of the 101 dead were those of the black men who were headed to the DuPont munitions plant just outside Nashville. This was due to the fact that the Jim Crow forced the blacks into the front passenger cars. 

   1. As the energy passed from one car to the next, the effects of the impact diminished greatly which means at the “black” cars sustained the brunt of the impact and the whites in the back were okay. 

   2. The initial crash was heard all the way in downtown Nashville and felt by those who were in the vicinity of Dutchman’s Curve. Therefore, it didn’t take long for tens of thousands of Nashvillians to pour over to the crash site. 

   3. There were the usual gawkers, souvenir collectors, and pure trashy people who tried to rob the bodies of the dead of valuables. However, I feel that a majority of the people who showed up were there to help find survivors and clean things up. 

   4. One of the issues about this crash that complicated things tremendously, was the matter of trying to identify what body parts belonged to who. 

      1. Thousands of doctors and nurses came to Dutchman’s Curve to essentially piece together the body parts to figure out the total body count. 

      2. The black men and women who bought tickets didn’t have their identities listed on the tickets opposed to the white passenger

      3. So the only thing the medical personnel could do was find a torso, a head, two legs and two arms to make one whole person. The devastation of the bodies stemmed from the wooden coach cars that telescoped, crushed or straight up obliterated by the impact. The wood itself wasn’t enough to absorb that much energy. 

      4. Wood also likes to shatter inter splinters when hit hard enough, thus sending wood fragments like bullets through anyone in the way. 

      5. Since the human body is 70% water, the body itself does a poor job insulating from extreme impacts which result in bodies being fragmented and scattered all over the place. 

      6. To this day not all the bodies have been 100% identified due to the horrific nature of the crash and the lack of documentation involving black folks. 

9. What’s crazy is that the crash took place at 7:20 in the morning, however, by the end of the day, the wreck was cleaned up, all the cars removed, engines taken out and for the most part the bodies were all collected. 

   1. I feel like that this would have been a massive undertaking, but at the time the railways were crucial and could not be shut down for too long; especially those that headed to war time industries. 

10. The train crash also exemplified the Jim Crow laws and their application. While it didn’t help with any sort of civil rights movement, it did put a spotlight on segregation and that separate is NOT equal. 

    1. I think most moderate Americans at the time understood that the Jim Crow laws were a crock of crap, but sometimes it needs a huge moment in history to really show its colors. 

    2. Oftentimes a tragedy of this size shows what people can be: rescuers, helpers, donors, spiritual leaders etc, but a tragedy can also show what people actually are at times such as: racists, segregationalists, narrow minded, and downright awful.

11. While studying for this episode, it was interesting to see how a person’s skin color goes right out the window when a tragedy happens. It’s a shame that 80% of the folks who died in the crash were black including some women and a baby, but it also gave a glimpse into a future where Americans help each other out for the sake of helping them out. 

Part 5. Historical Tonnage

1. Shortly after the train crashed was cleaned up, the ICC got to work investigating what had happened as to why this sort of accident took place. 

2. The general consensus to the cause of the wreck are as follows:

   1. The conductor on Train No. 4 only heard Train No. 1 go by or so he thought. He never confirmed with the shops, the dispatcher, or Mr. Johnson in the tower to corroborate if Train 1 had gone by. 

   2. We could also make the argument that the conductor delegated the responsibility of seeing train 1 go by when he should have been doing it himself. 

   3. Train 4 never properly checked the train register at the Shops to confirm if Train 1 had passed.

   4. The tower operator failed to check his logs in time to see that train 1 had not passed in time. By the time he caught the error of the switch engine going by, it was too difficult for train 4 to hear the warning whistle or anything else for that matter that could get a hold of the train. 

   5. The engineer in train 4. David Kennedy failed to follow any protocols and proceeded recklessly thus causing the crash. 

      1. In the newspapers at the time, Kennedy was pretty much thrown under the bus for the entire incident. The issue was that anyone who knew Kennedy could testify that he was a meticulous man and followed every rule in the book to the letter. He was never impulsive and never made half baked decisions. So the accusations that he flippantly caused the entire accident seems strange to me. 

      2. The same could be said for the entire crew in both trains. While experience levels varied from individual to individual, overall both crews were well seasoned and properly trained. To pin the whole matter on human error doesn’t sit well with me. 

   6. One aspect of the accident that does resonate with me is the use of outdated materials and block signals. 

      1. Steel was becoming more and more common in 1918 and the fact that the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway company was still using wooden cars that felt irresponsible and resulted in the deaths of a lot of people. The ICC concluded that if steel was used on all the cars, the number of fatalities would be greatly diminished. 

      2. Furthermore, NC&StL still wasn’t employing automated block signal systems. Automated block signaling would have provided a red light or green light for train 4 to stop or proceed. Once train 1 passed, the lights would change color and the coast was clear. The reliance on a human being in a tower somewhere is asking for something to go wrong. Yes mechanical systems can fail… in fact it’s not a matter of if it will fail but WHEN it fails. However, having a person in the observation tower on top of the automated block signaling system you have made things nearly 100% fool proof. 

3. However, this is all the general consensus. I think there is a bit more to this dumpster fire than what meets the eye. 

   1. When researching moments in history where everything goes wrong I seem to come across a common statement, “The biggest in history,” or “The worst case ever,” or “The most expensive in the nation’s history” and others like it. Whenever I see something like that the first thing I do is look at what else is going on in the country at the time. 

   2. In this case, the event that was all over the newspapers was World War I and the demand for everything skyrocketed during this time. 

      1. Supplies

      2. Munitions

      3. Soldiers

      4. Workers 

      5. Even minorities who are able to travel…

   3. This explosion of demand from all aspects of the country is great news financially but extremely difficult on infrastructure. 

      1. Cities became more congested 

      2. Pedestrians were filling the streets trying to get to work

      3. Mass transit became paramount

      4. The rail system was pushed to the max hauling not only large volumes of materials but large volumes of people. 

   4. Whenever an infrastructure is pushed to the limits and beyond, we have to start prioritizing who gets what part of the infrastructure over the other. What doesn’t get prioritized also sees reduced man power, development, oversight, and effective regulation. 

   5. And now we arrive at something we’ve all experienced today: people having to take on more responsibilities, more work, more hours, with less pay and less security. This is something that is often missed at the top because their way of life is rarely affected by these decisions. 

4. What does all this have to do with a train crash in 1918? Well lets dig in shall we?

   1. WWI was the first war that needed America to truly mobilize. Meaning every state was going to feel it to some degree. Before it was only certain industries or specific states. (and yes Kara if you’re listening, I know the Civil War affected every state in the Union but entire country wasn’t fighting a foreign enemy, it was fighting itself which puts a different kind of strain on the infrastructure)

   2. With WWII America’s manufacturing capabilities had to grow over night which means it needs more people to make the growth happen. It also meant a huge expansion of the resources to make the final products for war. Check out episode 14 The Boston Molasses Flood!

   3. On top of all the manufacturing demands, there was the demand for men in their 20’s and 30’s to actually go fight the war. It turns out that those are the men in prime working age. So now you need more men to work at home more than ever, you also need the same men in that generation to go overseas and do soldiery things. 

   4. We can even throw in civil rights and equality. When times are good black and white were separate entities and the two should not mix ie Jim Crow laws. But when a world war breaks out, some aspects of segregation fly out the windows. The idea that only white men could die in battle turns into, ALL men can die in battle. Suddenly the idea that all men have red blood and we’re bonded by that fact is super important, but when the war is over, things go back to normal segregational trends. 

      1. This made its way into the great train wreck of 1918. Notice how most of the people who died in the wreck were black? They were heading to a remote location to make munitions for the war effort with decent pay. But equality stopped at the train station, where these black men and women had to be separated from white folks to site in train cars that were most likely to receive the brunt of an impact if one happened. 

   5. Looking at the train system of the time, we’re seeing more and more cases of multiple engines being used on a single track thus increasing the likelihood of a head on collision. 

      1. Yes protocols were put in place to prevent such a tragedy, but the demand on the rail system was so strong that even protocols began to fail. 

   6. With the increased demand, we see a rise in complexification. Just look at the math problem at the beginning of the episode. Yes it was intended to be funny and reminiscent of the horrors of our childhood math classes, but it’s also a real problem that people had to figure out back then. 

5. This leads me to my final point a tragedy such as this is the tip of an iceberg. Underneath it is a large mass of social issues, technological issues, engineering issues, logistical issues that support the tip of the iceberg. 

   1. In previous episodes its is often easy to pin point the one person who could have done something different to prevent everything from falling apart. But in this case it’s not so easy. 

   2. David Kennedy’s reputation was smeared through the newspapers and his life after death was just as dead to the country as his physical body. Could he have done things different? Yes, so could the hundreds of thousands of other people across the nation who were also trying to make things work with what they had. 

6. Trains have a number or figure that gives dispatchers an idea of what they’re working with. It’s called tonnage and it determines the weight of the train and therefore what needs to be adjusted or put in place to make everything work. 

   1. In the spirit of the railway theme of this episode, the great train wreck of 1918 was pulling a significant amount of historical tunnage and when those two trains crashed head on, that historical tonnage was released at once for historians to pick through and try and clean up. 

   2. For me, this evisceration of historical tonnage on July 9, 1918 brought the country together for at least one day where everyone on that cornfield were Americans and human beings and people forgot about their racial proclivities. 

7. I’ve been doing this show for a while and have studied a lot of historical dumpster fires and I would say that most of the time the dumpster fire needs to be put out as fast as possible before more dumpster catch fire. However, in rare cases, cases like this, the dumpster fire is a reminder that humans are humans and sometimes the best thing to do is pick up where we left off, but also try and take some of the good things with us.

Sources: 

https://mechanical.strasburgrailroad.com/blog/history-steam-locomotive/

https://www.farmcollector.com/steam-traction/steam-traction-engine-horse-power-ratings/#:~:text=People%20seem%20to%20take%20it,Nichols%20and%20Shepard.

https://www.kbb.com/car-news/4-cylinder-engines-today-are-as-powerful-as-v8s-were-in-2001/#:~:text=By%20Sean%20Tucker%2003/15,us%20to%20talk%20it%20out).

https://historicgeneva.org/transportation/railroad-accidents/#:~:text=Rail%20transportation%20was%20particularly%20dangerous,out%20from%20the%20heavy%20trains.

https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/rise-of-industrial-america-1876-1900/railroads-in-late-19th-century/

https://tpmblegal.com/common-injuries-of-on-duty-railroad-workers/

https://eh.net/encyclopedia/history-of-workplace-safety-in-the-united-states-1880-1970-2/

https://timeandtidewatches.com/in-depth-how-a-fatal-train-crash-became-the-catalyst-for-the-ball-watch-companys-success/

https://www.usdeadlyevents.com/1918-july-9-great-nashville-train-wreck-head-on-collision-fire-nashville-tn-101/

https://www.sharpandfellows.com/the-great-train-wreck-of-1918/