Crush’s railway accident – Wikipedia

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The trains, two hours before the collision
Locomotive of the “American” type with axle sequence 2’b

The Crush railway accident (Texas) was an event staged on September 15, 1896 for many spectators, in which the Missouri Kansas-Texas Railroad deliberately brought two trains together head-on. Three dead were the result.

The idea for the spectacle came from William George Crush, which was at the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad for people responsible for passenger transport. [first] The business idea behind it was that as many onlookers as possible with the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Turned to the event and made the railway company sales through the tickets. Entry fees were not raised, the tickets cost two US dollars from all of Texas.

For the event, on a railway line of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad A tent city, called Crush, temporarily built about 5 km south of the town of West in the Mclennan County. This included two fountains that were specially created, tents of the Ringling Brothers circus and a grandstand. In parallel to the existing railway line, a second was built for the event so that the traffic on the main route was not disturbed.

The two 2’B locomotives used wore the numbers 999 (bright green painted) and 1001 (bright red). Both drove through all of Texas months before the event to promote it.

30,000–40,000 spectators traveled to the event. The crowd was so great that the beginning was delayed by an hour until the police managed to push people back so far that it assumed that nobody could be harmed.

At 5 p.m. the two trains were driven to the opposite ends of the 6.5 km long route. [2] They consisted of the two locomotives and old freight wagons that were loaded with train thresholds. The locomotive drivers set the machines in motion, whereby it had previously been determined exactly how much steam was given so that the trains also met in the middle of the stand in front of the stands. As soon as that was happening, the train drivers jumped off. When the two trains met, everyone drove at about 70 km/h.

Which did not expect the organizers: the collision led to the boiler explosion in both locomotives. Surmatch of the vehicles of sometimes significant size were thrown several hundred meters. [3] Three spectators were met fatally, many were injured. The official photographer of the event, Jarvi’s “Joe” Deane, lost an eye through a bolt that hit him. [4]

William George Crush was from the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad dismissed immediately. However, since a negative reaction from the public failed to appear, it was stopped again the next day. [5]

Scott Joplin, who was in the area, of which it is not certain whether he saw the event composed The Great Crush Collision March , [6] [7] who appeared almost a month after the event. The music piece contains instructions to the musicians how the collision noise is to be imitated. [4] [8]

  1. ↑ Neal Suit: Anniversary of train wreck observed at Carroll. ( Memento from April 25, 2011 in Internet Archive ). Library Baylor University, 18. September 1996.
  2. ↑ Hamilton.
  3. ↑ Hamilton.
  4. ↑ a b Bill Edwards: Rags and Pieces by Scott Joplin (1895–1905). Accessed on April 19, 2020.
  5. ↑ Vincent V. Masterson: The Katy Railroad and the Last Frontier . Columbia/London 1988, ISBN 0-8262-0668-9 ( S. 267 in the Google book search [accessed on April 19, 2020]).
  6. ↑ Vivé Griffith: Teaching Texas. ( Memento from October 18, 2012 in Internet Archive ). University of Texas at Austin.
  7. ↑ Scott Joplin: The Great Crush Collision March. Sheet Music (Temple, TX: John R. Fuller, 1896). Accessed on April 19, 2020.
  8. ↑ Eric Ames: Scott Joplin’s “Great Crush Collision March” and the Memorialization of a Marketing Spectacle. In: Blogs.baylor.edu. 19. April 2012, accessed on April 19, 2020 .

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