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Speaker 1: Hey listeners, we have got some live shows coming up. Sunday,

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Speaker 1: July at two pm, we will be doing a live

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Speaker 1: twenty one, we'll be doing a live podcast at Convention

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Speaker 1: Days at Women's Rights National Historical Park and Seneca Falls,

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Speaker 1: New York. That show will be at four pm and

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Speaker 1: Wesleyan Chapple and We also have East Coast and West

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Speaker 1: Coast tours coming up in August and October, with stops

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Speaker 1: in Atlanta, Georgia, Raleigh, North Carolina, Somerville, Massachusetts, Brooklyn, New York, Washington,

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Speaker 1: d C, Seattle, Washington, Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles and

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Speaker 1: San Francisco, California. You can find more information about all

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Speaker 1: of these shows and links to my tickets at missed

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Speaker 1: in History dot com slash Tour. Welcome to steph you

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Speaker 1: Missed in History class from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hello,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy B. Wilson and

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Speaker 1: I'm Holly Frying. We are coming up on the anniversary

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Speaker 1: of one of the worst train wrecks in United States history,

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Speaker 1: if not the worst train wreck in US history. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: you will see it listed as the worst train wreck ever.

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Speaker 1: That is wrong, That is definitely not true. It really

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Speaker 1: pales in comparison to some of the world's deadliest recks. So,

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Speaker 1: for example, in nineteen seventeen, there was a train carrying

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Speaker 1: French soldiers that derailed in France and then caught fire

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Speaker 1: and more than six hundred people died. Trains are a

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Speaker 1: lot safer now than they were a hundred years ago,

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Speaker 1: but we still will have train incidents with huge fatality

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Speaker 1: numbers a lot of times. There are things that happened

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Speaker 1: during natural disasters. So a train in Sri Lanka was

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Speaker 1: hit by the two thousand four Indian Ocean tsunami and

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Speaker 1: that killed more than a thousand people. So by comparison,

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Speaker 1: the Great train Wreck of nineteen eighteen was a lot

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Speaker 1: smaller than any of that. More than a hundred people died,

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Speaker 1: that was a lot for the time. Uh. And even

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Speaker 1: though it's usually noted as the worst train wreck in

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Speaker 1: American history, it was also kind of a run of

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Speaker 1: the mill accident. So the death toll was large, but

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Speaker 1: the circumstances that led to the accident were typical. So

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Speaker 1: we're going to start out today with a look at

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Speaker 1: why the railroad industry was so dangerous at that time

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Speaker 1: before we get into the actual wreck. So, as Tracy

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Speaker 1: just indicated, in the early days of the railroad industry

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Speaker 1: in the United States, trains were extremely dangerous. There were

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Speaker 1: no standards for reporting injuries and deaths, so the numbers

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Speaker 1: about exactly how dangerous are a little bit scattered, but

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Speaker 1: in general, hundreds of people died and thousands were injured

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Speaker 1: in connection to the railroad every single year between eighteen

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Speaker 1: eighty two and eighteen ninety two. The year with the

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Speaker 1: fewest deaths was eight five, during which three hundred seven

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Speaker 1: people were killed. Was the worst. Eight hundred six deaths

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Speaker 1: happened that year, and passengers and workers alike died in

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Speaker 1: things like collisions, derailments, bridge collapses, and boiler explosions. It

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Speaker 1: was particularly dangerous for the workers, with one of the

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Speaker 1: most common sources of injury being the process of coupling

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Speaker 1: and decoupling train cars. The cars were connected using these

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Speaker 1: link and pin couplers, and you had to physically get

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Speaker 1: in between two train cars to connect them or deconnect

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Speaker 1: them from each other. Forty four percent of on the

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Speaker 1: job injuries for rail railroad workers during this time happened

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Speaker 1: during coupling and decoupling cars. The industry was so dangerous

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Speaker 1: that manufacturers of wheelchairs, crutches, and prosthetic limbs advertised specifically

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Speaker 1: to railroad workers, and railway surgeon became its own profession,

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Speaker 1: with its own professional organizations and its own medical journals.

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Speaker 1: Railway surgeons were usually general practitioners who also performed surgeries

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Speaker 1: and amputations, and as the industry grew, they provided both

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Speaker 1: routine and emergency care to railway workers as well as

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Speaker 1: to passengers who became ill or were injured. So at

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Speaker 1: first the railroad started employing doctors because the crews that

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Speaker 1: were building new railroad lines were way out in remote,

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Speaker 1: inaccessible territory, so the railroad needed to have its own

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Speaker 1: medical staff on hand, rather than expecting there to be

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Speaker 1: a doctor anywhere nearby to come help in an emergency.

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Speaker 1: But over time this blossomed into an entire medical system,

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Speaker 1: sometimes funded by the railroads and sometimes funded by the

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Speaker 1: railroads employees. By the time of the Great Train Wreck

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Speaker 1: of nineteen eighteen, nearly every railroad in the United States

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Speaker 1: had its own medical organization, and while routine care was

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Speaker 1: part of the job, they were also approaching it as

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Speaker 1: though they were going to be tree eating injuries among

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Speaker 1: both workers and passengers, and that these injuries are basically inevitable. Unsurprisingly,

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Speaker 1: in the face of such dramatic and obvious dangers to

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Speaker 1: both passengers and workers, there were huge calls for safety legislation.

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Speaker 1: As a general rule, the railroad companies opposed this legislation,

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Speaker 1: while the emerging railroad labor unions supported it. So the

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Speaker 1: railroad companies were in many cases paying for medical staff

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Speaker 1: to treat injuries while opposing the legislation to require safety

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Speaker 1: measures that would have helped prevent them. It took a

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Speaker 1: long time to pass the laws that people were asking for.

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Speaker 1: Public demand for some kind of safety legislation started as

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Speaker 1: early as eighteen seventy, but the first major piece of

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Speaker 1: legislation came more than twenty years later with the Safety

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Speaker 1: Appliance Act of that was passed over the ongoing objections

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Speaker 1: of the railroad companies. This Act required better powered braking systems,

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Speaker 1: so before the brakes were very rudimentary they were manual.

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Speaker 1: You basically had to have a brakeman on each car,

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Speaker 1: applying these brakes manually to get the train to stop.

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Speaker 1: So this was requiring powered brakes, and they had to

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Speaker 1: be installed on enough of the train cars for the

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Speaker 1: engineer to stop the train from the engine without having

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Speaker 1: to have individual brakeman controlling a lot of manual brakes

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Speaker 1: on each car. The Safety Appliance Act of eighteen nine

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Speaker 1: three also required automatic couplers that could be operated without

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Speaker 1: a worker having to get physically in between two train

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Speaker 1: cars to do it. The Safety Appliance Act of eighteen

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Speaker 1: ninety three went into effect in nineteen hundred, and it

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Speaker 1: was amended in nineteen o three to clarify various issues

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Speaker 1: that arose once railroads were attempting to comply with it.

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Speaker 1: Another act in nineteen ten added more safety requirements and

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Speaker 1: empowered the Interstate Commerce Commission to establish standards for safety systems.

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Speaker 1: A nineteen o seven laws sent maximums on working hours

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Speaker 1: for railroad employees on the grounds that exhausted workers were

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Speaker 1: more likely to make fatal mistakes. So these laws and

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Speaker 1: the safety standards that they required definitely made the railroads

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Speaker 1: a lot safer on the job. Injuries for railroad workers

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Speaker 1: dropped precipitously, even as the number of workers in the

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Speaker 1: industry was growing. Passenger deaths dropped as well. These improved

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Speaker 1: breaking systems meant that when trains collided, they usually did

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Speaker 1: so at slower speeds than they did before, so the

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Speaker 1: rex were not as deadly, but the trains still collided.

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Speaker 1: The number of train wrecks per year continued to increase

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Speaker 1: after all these laws were passed, in part because of

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Speaker 1: an increasing number of trains on the rails. The number

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Speaker 1: of annual rex peaked in seven, with thirty nine recks

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Speaker 1: in the United States that year alone. It was about

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Speaker 1: that time that professional publications in the industry started talking

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Speaker 1: about some kind of automatic signaling and train control systems

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Speaker 1: which could help prevent collisions rather than just slowing down

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Speaker 1: the trains before they ultimately hit each other. Those are

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Speaker 1: some systems already existed, but they weren't mandatory until after

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Speaker 1: the wreck that we're talking about today. The call for

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Speaker 1: it came before the wreck. Congress directed the Interstate Commerce

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Speaker 1: Commission to start investigating block signaling systems and automatic train

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Speaker 1: control systems in n seven, and that investigation was the

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Speaker 1: first step in requiring these types of systems. In a

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Speaker 1: block signaling system, train tracks are divided up into sections

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Speaker 1: called blocks, and the signals let the engineer know whether

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Speaker 1: the block ahead is clearer or not. Before the development

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Speaker 1: of automatic block signaling, keeping these signals up to date

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Speaker 1: could be really imprecise, as in a worker with a

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Speaker 1: stopwatch would clock the train when it passed and then

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Speaker 1: mark the block is clear when it should have been clear.

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Speaker 1: But once the train was out of a worker's line

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Speaker 1: of sight, that was all guesswork, with no way to

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Speaker 1: really know if the train had to stop for some reason.

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Speaker 1: The telegraph helped with this because train orders could be

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Speaker 1: sent up and down the line rather than basically by

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Speaker 1: estimating and hoping that everything was going as planned, but

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Speaker 1: this was still prone to all kinds of problems. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: there wasn't even an employee with a stop watch. There

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Speaker 1: was just a timetable of when the blacks are supposed

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Speaker 1: to be clear, and you would just sort of hope

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Speaker 1: that everything was on schedule that day. Automatic train control

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Speaker 1: systems are just what they sound like, their systems that

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Speaker 1: can automatically adjust the speed of the train, although at

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Speaker 1: the time sometimes they were used in a broader sense

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Speaker 1: to mean all kinds of different automatic safety systems, including signaling.

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Speaker 1: Although the i c C was investigating these systems in

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Speaker 1: nineteen o seven, formal orders to install them didn't begin

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Speaker 1: until the nineteen twenties and thirties, and these systems almost

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Speaker 1: certainly would have prevented the Great train Wreck of nineteen eighteen,

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Speaker 1: which we were going to get into after we first

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Speaker 1: paused for a sponsor break. The Great train Wreck of

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen was a head on collision between two trains

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Speaker 1: from the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway, also known

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Speaker 1: as the n C and St L for the Dixie Line.

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Speaker 1: The two trains involved were the Number one Express from

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Speaker 1: Memphis and the Number four from Nashville. The collision happened

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Speaker 1: about five miles or eight kilometers away from the main

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Speaker 1: Nashville train station, between Harding and a round house that

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Speaker 1: was known as Shops. The Number one Express from Memphis

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Speaker 1: was being pulled by locomotive number two eighty one. Behind

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Speaker 1: the locomotive was a baggage car, followed by five wooden

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Speaker 1: passenger coaches. Following those were two pullman sleepers, one made

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Speaker 1: completely of steel and the other with a steel undercarriage.

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Speaker 1: And ends on the Number four. From Nashville, there was

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Speaker 1: locomotive to eighty two, followed by a combination baggage and

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Speaker 1: mail car, and then another baggage car and six coaches.

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Speaker 1: All of the Number four's cars were wooden. Both trains

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Speaker 1: were segregated, and the front passenger cars were the gym

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Speaker 1: crow cars. This was the worst place to be on

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Speaker 1: the train. It was the closest to the engine, which

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Speaker 1: had its own dangers from the boiler to the likelihood

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Speaker 1: of an accident. It was the smokiest place on the

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Speaker 1: train because of smoke from the engine. So that is

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Speaker 1: how the lay out of the train was. On the

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Speaker 1: Number one from Memphis, a lot of the black passengers aboard.

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Speaker 1: We're going to work at a new depot munitions plant

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Speaker 1: in Old Hickory, which is part of Metro Nashville today.

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Speaker 1: The Number one had left Memphis around midnight on July nine.

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Speaker 1: Normally it arrived in Nashville at about seven ten in

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Speaker 1: the morning, and the Number four normally left Nashville at

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Speaker 1: seven am. Under normal circumstances, the two trains passed by

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Speaker 1: each other in opposite directions on a stretch of double

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Speaker 1: track between Nashville and shops. This was about two and

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Speaker 1: a half miles that's roughly four kilometers a a from

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Speaker 1: the station at Nashville. Any time that there was a delay,

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Speaker 1: the number four would wait at shops until the number

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Speaker 1: one train had passed. The railroad had a set of

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Speaker 1: standard procedures about which train on the tracks had the

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Speaker 1: right of way, and when it came to approaching Nashville

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Speaker 1: from the west, the inbound trains had priority. On this

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Speaker 1: particular morning, though both trains were running late. The Number

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Speaker 1: one from Memphis was about half an hour behind schedule

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Speaker 1: and the Number four, headed out of Nashville was about

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Speaker 1: seven minutes late. Before it left Nashville, the number four

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Speaker 1: received an order to meet the number seven running under

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Speaker 1: Engine to fifteen at Harding. The order also noted that

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Speaker 1: the number one train was being pulled by Engine to

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Speaker 1: eighty one, and this was all to help the crew

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Speaker 1: aboard the number four correctly identify the number one. So

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Speaker 1: after getting these orders, the conductor on the number four

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Speaker 1: had a conversation with the engineer about it, and he said,

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Speaker 1: the number one must be some late this morning, but

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Speaker 1: I don't believe the mail is going to delay us,

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Speaker 1: so he will have to change that meeting point to

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Speaker 1: Vaughan's Gap. Bonds Gap was the next stop west after Hardings.

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Speaker 1: It was basically saying, we're gonna have to meet that

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Speaker 1: number seven at a different point. According to the conductor

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Speaker 1: who survived this wreck and was interviewed later, he and

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Speaker 1: the engineer, David C. Kennedy had a conversation that left

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Speaker 1: him under the impression that they would be delayed on

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Speaker 1: that stretch of double track for a while as they

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Speaker 1: waited for the number one to pass them. But when

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Speaker 1: the number four got to that stretch of double tracks

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Speaker 1: by Shops, a different train was headed in the other direction.

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Speaker 1: It was a switch engine, or an engine that was

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Speaker 1: used to move cars from one place to another for

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Speaker 1: logistical reasons, rather than hauling passengers or cargo. Switch engines

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Speaker 1: at the time were usually smaller than the ones that

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Speaker 1: hauled passenger and freight trains. When the switch engine passed

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Speaker 1: by the number four, the conductor was collecting passengers tickets.

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Speaker 1: He heard this other train and he assumed what he

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Speaker 1: was hearing was the number one, but he did personally

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Speaker 1: go look and check which train. It was. A switch

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Speaker 1: engine passed by Shops at about seven fifteen in the morning,

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Speaker 1: at which point the number four continued onto that single

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Speaker 1: track and started picking up speed, and that's when people

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Speaker 1: in the operating tower at Shops realized that something was wrong.

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Speaker 1: The tower operator had been on duty for less than

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Speaker 1: ten minutes that day, and no one had mentioned to

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Speaker 1: him that the number one was behind schedule and hadn't

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Speaker 1: arrived yet when he got there. He only realized it

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Speaker 1: after the number four had already passed the tower, and

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Speaker 1: then he noticed that the number one wasn't listed on

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Speaker 1: his train sheet. The operator contacted the dispatcher and told

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Speaker 1: him that the number four train had moved on to

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Speaker 1: the signal the single track, but that he didn't think

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Speaker 1: the number one had arrived yet. The dispatcher told him

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Speaker 1: to try to stop that train, so the crew at

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Speaker 1: Shops dropped the signal to stop and they started sounding

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Speaker 1: the emergency whistle to try to get the attention of

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Speaker 1: somebody on the Number four. This didn't take long. The

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Speaker 1: number four was only about a train length away from

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Speaker 1: the tower, but its crew either did not hear the

256
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Speaker 1: whistle or didn't heat it, and the train continued to

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Speaker 1: pick up speed. At this point, both trains were approaching

258
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Speaker 1: a stretch of track called Dutchman's curve. It's a sharp

259
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Speaker 1: curve in the track which is also on a grade,

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Speaker 1: and an overhead highway bridge and a stretch of forest

261
00:15:21,480 --> 00:15:24,640
Speaker 1: also blocked the view of the other side of the curve,

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00:15:25,120 --> 00:15:28,280
Speaker 1: so even though the weather was clear, it was impossible

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Speaker 1: for the cruise on either of the two trains to

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Speaker 1: see each other until it was too late for them

265
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Speaker 1: to stop or even really slow down. The two trains

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Speaker 1: collided head on at seven twenty in the morning. Both

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Speaker 1: trains were traveling at an estimated speed of fifty miles

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Speaker 1: or eighty kilometers per hour. The conductor on the Number

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Speaker 1: four said he felt the air brakes being applied on

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Speaker 1: his train before the collision, but the conductor on the

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Speaker 1: number one said he did not. The engineers and stokers

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Speaker 1: of both trains were killed instantly, so we have no

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Speaker 1: detail about what was happening in either locomotive in the

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Speaker 1: moments before the impact. These two locomotives propelled each other

275
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Speaker 1: upward in an inverted v before they fell down into

276
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Speaker 1: the corn fields on either side of the track, with

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Speaker 1: the Number one's locomotive falling on the west side and

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Speaker 1: the Number four is falling on the east. Both locomotives

279
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Speaker 1: were virtually demolished, with their frames and their machinery being

280
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Speaker 1: stripped completely free of the boilers and destroyed. Here's how

281
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Speaker 1: the i c C Report described the Number one Trains

282
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Speaker 1: cars after the wreck quote the baggage car was completely demolished.

283
00:16:35,800 --> 00:16:39,400
Speaker 1: The first coach lay crosswise the track, the combination car

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Speaker 1: of train number four being driven into its side near

285
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Speaker 1: the center and its rear end torn completely out to

286
00:16:46,120 --> 00:16:49,800
Speaker 1: a depth of twelve or fifteen feet. The second coach

287
00:16:49,880 --> 00:16:52,600
Speaker 1: was derailed and its forward end went down the bank

288
00:16:52,640 --> 00:16:54,760
Speaker 1: and rested on the front end of the boiler of

289
00:16:54,800 --> 00:16:57,880
Speaker 1: locomotive to eighty one, and its rear end rested on

290
00:16:57,920 --> 00:17:00,440
Speaker 1: the roadbed on top of the frame and are parts

291
00:17:00,480 --> 00:17:04,080
Speaker 1: of Locomotive to eighty one, its forward end being badly

292
00:17:04,119 --> 00:17:08,200
Speaker 1: broken and damaged. The third coach remained on the roadbed

293
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Speaker 1: with its forward end jammed against the rear of the

294
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Speaker 1: second coach. The rear trucks of this car and the

295
00:17:13,960 --> 00:17:17,359
Speaker 1: four following cars were not derailed. And here's how the

296
00:17:17,400 --> 00:17:21,320
Speaker 1: report described the Number four's cars. The forward half of

297
00:17:21,359 --> 00:17:24,679
Speaker 1: the combination car was demolished by coming in contact with

298
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Speaker 1: the first coach of train number one. The baggage car

299
00:17:28,160 --> 00:17:31,240
Speaker 1: was completely telescoped with the first coach to its rear,

300
00:17:31,640 --> 00:17:35,720
Speaker 1: both cars remaining upright, but we're practically destroyed as shown

301
00:17:35,720 --> 00:17:38,879
Speaker 1: by figure four. The end of the second coach was

302
00:17:38,960 --> 00:17:41,800
Speaker 1: demolished for a distance of six or eight feet and

303
00:17:41,880 --> 00:17:45,000
Speaker 1: partially telescoped with the rear end of the coach ahead

304
00:17:45,040 --> 00:17:48,240
Speaker 1: of it. The three rear cars of train number four

305
00:17:48,440 --> 00:17:52,800
Speaker 1: were not derailed and only slightly damaged. According to news

306
00:17:52,840 --> 00:17:56,800
Speaker 1: reports at the time, one people were killed and fifty

307
00:17:56,880 --> 00:18:00,600
Speaker 1: seven were injured. The death toll cited to Day comes

308
00:18:00,600 --> 00:18:02,919
Speaker 1: from the i c C Report, which was one hundred

309
00:18:02,920 --> 00:18:06,800
Speaker 1: and one killed and one hundred seventy one injured, but

310
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Speaker 1: it's likely that some of the injured died after their

311
00:18:09,480 --> 00:18:13,720
Speaker 1: injuries after that report was completed. It's not totally clear

312
00:18:13,800 --> 00:18:17,399
Speaker 1: how this broke down between employees and passengers. The i

313
00:18:17,520 --> 00:18:20,359
Speaker 1: c C Report lists both the injuries and the deaths

314
00:18:20,400 --> 00:18:25,080
Speaker 1: as eight seven passengers and fourteen employees. As we mentioned earlier,

315
00:18:25,119 --> 00:18:27,639
Speaker 1: the cars in the front of both trains were the

316
00:18:27,680 --> 00:18:30,600
Speaker 1: gym crow cars, so most of the passengers and the

317
00:18:30,640 --> 00:18:33,320
Speaker 1: cars that were completely crushed during the wreck were black

318
00:18:33,840 --> 00:18:38,080
Speaker 1: Between eight and of all the people killed in this

319
00:18:38,160 --> 00:18:40,679
Speaker 1: wreck were black. And we're going to talk about the

320
00:18:40,720 --> 00:18:43,119
Speaker 1: aftermath of this wreck after we first paused for a

321
00:18:43,119 --> 00:18:54,000
Speaker 1: little sponsor break. Conditions at the scene of the train

322
00:18:54,040 --> 00:18:58,080
Speaker 1: wreck were gruesome. Even though one car did catch fire,

323
00:18:58,160 --> 00:19:00,479
Speaker 1: the first people who arrived on the scene to assist

324
00:19:00,480 --> 00:19:03,000
Speaker 1: were able to put that fire out, but the front

325
00:19:03,000 --> 00:19:06,359
Speaker 1: cars on both trains had been crushed completely in the wreck,

326
00:19:06,440 --> 00:19:08,280
Speaker 1: and a lot of the bodies were too damaged to

327
00:19:08,359 --> 00:19:12,600
Speaker 1: be identified. And the cars were so gory that butchers

328
00:19:12,640 --> 00:19:15,320
Speaker 1: were asked to come from Nashville to help assist with

329
00:19:15,359 --> 00:19:17,960
Speaker 1: the cleanup effort, under the idea that they were used

330
00:19:17,960 --> 00:19:21,360
Speaker 1: to that much gore. Black and white doctors and nurses

331
00:19:21,440 --> 00:19:24,840
Speaker 1: came from Nashville to render aid. The National Chapter of

332
00:19:24,880 --> 00:19:27,560
Speaker 1: the Red Cross was on scene as well, and several

333
00:19:27,600 --> 00:19:30,679
Speaker 1: prominent women from the National area came with typewriters so

334
00:19:30,760 --> 00:19:34,400
Speaker 1: that survivors could dictate letters home to let their families

335
00:19:34,480 --> 00:19:37,720
Speaker 1: know that they were safe. The impact was also audible

336
00:19:37,760 --> 00:19:41,320
Speaker 1: for several miles, and in addition to the rescue workers

337
00:19:41,320 --> 00:19:42,960
Speaker 1: and other people who came to the scene to help,

338
00:19:43,000 --> 00:19:45,920
Speaker 1: a lot of people just came to gawk. There are

339
00:19:45,920 --> 00:19:48,880
Speaker 1: reports of between forty thousand and fifty thousand people coming

340
00:19:48,920 --> 00:19:51,159
Speaker 1: to the scene, but since there were only about a

341
00:19:51,240 --> 00:19:54,000
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty thousand people living in all of Nashville

342
00:19:54,040 --> 00:19:55,960
Speaker 1: at this time, that seems like maybe a little bit

343
00:19:56,000 --> 00:19:59,159
Speaker 1: of a stretch. There was also a children's home not

344
00:19:59,320 --> 00:20:01,159
Speaker 1: far from the scene of the wreck, and it's not

345
00:20:01,280 --> 00:20:04,000
Speaker 1: clear whether the children saw the wreck itself, but they

346
00:20:04,080 --> 00:20:08,360
Speaker 1: definitely saw its aftermath. Also, while there were definitely souvenir

347
00:20:08,440 --> 00:20:12,359
Speaker 1: hunters who took pieces of this wreck away, people's valuables

348
00:20:12,359 --> 00:20:16,080
Speaker 1: and luggage appear to have been left alone. Wrecking crews

349
00:20:16,160 --> 00:20:19,000
Speaker 1: arrived shortly after the accident to remove the wreckage and

350
00:20:19,040 --> 00:20:22,520
Speaker 1: clear the tracks so that train service could resume. Injured

351
00:20:22,600 --> 00:20:25,520
Speaker 1: people of both races were taken to City Hospital and

352
00:20:25,640 --> 00:20:28,800
Speaker 1: Vanderbilt Hospital, while the dead were transported to black and

353
00:20:28,800 --> 00:20:33,360
Speaker 1: white mortuaries in Nashville. The Black mortuaries in particular, were

354
00:20:33,440 --> 00:20:36,840
Speaker 1: overwhelmed by this huge volume of bodies that was brought in.

355
00:20:37,160 --> 00:20:41,480
Speaker 1: The Interstate Commerce Commission started an investigation almost immediately after

356
00:20:41,520 --> 00:20:44,280
Speaker 1: the wreck. The i c C had been established in

357
00:20:44,359 --> 00:20:47,919
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty seven to act as an independent regulatory body,

358
00:20:48,320 --> 00:20:51,080
Speaker 1: and it had been empowered to investigate train accidents in

359
00:20:51,200 --> 00:20:57,439
Speaker 1: nineteen ten. By today's standards, this investigation was really rudimentary.

360
00:20:57,560 --> 00:21:00,320
Speaker 1: They interviewed several people who worked for the railroad, and

361
00:21:00,440 --> 00:21:03,600
Speaker 1: they produced a seven page report with about five pages

362
00:21:03,600 --> 00:21:07,359
Speaker 1: of pictures that was dated August six, nineteen eighteen, a

363
00:21:07,400 --> 00:21:10,040
Speaker 1: little more than a month after the wreck happened. The

364
00:21:10,080 --> 00:21:13,000
Speaker 1: i c C conclusion was that the accident was caused

365
00:21:13,040 --> 00:21:15,199
Speaker 1: by the number four train being on the track at

366
00:21:15,240 --> 00:21:18,399
Speaker 1: Dutchman's Curve when it wasn't supposed to be. The number

367
00:21:18,400 --> 00:21:21,240
Speaker 1: one train had precedence and the number four was supposed

368
00:21:21,280 --> 00:21:23,640
Speaker 1: to wait at shops until the number one had passed,

369
00:21:24,080 --> 00:21:27,600
Speaker 1: but since engineer Kennedy was killed instantly, it's really unclear

370
00:21:27,680 --> 00:21:31,480
Speaker 1: why they didn't wait. This is especially true since multiple

371
00:21:31,520 --> 00:21:34,000
Speaker 1: people who were interviewed by the i c C said

372
00:21:34,000 --> 00:21:36,960
Speaker 1: that they knew this engineer to be a careful man

373
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Speaker 1: who adhered strictly to the rules. This definitely was not

374
00:21:41,800 --> 00:21:45,439
Speaker 1: a case of inexperience. The primary crews of both trains

375
00:21:45,480 --> 00:21:48,640
Speaker 1: had years of experience, and the only person on either

376
00:21:48,720 --> 00:21:51,000
Speaker 1: crew who was new to the job was the flagman

377
00:21:51,119 --> 00:21:54,280
Speaker 1: on the number four train. It also wasn't a case

378
00:21:54,320 --> 00:21:57,399
Speaker 1: of fatigue, or at least not fatigue caused by overly

379
00:21:57,480 --> 00:22:00,520
Speaker 1: long shifts. The number four trains who had been on

380
00:22:00,600 --> 00:22:03,080
Speaker 1: duty for less than an hour when this wreck took place.

381
00:22:03,640 --> 00:22:07,200
Speaker 1: So there's some speculation about what happened. That maybe engineer

382
00:22:07,280 --> 00:22:10,760
Speaker 1: Kennedy mistook that switch train for the number one, maybe

383
00:22:10,800 --> 00:22:14,040
Speaker 1: he just overlooked a signal somewhere, or maybe he thought

384
00:22:14,080 --> 00:22:17,240
Speaker 1: that because the number one was running so late, he

385
00:22:17,280 --> 00:22:19,000
Speaker 1: could make it all the way to Harding before the

386
00:22:19,119 --> 00:22:22,720
Speaker 1: number one did That last one seems kind of unlikely,

387
00:22:22,800 --> 00:22:25,040
Speaker 1: given that multiple people said that he was a man

388
00:22:25,160 --> 00:22:27,800
Speaker 1: who drove the train by the rules, because the rule

389
00:22:28,080 --> 00:22:30,119
Speaker 1: was to wait for the number one at shops, not

390
00:22:30,200 --> 00:22:32,920
Speaker 1: to try to beat it to a completely different stop. Yeah,

391
00:22:32,920 --> 00:22:35,120
Speaker 1: that seems like it would be a wild departure from

392
00:22:35,160 --> 00:22:38,080
Speaker 1: his normal behavior. One of the problems that the i

393
00:22:38,200 --> 00:22:42,520
Speaker 1: SEC did find was this the rules on precedence were clear,

394
00:22:42,640 --> 00:22:44,800
Speaker 1: and the rule was that the number four trains should

395
00:22:44,800 --> 00:22:48,440
Speaker 1: have waited for the number one at Shops, but there

396
00:22:48,480 --> 00:22:51,600
Speaker 1: wasn't really a good way of passing information related to

397
00:22:51,640 --> 00:22:55,320
Speaker 1: the train status. Although the operators in the tower at

398
00:22:55,359 --> 00:22:58,240
Speaker 1: Shops had a train list, there was not a formal

399
00:22:58,320 --> 00:23:02,600
Speaker 1: registry of the trains coming and goings. Instead, the crews

400
00:23:02,600 --> 00:23:05,520
Speaker 1: were in the habit of just asking the operator whether

401
00:23:05,640 --> 00:23:08,919
Speaker 1: the other trains had come in or not. The operator's

402
00:23:08,960 --> 00:23:12,200
Speaker 1: duties included running the tracks, which is to control which

403
00:23:12,240 --> 00:23:15,200
Speaker 1: train was on which track, so as a general rule,

404
00:23:15,359 --> 00:23:18,199
Speaker 1: the operator would probably have a sense of which trains

405
00:23:18,240 --> 00:23:20,639
Speaker 1: had come in and which ones had not, but that

406
00:23:20,760 --> 00:23:24,520
Speaker 1: was also not his actual job. It was the dispatcher's

407
00:23:24,680 --> 00:23:28,240
Speaker 1: job to know specifically which train had come and which hadn't.

408
00:23:28,840 --> 00:23:32,120
Speaker 1: So the i SEC recommended implementing a procedure in which

409
00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:35,720
Speaker 1: the trains would only proceed if they had confirmed with

410
00:23:35,800 --> 00:23:40,240
Speaker 1: the dispatcher that the train that had precedents had already arrived,

411
00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:43,360
Speaker 1: or that the train would only proceed if it had

412
00:23:43,359 --> 00:23:46,639
Speaker 1: an official order to do so, and the i c

413
00:23:46,800 --> 00:23:49,480
Speaker 1: C also recommended the sort of block system that we

414
00:23:49,560 --> 00:23:52,040
Speaker 1: talked about at the top of the show. In the

415
00:23:52,080 --> 00:23:55,120
Speaker 1: words of the report quote, with this volume of traffic,

416
00:23:55,240 --> 00:23:58,560
Speaker 1: and in view of the universally recognized features of increased

417
00:23:58,600 --> 00:24:01,560
Speaker 1: safety afforded by the block system, there can be no

418
00:24:01,720 --> 00:24:04,720
Speaker 1: valid excuse for the failure or neglect on the part

419
00:24:04,800 --> 00:24:08,480
Speaker 1: of the railroad company to utilize existing facilities for the

420
00:24:08,520 --> 00:24:12,480
Speaker 1: purpose of operating a block system on that line. The

421
00:24:12,560 --> 00:24:15,320
Speaker 1: I s C Report also noted that there would have

422
00:24:15,359 --> 00:24:18,840
Speaker 1: been much less loss of life if all the cars

423
00:24:18,960 --> 00:24:22,199
Speaker 1: on the trains had been steel instead of wood, and

424
00:24:22,240 --> 00:24:25,720
Speaker 1: recommended that the passenger trains phase out their wooden cars,

425
00:24:25,880 --> 00:24:30,360
Speaker 1: and that ultimately did happen. This wreck was very briefly

426
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:34,000
Speaker 1: national news, but because this was also in the middle

427
00:24:34,040 --> 00:24:37,920
Speaker 1: of World War One, it was quickly overshadowed by wartime news,

428
00:24:38,400 --> 00:24:40,440
Speaker 1: and the fact that so many of the victims were

429
00:24:40,440 --> 00:24:43,520
Speaker 1: black meant that after the initial reporting, it just didn't

430
00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:46,400
Speaker 1: get as much attention in the white press. Today, there's

431
00:24:46,400 --> 00:24:48,920
Speaker 1: a historical marker near the side of the crash, which

432
00:24:48,960 --> 00:24:52,160
Speaker 1: was placed in two thousand and eight for the ninetie anniversary,

433
00:24:52,240 --> 00:24:55,280
Speaker 1: and it's also the subject of several ballads and songs.

434
00:24:55,920 --> 00:25:02,119
Speaker 1: I did not realize how colossally dangerous trains were in

435
00:25:02,160 --> 00:25:04,720
Speaker 1: their earth. I mean, there's the obvious amount of danger,

436
00:25:05,720 --> 00:25:08,600
Speaker 1: but I didn't realize it went quite to that extent

437
00:25:08,760 --> 00:25:11,320
Speaker 1: until I looked at all those numbers. Do you also

438
00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:14,320
Speaker 1: have some listener mail that maybe involved less loss of life?

439
00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:22,320
Speaker 1: It doesn't, actually, Uh, it is about our episode about

440
00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:26,800
Speaker 1: Hurricane San Serriaco. Um, so it's there's also loss of

441
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:30,960
Speaker 1: life and listener mail today, not specifically, but uh, this

442
00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:34,440
Speaker 1: is from rosadel and she says that she's a librarian

443
00:25:34,760 --> 00:25:38,400
Speaker 1: in Puerto Rico, which was great. We got several emails

444
00:25:38,480 --> 00:25:42,280
Speaker 1: so far from people from Puerto Rico talking about their experiences.

445
00:25:42,560 --> 00:25:44,720
Speaker 1: So Rosedale says, I've been listening to your stuff you

446
00:25:44,720 --> 00:25:46,720
Speaker 1: miss in history class for years, and it was a

447
00:25:46,760 --> 00:25:48,600
Speaker 1: huge surprise when I saw you worked on an episode

448
00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:52,120
Speaker 1: about Hurricane San Serriaco. You mentioned several times that there

449
00:25:52,119 --> 00:25:55,959
Speaker 1: were a lot of parallels between San Sorriaco in and

450
00:25:56,040 --> 00:25:59,199
Speaker 1: Maria in, but I was not expecting them to be

451
00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:01,879
Speaker 1: so eerily so Miller, I lived through Maria. It was

452
00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:04,439
Speaker 1: one of the most horrifying experiences of my life. There

453
00:26:04,480 --> 00:26:06,359
Speaker 1: was a shock to listen that way. Too many things

454
00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:09,480
Speaker 1: I lived through last year and certainly still currently live

455
00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:14,240
Speaker 1: were repeats from in our history classes. We weren't taught

456
00:26:14,440 --> 00:26:17,720
Speaker 1: on what happened after the US invasion and how precarious

457
00:26:17,760 --> 00:26:22,080
Speaker 1: the situation was before San Syriaco struck Puerto Rico, much

458
00:26:22,119 --> 00:26:25,920
Speaker 1: like what happened with Maria. Just to mention a few parallels. Currently,

459
00:26:25,960 --> 00:26:28,400
Speaker 1: we are dealing with a massive financial crisis that has

460
00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:32,120
Speaker 1: led into buildings not receiving their usual upkeep, a decline

461
00:26:32,119 --> 00:26:36,119
Speaker 1: in our economy, and brutal austerity measures. The slowness in

462
00:26:36,160 --> 00:26:39,320
Speaker 1: the federal government's response, and the racial assumptions to try

463
00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:42,520
Speaker 1: to help beliefs as possible happened in Maria as well.

464
00:26:43,359 --> 00:26:46,520
Speaker 1: Migration to other areas of the United States also happened,

465
00:26:46,800 --> 00:26:49,720
Speaker 1: except that Maria's aftermath resulted in a mass migration to

466
00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:52,320
Speaker 1: states such as Florida, Texas, and the northeast of the

467
00:26:52,359 --> 00:26:55,320
Speaker 1: United States. I felt that I lived almost every single

468
00:26:55,359 --> 00:26:58,560
Speaker 1: point discussed in the episode, but with Hurricane Maria at

469
00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:00,240
Speaker 1: the end of the episode, I was in ray that

470
00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:03,240
Speaker 1: essentially the story repeated itself almost a hundred and nineteen

471
00:27:03,320 --> 00:27:06,040
Speaker 1: years later, and we had truly miss it in history class.

472
00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:08,760
Speaker 1: On another note, thank you so much for discussing the

473
00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:11,320
Speaker 1: political events in Puerto Rico in the decade of the

474
00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:14,359
Speaker 1: eighteen nineties, something else we missed in our classes. The

475
00:27:14,400 --> 00:27:17,000
Speaker 1: background on the island was very complicated, and it's one

476
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:19,680
Speaker 1: that has not understood well up to the state particularly.

477
00:27:19,680 --> 00:27:21,720
Speaker 1: I was delighted when you use the word invasion to

478
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:25,640
Speaker 1: describe the events of mar when, as some folks say

479
00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:28,720
Speaker 1: around here, quote the Americans came to the island. Not

480
00:27:28,800 --> 00:27:31,040
Speaker 1: a lot of people around here like that word, but

481
00:27:31,440 --> 00:27:35,440
Speaker 1: that essentially was what happened. Fun fact, July is now

482
00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:38,920
Speaker 1: a date to commemorate the establishment of the Puerto Rico

483
00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:43,440
Speaker 1: Commonwealth on July two, and there are few mentions on

484
00:27:43,480 --> 00:27:46,960
Speaker 1: what happened in except maybe in small circles and also

485
00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:49,960
Speaker 1: on social media. So the email goes on to say,

486
00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:52,000
Speaker 1: like I mentioned before, I felt enraged by the end

487
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:54,040
Speaker 1: of the episode, but it truly has become one of

488
00:27:54,080 --> 00:27:57,040
Speaker 1: my favorite episodes ever. I hope this episode raises awareness

489
00:27:57,040 --> 00:28:00,480
Speaker 1: on Puerto Rico's history and complicated background and opens the

490
00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:03,679
Speaker 1: door to deeper discussions about the island's past, present, and future.

491
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:06,480
Speaker 1: I truly appreciate all of your work on the podcast

492
00:28:06,520 --> 00:28:09,360
Speaker 1: and keep up the amazing job, Grassies. Tons of love

493
00:28:09,480 --> 00:28:12,880
Speaker 1: from Puerto Rico. Thank you so much for this email.

494
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:16,600
Speaker 1: I had a lot of those parallels in the original

495
00:28:16,640 --> 00:28:20,680
Speaker 1: episode outline, and it was becoming this like many many, many,

496
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:26,719
Speaker 1: many minutes long digression, and so I ultimately remove them

497
00:28:26,760 --> 00:28:28,560
Speaker 1: from that line, and I was very glad to get

498
00:28:28,560 --> 00:28:30,440
Speaker 1: them in the email so I could read them now.

499
00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:33,840
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for sending that along, and

500
00:28:33,880 --> 00:28:35,880
Speaker 1: for listening to the show, and to the other folks

501
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:38,800
Speaker 1: who have written to us from from Puerto Rico, because

502
00:28:38,840 --> 00:28:40,880
Speaker 1: there have been several If you would like to write

503
00:28:40,880 --> 00:28:43,320
Speaker 1: to us, we're a history podcasts at how Stuffworks dot com,

504
00:28:43,360 --> 00:28:46,120
Speaker 1: and we're also all over social media missed in History.

505
00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 1: That is our Facebook and our Twitter, and our Pinterest

506
00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:51,760
Speaker 1: and our Instagram. And you can't come to our website,

507
00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:53,800
Speaker 1: which is missing history dot com, where you will find

508
00:28:53,800 --> 00:28:55,840
Speaker 1: show notes on the episodes Holly and I have worked

509
00:28:55,880 --> 00:28:58,560
Speaker 1: on together in a searchable archive of every episode ever,

510
00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:02,360
Speaker 1: and you can see described to our show on Apple Podcasts,

511
00:29:02,440 --> 00:29:10,200
Speaker 1: Google Play and wherever else you get podcasts. For more

512
00:29:10,240 --> 00:29:12,840
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff

513
00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:16,600
Speaker 1: Works dot com. M