![]() ![]() And they would have done that, were it not for some issues involving the crew’s watches. This is one of the engines involved in the 1893 Kipton train crashĪt an earlier stop, the Toledo Express crew had been instructed to pull onto a siding up ahead at Kipton to let the mail train pass. Coming in the other direction, at much slower speed, was the Toledo Express, a train consisting of five coaches and two baggage cars. The fast mail train known as #14, with three mail cars and two parlor cars, was headed west at full speed on the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad tracks, about 40 miles west of Cleveland. It was a train wreck that killed nine people, six of them postal clerks, and it changed time forever. That’s what happened in Kipton, Ohio on April 18, 1891, in what came to be known as the Great Kipton Train Disaster. If your watch is eight or nine minutes slow, and the other freight gets to the siding before you do, the trains could collide. Maybe you need to pull your train onto a siding to let it pass. Maybe a freight train is coming from the opposite direction. Getting somewhere on schedule mattered, but it was more than that. Watches were a big deal for railroad people back in the old days, because time was critical in the railroad business. I think it was made in the 1920s, but I’m not sure. My grandfather was an engineer for the Boston & Albany Railroad. I just ended up posting it here on my blog, and then on Facebook. This was something I wrote without any real clear idea of where to publish it. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |