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From: "David MonteVerde" david AT gvtrail DOT com
Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2017 15:14:59 -0400
Subject: Gibson Lackawanna Train wreck on the 4th of July 1912
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David J. Monte Verde

President GVT Rail System

1 Mill Street Suite 101

Batavia, New York 14020

Cell 716 474-2014

Fax 585 343-4369

Office 585 343-5398





The Corning train wreck (also known as the Gibson train wreck) was a railway
accident that occurred at 5.21 a.m. on July 4, 1912 on the

Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad at East Corning freight station in
Gibson three miles east of
Corning in
New York State leaving 39
dead and 88 injured.

Accident

At 3:50 a.m. freight train No.393 left
Elmira with 55 loaded cars;
it experienced steaming problems and at 4:46 a.m. and pulled into a siding
at East Corning freight station to investigate. As it was doing so a
coupling broke, leaving several cars on the main line. The line operated
Automatic Block
Signals; the presence of a train in the block section automatically setting
the preceding semaphore
signals; the first to caution, the next to danger. In addition as it was
foggy the flagman placed two
torpedoes on the line to
protect the rear of the train.

Passenger train No.9 running from
Hoboken, New Jersey, to
Buffalo and
Niagara Falls left Elmira at
4:47; it consisted of ten cars hauled by two locomotives. It heeded the
signals and came to a halt behind the disabled freight train. The engineer
of No.9 decided to assist the freight train and the head locomotive was
uncoupled to push the loose cars ahead onto the siding.

Meanwhile, train No.11, an eight car mail express pulled by a
Wootten-type('camelback')
engine, also travelling from Hoboken to Buffalo, departed Elmira at 5:00
a.m. For some reason the engineer, William Schroeder, ignored two signals,
one at caution and one at danger and plowed into the back of No.9 at a speed
of 60 mph. The rear coach of No.9 was 'completely destroyed', the next one
being of steel construction was less damaged only the 'vestibules and
platforms on both ends were crushed', however it was 'stripped off its
trucks and telescoped
the third (wooden) car from the end through two-thirds of its length. All
but two of the mail express cars were derailed and whiplashed, bringing down
the telegraph poles on both sides of the track; meaning it was an hour
before news of the disaster reached Corning. Meanwhile, hordes of spectators
gathered hampering subsequent access by medical and rescue teams. A special
relief train arrived from Elmira at 7 a.m. carrying doctors and nurses, but
by 9 a.m. injured were still trapped in the wreckage.





Inquest and investigation

At the coroner's inquest it was revealed that 95% of the victims had
suffered fractured skulls, the conclusion being that they had their heads
out of the windows to try to determine the cause of the delay. The inquest
also heard that engineer Schroeder had appeared drunk the morning of the
accident at 12:30 a.m. Moreover, he was late for work that morning,
appearing only after two men had been sent to rouse him. Schroeder denied
being drunk, stating that he had drunk two gins 'as medicine'. The inquest
completed on July 17, 1912, acquitting the Lackawanna Railroad but holding
engineer Schroeder responsible for the crash.

The ICC
investigation, published on July 30, 1912, centered on why No. 11 failed to
stop. Schroeder said that the fog was very thick as he approached East
Corning and that "he was able to distinguish signals only by very carefully
watching for them, at times they could not be seen a distance of one car
length". He also admitted that due to problems with the
steam injectors he was "not
constantly on the watch for the signals" and did not see the caution signal,
the fusee or the flagman; only becoming aware of the train ahead when he was
150 feet from it. A member of the
New York
Public Service Commission stated "The railroad rules are very strict. The
engineers are required to know the location of every signal. That is part of
their business. It is their duty to observe every signal, if for any reason,
they cannot or do not see it as the train passes, it is their duty to regard
it as a danger signal and stop the train".

The investigation also criticized the flagman from No. 9, as unlike the
flagman from the freight train, he failed to deploy torpedoes on the track
(in his evidence he stated that when he heard No. 11 approaching he lit a
fusee and placed it next to the engineman's side of the track and also
flagged the oncoming train with a red flag but the engineman was looking
across to the other side of the engine and failed to notice him).

But as well as attributing blame to individuals the investigation also made
a number of recommendations. The regulations guiding the use of torpedoes
should be clarified as they rely too greatly on the judgment of rail staff.
Automatic block signaling would have provided far greater protection had the
blocks overlapped; meaning that protection would have been provided by two
stop signals (rather than just one) as well as the caution, hence one signal
missed would not then have resulted a disaster. Finally, the safety of
all-steel cars was highlighted over wooden construction as only two people
were killed in the steel car, "the substitution of all steel equipment for
wooden equipment in high speed passenger service shall be required at the
earliest practical date".
[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corning_train_wreck



-------------------------



Another account:



Gibson, NY Train Wreck, July 1912

41 DEAD, 50 HURT AS EXPRESS HITS EXCURSION TRAIN.

At 65-Mile Speed Lackawanna Flier Crashers Into Crowded Cars Near Corning,
N. Y.

ENGINEER IGNORES SIGNALS

Two Day Coaches Split in Two and a Pullman Crumpled Up by the Onrushing
Locomotive.

VICTIMS KILLED IN SLEEP

A Few Passengers Who Rise to Learn Cause of Delay Witnesses of Tragedy.

SWIFTLY RUSH TO SUCCOR.

Injured Are Hurried to Corning Hospitals While Dead Are Laid Out for
Identification.

MANY VICTIMS FROM HERE

Officials Blame Disaster on Express Engineer, Who, They Say, Ran By Warning
Semaphore.

Special to The New York Times.

CORNING, N. Y., July 4.---Train No. 9, the regular train of Delaware,
Lackawanna & Western Railroad, which leaves Hoboken nightly at 9 o'clock and
is due here at 4:47 o'clock the next morning, was halted near Gibson, a
small town three miles east of here, shortly after 5 o'clock this morning.
In front of it was a freight train, stalled on the steep incline to Gibson,
by the pulling out of a drawhead. An engine from the passenger train-two had
been put on to surmount the grade at Groveland with a heavy excursion crowd
bound for Buffalo and Niagara Falls---was detached and was striving to push
the heavy freight train ahead to a siding, when the rails began to sing with
the hum of an approaching train.

Most of the passengers aboard No. 9 were asleep. Some few were dressed and
out on the track watching the removal of the freight train. Through the
heavy mist, which was crawling up the mountain from the Chemung River far
below these few passengers presently saw a glaring headlight sweep around
the curve a few hundred feet back of their train, a curve which ends a
straight stretch of track ten or more miles, along which every train of the
division flies at topmost speed. The watching passengers had scarce time to
scramble down the bank beside the track. Then the locomotive of United
States Express Train 11, with ten heavy express cars behind it, crashed into
the rear of a day coach, which, with one other directly ahead of it, formed
the end of No. 9. Ahead of these were three Pullmans, a baggage car, and the
engine and tender.

As if they had been made of cardboard, the day coaches parted down the
middle, half of each toppling over on either side of the track, and the
monster engine, 100 tons of steel, which an instant before had been moving
at sixty-five miles an hour, cut into the rear steel Pullman, crumpled it up
as if it had been a tin can and came to a halt in the midst of this
wreckage.

In the debris lay forty-one persons instantly killed or so injured that they
died soon afterward. Between fifty and sixty others were pinned injured in
the wreckage. The lists of the dead and injured in this worst disaster in
years on the Lackawanna, which had previously had only two persons killed by
train accidents since 1900, are as follows:

The New York Times, New York, NY 5 Jul 1912



http://www.gendisasters.com/new-york/6908/gibson-ny-train-wreck-jul-1912



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