The wrecks the record keeps

1859–1938 · FROM THE OFFICIAL RECORD

Three wrecks stand in the documentary record of South Bend's railroads, and they are printed here at the record's size — the offenses, if any, belong to Crime History, and the first of them stands also in Major Events: The great early disaster came on 27 June 1859, eight years after the first train. The Michigan Southern's Night Express, Chicago to Toledo with some 150 passengers, plunged into the Springbrook ravine between Mishawaka and South Bend just before midnight: after extreme rain, a culvert blocked by flood debris had dammed the stream against the embankment, and the fill collapsed under the train. The site is near present Ironwood Road. The death toll is a genuine conflict in the record and is printed as one: the first dispatches counted 33 dead and 57 wounded; a week later the toll stood at 41; some accounts estimate 60 to 70; the settled modern figure is 42 killed and 50 injured.

The two later wrecks are Interstate Commerce Commission paper. On 28 April 1932, westbound Grand Trunk passenger train No. 5, behind engine 6037, a 4-8-2, derailed about 4:15 in the morning on the elevated joint trackage; the engine overturned and slid more than five hundred feet, the second car fell from the retaining wall between High and Marietta Streets and damaged a dwelling below, and the engineman and fireman were killed, with two express messengers and two residents of the dwelling injured. The Bureau of Safety's report of 7 June 1932 fixed the cause as excessive speed on a sharp curve. On 12 November 1938, at Olivers — the place where the Grand Trunk's eastward main crossed the New York Central–Michigan Central connection track, its name taken from the plow works — New York Central passenger Extra 5247 and Grand Trunk passenger Extra 6037 side-collided at 12:08 in the afternoon; Investigation No. 2309 counted 185 injured and no deaths, and laid the cause to the Grand Trunk train's failure to be operated under control, prepared to stop at the grade crossing.

Sources:

1. The modern compiled record of the Springbrook wreck of 27 June 1859, cross-referenced to this build's Major Events section — the Night Express, the flood-blocked culvert and collapsed embankment, the Ironwood Road vicinity, and the four toll figures (33 and 57 in the first dispatches; 41 a week later; estimates of 60–70; the settled 42 killed and 50 injured), printed as the conflict it is.
2. Interstate Commerce Commission, Bureau of Safety, report of 7 June 1932 — the derailment of Grand Trunk train No. 5 behind engine 6037 on the elevated joint trackage, 28 April 1932: the overturned engine, the car fallen between High and Marietta Streets, the engineman and fireman killed, the messengers and residents injured, and excessive speed on a sharp curve as the cause.
3. Interstate Commerce Commission, Investigation No. 2309 — the side collision at Olivers, 12 November 1938, New York Central Extra 5247 and Grand Trunk Extra 6037: 185 injured, no deaths reported, and the Grand Trunk train's failure to be operated under control as the cause.