List of rail accidents (before 1880): Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 21:23, 1 August 2010

For a list of 1950-1999 rail accidents, see List of 1950-1999 rail accidents.
For a list of 2000-2009 rail accidents, see List of rail accidents (2000–2009).
For a list of post-2009 rail accidents, see List of rail accidents (2010-2019).

19th C:					1830s	1840s	1850s	1860s	1870s	1880s	1890s
20th C:	1900	1905	1910	1915	1920	1925	1930	1935	1940	1945
See also — External links — References Main article links are in bold

Pre 1830

1650

1650, April and July – Whickham, County Durham, England. Two boys run down by a wagon on a wooden coal tramway, and killed.^[1]

1815

1815, July 15 – Philadelphia, Co Durham, England: 16 people, mainly spectators, killed by the boiler explosion of the experimental locomotive "Brunton's Mechanical Traveller". {Also reported as 13 killed. See ^[2]}

1821

December 5, 1821 – David Brook, a carpenter, is walking home from Leeds along the Middleton Railway in a sleet storm when he is run over, with fatal results, by the steam engine of a coal train. This is the first case of a person being killed in a railway collision.^[3]

1827

1827 – An unnamed woman from Eaglescliffe, Teesside, England (believed to have been a blind beggar woman) is "killed by the steam machine on the railway". This is also said to be the first case of a person being killed in a railway collision, and the first case of a woman being killed.^[4]

1828

1828 – Locomotion No 1's boiler explodes killing the driver.

1830s

1830

September 15, 1830 – Newton-le-willows, England: William Huskisson becomes first widely-reported passenger train death. Killed by Stephenson's Rocket at the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.
December 1830 – Maryland, United States: On the Baltimore & Ohio the driver of a crowded horse-drawn coach falls from his seat and is killed beneath the wheels, the first fatal accident on a railroad in the US.

1831

June 17, 1831 – Charleston, South Carolina, United States: After the pressure safety valve is tied down by the train's fireman, the Best Friend of Charleston suffers a boiler explosion, killing him, scalding the engineer, and injuring three others. The locomotive was the first engine of the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company.^[5]

1832

July 25, 1832 – Quincy, Massachusetts, United States: A cable snaps on an incline of the Granite Railway, killing one tourist from Cuba and injuring three other visitors to the railway.

1833

November 8, 1833 – Hightstown rail accident, New Jersey, United States: Carriages of a Camden & Amboy train derail in the New Jersey countryside between Spotswood and Hightstown when an axle breaks on a car due to an overheated journal. One car overturns, killing two and injuring fifteen. Among the injured is Cornelius Vanderbilt who will later head the New York Central Railroad. Uninjured in the coach ahead is former U.S. President John Quincy Adams, who continues on to the Nation's Capital the next day.

1837

File:Oldprnt4.jpg

Suffolk, Virginia collision

August 11, 1837 – Suffolk, Virginia, United States: First head-on collision to result in passenger fatalities occurs on the Portsmouth and Roanoke Railroad near Suffolk when an eastbound lumber train coming down a grade at speed rounds a sharp curve and smashes into the morning passenger train from Portsmouth, Virginia. First three of thirteen stagecoach-style cars are smashed, killing three daughters of the prominent Ely family and injuring dozens of the 200 on board. They were returning from a steamboat cruise when the accident happened. An engraving depicting the moment of impact was published in Howland's "Steamboat Disasters and Railroad Accidents" in 1840.

1838

August 7, 1838 – Harrow, Middlesex, England: From a memorial in the parish churchyard of Harrow-on-the-Hill, "To the memory of Thomas Port, son of John Port of Burton-upon-Trent in the County of Stafford, Hat Manufacturer, who near this town had both legs severed from his body by the railway train. With great fortitude he bore a second amputation by the surgeons and died from loss of blood, August 7th 1838, aged 33 years."

1840s

1840

August 7, 1840 – Howden rail crash, England: four passengers killed when a casting fell from a wagon and derailed carriages.
November 10, 1840 – Bromsgrove, England: two employees of the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway lost their lives when the boiler on a 2-2-0 steam locomotive "Surprise" exploded.

1841

December 24, 1841 – Sonning Cutting, England: nine passengers killed and seventeen injured when a Paddington to Bristol train ran into a landslide caused by heavy rain. The extent of the casualties in this accident called into question the practice of mixing passenger and freight wagons in fast trains. The dead were stone masons travelling in open wagons, so had no protection from either accidents or the weather, and the accident led to a public outcry, and new legislation which insisted on better carriages for passengers.

1842

May 8, 1842 – Meudon (Versailles rail accident), France: Following the King's fete celebrations at the Palace of Versailles, a train returning to Paris crashed at Meudon after the leading locomotive broke an axle. The train derailed and caught fire. 55 passengers were trapped in the carriages and killed, including the explorer Jules Dumont d'Urville. This led to the abandonment of the then-common practice of locking passengers in their carriages in France.

1844

November 21, 1844 – Beeston, Nottinghamshire, England: Midland Railway Two trains collided in thick fog. Two people died shortly afterwards from their injuries. Between 15 and 20 other persons were injured.

1847

May 24, 1847 – Chester, England: Five passengers killed and many injured when the carriages of a Chester to Ruabon train fell 50 feet (15 m) into the River Dee following the collapse of a bridge. One of the supporting cast-iron girders had cracked in the centre and given way. The engine and tender managed to reach the other side of the bridge. The bridge was engineered by Robert Stephenson, and the accident caused his reputation to be questioned. The Dee bridge disaster led to a re-evaluation of the use of cast-iron in railway bridges, and many new bridges had to be demolished or reinforced.

1848

May 10, 1848, – Shrivenham station, England: Great Western Railway Six passengers were killed and 13 injured after two porters pushed a horse-box and cattle van onto the main line to free a waggon turntable. The Exeter express struck them; although the locomotive was undamaged the side of the leading coach was torn out.^[6]

1850s

1851

April 30, 1851 – Sutton Tunnel railway accident, Cheshire, England: Two trains returning from the Chester Cup horse race lost adhesion in the tunnel and a third train crashed into the rear of the second train, killing nine people and injuring 30–40.

1853

January 6, 1853 – Andover, Massachusetts, United States: The Boston & Maine noon express, traveling from Boston to Lawrence, Massachusetts, derails at forty miles an hour when an axle breaks at Andover, and the only coach goes down an embankment and breaks in two. Only one is killed, the eleven-year-old son of President-elect Franklin Pierce, but it is initially reported that Pierce is also a fatality. He was on board but is only badly bruised. The baggage car and the locomotive remain on the track. President Pierce's inaugural ball is cancelled as the family grieves over the loss of their son.
January 23, 1853 – Glen Rock, Pennsylvania, United States: One person lost after the caboose was detached from train cars around the Mason Dixon line in a forest during a blizzard. Conductor B.A.Stells was lost. Train car and conductor were never found. Railway was broken down in 1864.
March 4, 1853 – Mount Union, Pennsylvania, United States: A Pennsylvania Railroad emigrant train stalls on the main line with engine problems in the Allegheny Mountains near Mount Union, and when the brakeman sent to flag protect the rear of the stopped train falls asleep in a shanty, an oncoming mail train shatters the rear car, killing seven, most by scalding from steam from the engine's ruptured boiler, the highest single U.S. accident toll up to this time.
April 16, 1853 – Cheat River, Virginia, United States: Two Baltimore & Ohio passenger cars tumble down a hundred foot ravine above the Cheat River in Virginia, west of Cumberland, Maryland, after they are derailed by a loose rail.
April 25, 1853 – Chicago, Illinois, United States: An eastbound Michigan Central Railroad express bound for Toledo, Ohio, rams a Michigan Southern Railroad emigrant train at level Grand Crossing on the city's South Side at night. Twenty-one German emigrants are killed. The Michigan Southern engineer, who was running without a headlight, could have avoided the accident by either observing a stop signal or by accelerating his train, but did neither. Grand Crossing will be grade-separated after this accident.
May 6, 1853 – Norwalk rail accident, Connecticut, United States: First major U.S. railroad bridge disaster occurs when a New Haven Railroad engineer neglects to check for open drawbridge signal. The locomotive and four and one half cars run through the open drawbridge and plunge into the Norwalk River. Forty-six passengers are crushed to death or drowned and some thirty others are severely injured.
August 12, 1853 – in the village of Valley Falls in the town of Cumberland, Rhode Island, United States: Thirteen passengers are killed and fifty injured in a head-on collision on the main line of the Providence & Worcester between a southbound seven-car excursion train with 475 on board, bound for Narragansett Bay via Providence, and a two-car train northbound from Providence to Worcester. They collided at the Valley Falls station, north of Pawtucket. Believed to be the earliest wreck photographed, with the daguerreotype taken by a Mr. L. Wright of Pawtucket forming the basis for an engraving a fortnight later in the New York Illustrated News.
October 5, 1853 – Straffan rail accident, Ireland; In a thick fog at twilight the engine of a Dublin-bound passenger train fails with a broken piston rod. The fireman is instructed to warn a following goods train, and to instruct the driver of the goods to proceed so as to push the passenger train into Dublin. Instead the goods train approaches at full speed, wrecking the passenger train and killing 18 people. The driver, fireman and guard of the passenger train are later arrested for failing to use a red light and detonators to protect their train.
December 1853 – Secaucus, New Jersey, United States: The same two trains that crashed on May 9, 1853, a Paterson and Hudson River Railroad emigrant train and an Erie Railroad express, collide again, within one mile (1.6 km) of last spring's wreck site near Secaucus. A brakeman and one passenger die, 24 others are injured.

1854

– October 27, 1854: A Great Western Railway passenger train collides with the tail end of gravel train at Baptiste Creek, Canada West. At least 52 people are killed.

1855

November 1, 1855 – Gasconade, Missouri, United States: With more than 600 passengers aboard a Pacific Railroad excursion train celebrating the railway line's opening, a bridge collapsed above the Gasconade River, and the locomotive plus 12 of the 13 attached cars plunged into the water and embankment below. 31 people died and hundreds were seriously injured. Known as the Gasconade Bridge train disaster.
December 15, 1855 – Massachusetts/New Hampshire, United States: The locomotive Dewitt Clinton, the third built in the United States, exploded on the Worcester and Nashua Railroad, killing the engineer and fireman.^[7]

1856

July 17, 1856 – Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, United States: In one of the most infamous train wrecks to ever occur in the USA, two North Pennsylvania Railroad trains collided. One train was carrying 1,500 Sunday School children enroute to a picnic. Upon impact, the boiler of the passenger train exploded and the train carrying the children derailed. 59 were instantly killed, and dozens more died from their injuries. The conductor of the passenger train committed suicide the same day, although he was later absolved of any responsibility. Also known as The Great Train Wreck of 1856.

1857

March 12, 1857 – Desjardins Canal, Canada West: Ninety passengers boarded a Great Western Railway train from Toronto en route to Hamilton. As the train approached its destination, the bridge spanning the Desjardins Canal collapsed after the engine's front axle broke. Fifty-nine people died from trauma or drowning after being thrown into the frozen canal.^[8]
June 27, 1857; Lewisham rail crash, London, England; 11 killed, signal passed at danger.

1858

May 11, 1858 – Utica, New York, United States: Two New York Central trains, a westbound freight and the eastbound Cincinnati Express, pass on a forty-foot wood trestle over Sauquoit Creek, three miles (5 km) from Utica. It collapses under their weight, utterly destroying the passenger consist, killing nine and injuring 55.
August 23, 1858 – near Round Oak railway station, Stourbridge, England: Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway. Part of a passenger train ran away downhill after a coupling failure and collided with a following passenger train. Fourteen fatalities, 50 serious injuries, 170 minor injuries.

1859

June 28, 1859 – South Bend train wreck between South Bend and Mishawaka, Indiana, United States: Eastbound Michigan Southern Railroad express breaks through rain-weakened Springbrook bridge late at night, with locomotive and two day coaches smashing into the mudbank thirty feet below. Following sleeper is not destroyed, but 41 die in the wreck.

1860s

1860

September 6, 1860 – Helmshore rail accident, Lancashire, England; eleven killed when 16 carriages broke away from an excursion train and ran back into the following train.
November 16, 1860 – Atherstone rail accident; ten killed when cattle train was struck from rear by a mail train; most of the deaths were of Irish drovers asleep in the guards van at the rear of the cattle train.

1861

June 11, 1861 – Two were killed in the Wooton Bridge Collapse, when a bridge near Kenilworth collapsed onto a roadway as a goods train passed over it.
August 25, 1861 – Clayton Tunnel rail crash, Brighton, Sussex; combination of faulty equipment and signalmen's errors result in collision in railway tunnel. 23 killed, 176 injured in a densely-packed excursion train.
September 2, 1861 – Kentish Town rail accident, London, England; 16 killed when excorsion and freight train collide.
September 3, 1861 – Platte Bridge Railroad Tragedy, Missouri, United States; between 17 and 20 killed in a bushwhacker attack on bridge supports.

1862

October 13, 1862 – Winchburgh rail crash, 15 killed when confusion during track maintenance led to a head-on collision.

1863

February 19, 1863 – Chunky Creek Train Wreck of 1863; A Mississippi Southern train was headed for the battlefield at Vicksburg where the Confederate forces were in desperate need for reinforcements in the defense of the city against the assault of Sherman and the Union Army.

1864

June 29, 1864 – Beloeil, Canada East: 99 killed when an immigrant train failed to stop at an open swing bridge and fell into the Richelieu River. May also be called St-Hilaire train disaster. Still (2010) stands as the rail accident with the largest death toll in Canada.
July 15, 1864 – The Shohola train wreck kills over 60 people in a head-on collision between a coal train and a train carrying Confederate prisoners-of-war.

1865

June 7, 1865 – Rednal rail crash: the driver of a 32 carriage excursion train failed to spot a flag warning of ballast work ahead. The train derailed on unsupported track.
June 9, 1865 – Staplehurst rail crash: a train fell into a stream after track workers misread a timetable and removed a rail. 10 killed and 49 injured. Charles Dickens is amongst the survivors.

1866

April 30, 1866 – Collision of a passenger train travelling from Brighton to London Bridge with a goods train on an embankment north of Caterham Junction station. The collision was caused by a signalling error. 2 passengers and 2 railwaymen killed and a number of passengers injured.
August 27, 1866 – Boiler explosion on the Petaluma and Haystack Railroad at Petaluma Station kills the engineer and three others, and wrecks the railroad's only locomotive.^[9]

1867

December 18, 1867 – Angola, New York, United States: The Angola Horror - The Buffalo-bound New York Express of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern derails its last coach, and it plunges off a truss bridge into Big Sister Creek just after passing Angola. The next car is also pulled from the track and rolls down the far embankment. Stoves set both coaches on fire and around fifty are killed. Forty more are injured.

1868

August 20, 1868 – Abergele train disaster, Denbighshire, Wales: passenger train collides with runaway goods wagons and their load of paraffin explodes. Thirty-three dead, engine driver badly burned.

1870s

1870

June 21, 1871 – Newark rail crash, England: A freight train axle broke, an excursion train collided with the debris; 18 killed.
September 12, 1871 – Stairfoot rail accident, England: A runaway freight train collided with a passenger train standing in a station, 15 killed.

1871

February 6, 1871 – Wappingers Creek, New Hamburg, New York, United States: A passenger train strikes the rear of a stalled Oil train on a railroad drawbridge. 21 killed.

August 9, 1871 – Bangor, Maine, United States
August 10, 1871 – Thomas Green Clemson and Anna Maria Calhoun Clemson's son, Capt. John Calhoun Clemson (b. July 17, 1841), is killed in a train wreck between a passenger train and a lumber or freight train on the Blue Ridge Railroad near the future Seneca, South Carolina. He was 30 and unmarried.
August 26, 1871 – Great Revere Train Wreck of 1871, Massachusetts, United States: A series of dispatching errors allow the Portland Express to collide with the rear of a stalled local train at Revere on the Eastern Railroad, telescoping the rear cars of the stopped consist. Coal-oil lamps ignite the wreckage and 29 die while 57 are injured. Several prominent Boston citizens are killed bringing much national publicity to the accident.

1872

October 2, 1872 – Kirtlebridge rail crash, Scotland: Scotch express collided with goods train performing shunting operations in the station, 12 killed.

1873

April 19, 1873 – Wood River Junction (formerly Richmond Switch), Rhode Island: the Wood River Branch of the New York, Providence and Boston Railroad train-bridge washaway and fire of passenger cars; 11 killed/22 injured, with some bodies swept downstream and unaccounted for.
August 2, 1873 – Wigan rail crash; rearmost five carriages (of twenty-two) of a "holiday special" train travelling north to Scotland were derailed while passing through Wigan North Western railway station due to excessive speed. 13 killed, 30 injured. The front portion of the train later continued its journey, with some passengers unaware of what had occurred to the rear portion.

1874

January 27, 1874 – Bo'ness Junction rail crash, Scotland: 16 killed when Scotch express collided with a goods train.
September 10, 1874 – Thorpe rail accident, Norfolk, England: Head-on collision on single line track, in which 25 were killed and more than 100 injured. The cause was administrative error which led to both trains being given permission to run in opposite directions at the same time. The accident led directly to the introduction of automatic control systems to manage traffic on single-track railways.
December 24, 1874 – Shipton-on-Cherwell train crash, Oxford, England: Derailment of passenger train caused by fractured wheel kills 34; lack of continuous brakes and poor communications exacerbates disaster.

1875

July 6, 1875 - A bridge collapses beneath the overnight train between Valparaiso and Santiago in Chile, killing nine people.^[10]
November 16, 1875 – Lagerlunda rail accident, Östergötland: Unclear signalling between a station master and a steam engine driver leads to a train leaving the station although another train is approaching on the single line track. 9 people were killed in the head-on collision shortly after. The station master was sentenced to 6 months of prison.^[11]

1876

January 21, 1876 – Abbots Ripton rail disaster, Cambridgeshire, England: Icy conditions cause signals to jam in clear position when they were set at danger. Thirteen passengers lost their lives in the collisions while 53 passengers and 6 crew members were injured.
- On Friday night, June 16, 1876, a Blue Ridge Railroad train bound from Belton, South Carolina to Anderson Court House, South Carolina, broke through the trestle over Broadway Creek, killing all five on board, including Wilson, the engineer, and Sullivan, the mail agent.^[12]
August 7, 1876 – Radstock rail accident, Somerset, England: Catalogue of errors on mismanaged line result in head-on collision on single line. Fifteen passengers killed.
December 26, 1876 – Hansted, Denmark: The two locomotives in a snow plough train separate under unclear circumstances and crash, killing nine locomotive crew and injuring 26 workmen.
December 29, 1876 – Ashtabula River Railroad bridge disaster, Ashtabula, Ohio, United States: As Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway Train No. 5, The Pacific Express, crosses the Ashtabula River bridge, the Howe truss structure collapses, dropping second locomotive of two and 11 passenger cars into the frozen creek 70 feet (21 m) below. A fire is started by the car stoves, and of the 159 people onboard, 64 are injured and 92 killed. The famous hymn-writer Philip Bliss and his wife were killed in this disaster.

1878

January 14, 1878 – Tariffville, Connecticut, United States: A double-headed ten-car Connecticut Western Railroad special train of the faithful, returning from a revival held in Hartford, crosses the Tariffville Bridge over the Farmington River near midnight, and the structure collapses. Both locomotives and the first four cars plunge into the ice-covered river, killing seventeen and injuring 43.
January 30, 1878 – Emu Plains, New South Wales, Australia: Two goods trains collide at Emu Plains when the guard of the train heading east went down the Lapstone Zig Zag instead of waiting for the train from Penrith to come up first. Five people were killed.

1879

December 28, 1879 – Scotland: The Tay Bridge disaster. The Tay Rail Bridge collapses in a violent storm while a train is crossing it. Seventy-five lives are estimated lost (60 victims' names are known of whom about 46 remains were recovered). The subsequent investigation concludes that "the bridge was badly designed, badly constructed and badly maintained" and lays the major blame on the designer, Sir Thomas Bouch. William Topaz McGonagall produces his epic poem The Tay Bridge Disaster to commemorate the event. It is the worst ever train disaster to date, and shocks engineers into creating an improved crossing both on the Tay, as well as the famous Forth Bridge.

1880s

1880

September 11, 1880 – The Rimutaka Incline railway accident on the Rimutaka Incline, New Zealand. A small train left Greytown at 8.30am bound for Wellington via the Rimutaka Incline. At Cross Creek at the foot of the incline, the train was rearranged with two passenger cars and the luggage carriage in front of the Fell Engine. Behind it were two wagons of timber, and the Fell brake van last. There was a strong North West wind, and at a place called Siberia a terrific gust blew the 3 leading carriages off the line. The couplings held and the weight of the engine plus the grip of the drivers on the centre-rail stopped them falling to the valley below, but the body of the first carriage was torn off the chassis. The passengers were thrown out, three children were killed instantly, another died later, and some had horrific injuries. The inquest found that the deaths were accidental, and no blame was attached to anyone.^[13]

1881

23 June 1881 – In the Morelos railway accident near Cuautla, Morelos, Mexico, a train fell into a river and over 200 people died.
July 6, 1881 – Boone, Iowa, United States: A Chicago and North Western Railway locomotive runs tender-first, westbound over the line out of Boone to check the tracks during a heavy summer rainstorm in the Des Moines River Valley and plunges into Honey Creek as the weakened bridge collapses. Spunky, Irish-born, seventeen-year-old Kate Shelley, who lives close by the accident site, realizes that the late night eastbound express coming from Moingona, a mile to the west, has to be flagged down, lest it pile into gap at Honey Creek. To reach the station, she must cross the long bridge over the Des Moines River in the storm. Arriving at the depot, she relates what she has seen, and the express train is halted. She then accompanies the rescue train to the failed bridge and helps locate the surviving engine crew, two of whom had survived the 25 foot plunge into the flood and who have found refuge above the waters on tree limbs. For her part in keeping a small accident from becoming much worse, Kate Shelley becomes a national folk heroine. The new bridge over the Des Moines River is named in her honor as the 'Kate Shelley High Bridge'. As of mid-2007, the bridge is due to be replaced by a new structure capable of higher capacity and speed by the Union Pacific which absorbed the Chicago & North Western. The old alignment may become a road bridge.

1882

January 13, 1882 – Spuyten Duyvil, New York, United States: Hudson River Railroad's Tarrytown Special collides with rear of the halted Atlantic Express near Spuyten Duyvil at night, telescoping the last two coaches which also catch fire. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper publishes full front-page engraving on January 21, 1882 showing trainmen, passengers, and local farmers rolling giant snowballs in an attempt to extinguish the blaze. State Senator and sleeping car magnate Webster Wagner was among the dead.
June 30, 1882 – Little Silver, New Jersey, United States: 5 of the 7 cars of the Long Branch Railroad's Lightning Express, plunges off a trestle bridge near Little Silver, killing 1 man outright, with 2 men dying of their injuries later. Ulysses S. Grant was amongst the passengers of the train that day.^[14]
July 13, 1882. In the Tcherny railway accident near Tcherny, Russia on 13 July 1882, a train was derailed and more than 150 people killed.
September 3, 1882 – Hugstetten, Germany: After heavy weather a washaway occurs and the train most probably was running too fast. 64 people were killed and 225 injured. See Hugstetten rail disaster.

1883

January 20, 1883 – Tehachapi Pass, California Passenger cars runaway on pass and crash. Among those believed killed is the wife of ex-California Governor John G. Downey.
March 8, 1883 – Wotton, Brill Tramway A ladies' maid is run over and killed by a locomotive as she stood in the trackway watching it approach. This was the only fatality in the line's 64 year history. ^[15]

1884

July 16, 1884 – Bullhouse Bridge rail accident, Penistone, United Kingdom: Locomotive axle failure causes derailment of passenger train. Twenty-four passengers killed.
October 17, 1884 – Batavia, Ohio, United States: A railroad bridge over the Little Miami River collapses under weight of a passing train, dropping the locomotive, a baggage car and the first coach some forty feet to the ground at the water's edge. The last coach snags on the bridge structure and teeters precariously but passengers in the last car escape harm.

1885

January 1, 1885 – Penistone rail crash, Penistone, United Kingdom: Axle failure derails empty wagon into path of passenger train. One passenger killed, two died later.
September 15, 1885 – St Thomas, Ontario: Express goods train hauled by a Grand Trunk Railway locomotive hits a dwarf Asian elephant on an embankment. The elephant is thrown down the embankment by the collision; the train's engineer throws the locomotive into reverse, but is unable to prevent a rear-end collision with an African elephant, killing it and derailing the locomotive and tender. ^[16]

1887

January 4, 1887 – Republic, Ohio, United States: A westbound Baltimore & Ohio passenger express train hits a stalled eastbound freight which was supposed to have taken a siding for it to pass, on a bitterly cold night, one half mile west of Republic. The forward cars of the express telescope and then burn completely, the last two sleepers are spared. The exact count of fatalities remains unknown but at least nine victims who perish in the fire are counted.
February 5, 1887 – Hartford, Vermont, United States; Worst rail accident in Vermont history when the Central Vermont Montreal Express goes off the White River bridge at White River Junction at 2 a.m. on a bitter winter night; 38 are killed and 40 injured.
March 14, 1887 – West Roxbury, Massachusetts, United States: "The Forest Hills Disaster"; also, "The Forest Ridge Disaster" - A morning Boston & Providence Railroad train, inbound to Boston, is passing over the "Bussey Bridge", a Howe truss, at South Street in the Roslindale section of West Roxbury when it collapses, killing twenty-four commuters and school children and injuring several hundred. Bridge design was found to be faulty.
August 10-August 11, 1887 – The Great Chatsworth Train Wreck in Chatsworth, Illinois, United States: Fifteen car train of fully-occupied Pullman sleepers and coaches on the Toledo, Peoria and Western bound for Niagara Falls, comes to a wooden trestle over a shallow "run" just before midnight; the engineer sees that it is on fire too late to stop the double-headed train from crossing the weakened structure and the consist with over 600 on board crashes to a stop as the lead engine collapses it. The cars in the front half telescope into one another and some 84 are killed with injuries estimated at 279. This accident inspires morbid ballad "The Chatsworth Wreck" that includes the verse, "the dead and dying mingled with the broken beams and bars; an awful human carnage, a dreadful wreck of cars."
August 17, 1887 – Washington, D.C., United States: Baltimore & Ohio Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Express enters the city from Maryland, out of control. At sixty miles an hour it derails on curve at Terracotta, demolishing several buildings as well as the train set. The engineer had been trying to make up time when he discovered that his brakes had failed. The engineer is killed and many passengers injured.
September 16, 1887 – Hexthorpe rail accident, near Doncaster, United Kingdom: Locomotive crew misread signals, crash into rear of special train for racegoers; twenty-five killed. Simple vacuum brakes deemed inadequate by subsequent enquiry.

1888

March 17, 1888 – Blackshear, Georgia, United States: Most of the West India Fast Mail Train from New York to Jacksonville is wrecked when two-thirds of a 300 foot long, 25 foot high trestle collapses. The accident is caused by a broken rail under the lead baggage car, which gets off the track. The train safely crosses the bridge over the Hurricane River, but at about 9:30 a.m. the baggage car suddenly whirls over and strikes the subsequent trestle, which gives way. All but the detached engine tumbles below—a combination car, 3 baggage cars, a smoking car, a coach, 2 Pullman sleepers, and the private car of the Lehigh Valley Railroad. Killed are 20, with 35 injured. Among the latter is Elisha P. Wilbur, president of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, who together with members of his family and friends was traveling in the private car. George Gould and his wife escape serious injury. The engine runs into town for help.

October 10, 1888 – Mud Run Disaster, Pennsylvania, United States: Following a mass meeting held by the Total Abstinence Union in the Pennsylvania mountains at Hazleton in which eight special temperance trains are operated from Wilkes-Barre, by the Lehigh Valley Railroad carrying some 5,000 conventioneers, the consists are directed to keep a ten-minute interval between them upon return. At about 8 p.m., the sixth train with 500 on board stops near Mud Run along the banks of the Lehigh River and shortly thereafter the following section plows into it, telescoping the last car of the stopped train halfway through the coach ahead, killing 66 of the 200 in these two wooden cars outright. More than 50 are injured. Newspaper accounts suggest that temperance pledges were forgotten by some of the victims after they returned to the train.

October 29 [O.S. October 17] 1888 – Borki train disaster. The imperial train, carrying Alexander III of Russia and his family, derailed near Borki in Kharkov Governorate. 21 died on site, two in local hospitals. The popular story says that tsar held up the mangled roof of the carriage, so that his family could escape from the wreckage. Alexander sustained a massive impact trauma to his back but was apparently not affected in any other way. Commissioner disagreed on the direct cause of the crash, citing speeding, substandard track and mismanagement by private railroad owners.

1889

May 12, 1889 – Seattle, Washington, a street car descending Denny Hill suffers a cable malfunction and crashed after hitting a sharp curve. The crash killed one passenger and injured another. The crash marked the first street car fatality in the history of Seattle.^[17]

June 12, 1889 – The Armagh rail disaster occurs near Armagh, Ireland: runaway carriages collided with a following train, killing 88, and spurring the Parliament of the United Kingdom to pass the Regulation of Railways Act 1889, mandating improved brake and signal systems.

1890s

1890

November 11, 1890 – Norton Fitzwarren rail crash, England: A passenger train collides with a goods train that had been shunted onto the main line - the signalman had forgotten that the line was obstructed. Ten people killed, eleven seriously injured.

1891

1891 – Delta, California: Elephant travelling as a passenger on a Southern Pacific train removes a coupling pin from a car. The train parts, and the forward portion travels 20 miles before the locomotive crew discover the split.^[18]
April 19, 1891 – Kipton, Ohio, United States: A passenger train and a freight train collide just east of the Kipton depot, 8 dead. This accident was attributed to one of the engineers' watches having stopped and being four minutes behind.^[19] Webster Clay Ball, watch dealer and inspector of Cleveland, Ohio is later appointed as Watch Inspector for the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad.
June 14, 1891 – Munchenstein, Basle, Switzerland: An iron girder bridge collapses as a crowded passenger train passes over it, 71 dead, 171 injured. Switzerland's worst ever railway accident.
December 4, 1891 – East Thompson, Connecticut, United States: Four trains collide on the New York and New England Railroad. Two freight trains collide due to sloppy dispatching, jack-knifing several cars. The Long Island & Eastern States Express passenger train then hits the wreckage, killing the engineer and fireman. Shortly thereafter, despite an attempt to flag it down, the Norwich Steamboat Express also piles into the rear of the Eastern States Express, setting the last sleeper on fire as well as the locomotive cab although both engine crew survive. In all, only two deaths are confirmed although the body of one passenger is never found and presumed dead. See Great East Thompson Train Wreck.

1892

September 9, 1892 – Lander, California, United States: Head-on collision between Southern Pacific passenger train and a freight train of refrigerator cars leaves locomotives stacked up on one another.
November 2, 1892 – Thirsk rail crash, Thirsk, Yorkshire, England: a distressed signalman forgets about a goods train standing outside his signal box. Eight people killed, 39 injured.

1893

Whitsunday May 22, 1893 – Glenagalt, Co. Kerry: The Pig Special Disaster. On the Sunday following Easter 1893, a special train was set up taking pig buyers from Tralee to the Annual Dingle Fair. On the fatal return trip, the narrow gauge Hunslet lost its brakes and derailed approaching the Curraduff Viaduct, with the engine and seven loaded pig wagons tumbling down an embankment to the Finglass River below. The engineer, fireman and brakeman were killed, as were approximately 50 pigs. The loaded passenger car derailed but remained on the embankment, while the guard van (and 9 additional passengers) remained on the track. No passengers were killed, but 13 were injured, some seriously.
August 12, 1893 – Llantrisant rail accident, 13 killed when mechanical failure led to derailment.

1894

December 22 – Chelford rail accident, England: During shunting operations strong winds blow a high-sided wagon into other wagons. The wagon derails and fouls the main line; an oncoming express hits the wagon and is itself derailed, killing 14 passengers.

1895

October 23, 1895 – Gare Montparnasse, Paris, France: a local train overruns a buffer stop due to Westinghouse air brake failure and crosses more than 30 metres of concourse before plummeting through a window. One person in a shop below was crushed by the falling engine.

1896

Easter Monday, April 6, 1896 – Llanberis, Wales: On the opening day of the Snowdon Mountain Railway, locomotive No. 1 "Ladas" runs away and derails before plummeting down a steep slope where it is destroyed. The driver and fireman jumped clear and the carriages were stopped by the guard. One passenger jumped off the moving train and fell beneath the wheels. He later died from his injuries. The line then closed for over a year before re-opening on April 19, 1897.
July 30, 1896 – 1896 Atlantic City rail crash - two trains collide at a crossing just west of Atlantic City, New Jersey, crushing five loaded passenger coaches, killing 50 and seriously injuring around 60.
September 15, 1896 – The Crash at Crush - Showman William George Crush convinces officials of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad (MKT, known as "the Katy"), to let him stage a colossal train wreck for a crowd that will ride to the site near the town of West, Texas, producing much passenger revenue for the company. A one-day town is thrown up and named Crush, boasting a 2,100 foot platform and tank cars supplying 100 faucets. Two six-car trains of obsolete rolling stock, pulled by dolled-up locomotives are let loose at each other over a one-mile (1.6 km) course with spectacular result. When the wrecked engines' boilers explode, flying shrapnel kills at least three of the 30,000 spectators (some sources estimate 40,000) and injures many more.

1897

May 13, 1897 – A military train derails in Puka, Estonia. 61 people are killed in the accident.
June 11, 1897 – Gentofte train crash, Denmark: An express train passes a signal at danger and collides with a stationary passenger train at Gentofte station. 40 die and more than 100 are injured.
June 11, 1897 – Welshampton rail crash 11 killed when excursion train derailed.
October 24, 1897 – Garrison, NY, On this Sunday morning, train No. 46, on the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad, was wrecked near King's Dock of the Hudson River division, about one and three- quarters miles south of Garrison. Nineteen lives were lost.

^[20]

1899

March 11, 1899 – Rakaia railway accident Two excursion trains which were returning from Ashburton to Christchurch collided when the second train rear-ended the first; four passengers were killed and 22 injured. The accident led to the fitting of air brakes to rolling stock and improved signalling.
September, 1899 – St. Louis – San Francisco Railway (Frisco) train crashes head-on into another train. A number of deaths.

1900s

1900

April 30, 1900 – Vaughan, Mississippi, United States: Illinois Central passenger train No. 1, the Cannonball, crashes into the rear of freight train No. 83 which is fouling the main line out of a siding at 3:52 a.m. on the Water Valley District of the Mississippi Division. Engineer of 4-6-0 ten-wheeler No. 382, John Luther "Casey" Jones, the only fatality, is wrongly found to be solely at fault by the ensuing investigation for having disregarded safety warnings behind the stalled train. The accident spawns the vastly popular "Ballad of Casey Jones" by roundhouse worker and friend of the deceased, Wallace Saunders, and the root theme for a Grateful Dead song titled "Casey Jones".
May 22, 1900 – Oakland, California, United States: Southern Pacific passenger local is mistakenly switched into a narrow-gauge track. The iron rail curls up beneath the locomotive, flipping it over and killing the engineer and fireman. The engineer, Frank Shaw, is last seen shutting down the locomotive's steam and is credited with saving the lives of the passengers, none of whom are killed or seriously injured.
August 13, 1900 – Baltimore, Maryland, United States: Baltimore & Ohio 2-8-2 Mikado locomotive and tender are knocked off the Carrollton Viaduct at Gwynns Falls by a side-strike and land inverted in the stream below.
September 2, 1900 – Hatfield, Pennsylvania, United States: Going from Souderton to Philadelphia, a milk train collided with an excursion train, killing 13 people and injuring 45.

1902

January 8, 1902 – New York City, New York, United States: A stopped New Haven express train from South Norwalk is rear-ended in the Park Avenue tunnel by a New York Central White Plains local, due to smoke and snow obscuring signals. Fifteen persons were killed and 36 injured, the worst rail accident in New York City history. The accident inspired the State Legislature to pass a law the next year prohibiting steam operation on the Park Avenue line south of the Harlem River.
December 6, 1902 – Halifax, N.S., Six persons were killed in a wreck on the Inter-Colonial, the Canadian Government railway, at noon to-day near Belmont Station, seventy miles from Halifax. The Canadian Pacific express for Montreal rolled down an embankment, completely wrecking the locomotive, the postal, express, and baggage cars and several passenger cars.^[21]
December 20, 1902 – Byron Springs, Contra Costa County, California, United States: The south-bound Stockton Flyer crashed into the rear of the disabled Los Angeles Owl, killing 20 and injuring 25. Both trains had departed from Oakland, California. Prominent California lawyer Frank Hamilton Short and journalist Chester Harvey Rowell were passengers on board the Owl. Neither was injured.
1902 – Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Serious buffer stop collision inspires development of Rawie range of energy-absorbing buffer stops.

1903

The first coach of the Big Four special, where the Purdue football team was seated, lies crushed between the second coach and a coal tender.

January 28, 1903, 3:30 AM – In what was later called the Esmond Train Wreck 14 people, including the engineers of both trains, are killed when the Benson, Arizona bound Crescent City Express (No. 8) collides head-on with the Tucson, Arizona bound Pacific Coast Express (No. 7). A communication error was determined to be the cause of the wreck-- Night operator Clough is said to have admitted that he did not deliver a second order to Conductor Parker, which would superseded the previous order for the Crescent City Express (No.8) to proceed to Vails Station. Had the second order been delivered, it would have allowed the Pacific Coast Express (No.7) to pass unscathed.^[22]^[23]^[24]
July 27, 1903 – Glasgow St Enoch rail accident, Scotland: 16 killed when a train crashed into the buffers.
August 10, 1903 – Paris Métro train fire, France: electric fire at the Paris Métro Couronnes station, 84 killed. This led to the design of low-voltage control circuit for electric multiple-unit cars and better lighting in the Métro stations.
September 27, 1903 – Wreck of the Old 97, Danville, Virginia, United States: Southbound Southern Railway passenger train No. 97, en route from Monroe, Virginia to Spencer, North Carolina, derails at Stillhouse Trestle near Danville and plunges into the ravine below. Eleven are killed including the engine crew and a number of Railway Post Office clerks in the mail car right behind the tender. The wreck inspired a famous ballad, The Wreck of the Old 97, the 1920s recording of which by country singer Vernon Dalhart is sometimes cited as the American recording industry's first million-seller.
October 31, 1903 – The Purdue Wreck, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA: A Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis Railroad football special carrying the Purdue University football team and fans to the annual Indiana University / Purdue University football game collides with a coal train. Seventeen passengers in the first coach are killed, including 14 members of the football team.
December 23, 1903 – Connellsville train wreck near Connellsville, Pennsylvania kills 66 people as the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Dequesne Limited runs into timber dropped from a freight train.

1904

February 9, 1904 – Sand Point, Ontario head-on collision; 13 killed & 19 injured.
August 7, 1904 – Eden Train Wreck, near Eden Station north of Pueblo, Colorado, United States: Train caught in bridge washaway; 97 known dead; 14 missing
August 14, 1904 – Shelby County, Ohio, United States; Collision of 2 electric trains. 4 killed/30 injured.^[25]
September 24, 1904 – New Market train wreck, Jefferson County, Tennessee, United States: Two Southern Railway passenger trains, the Carolina Special and Local train No. 15, collide head-on near New Market, Tennessee near Hodges Switch when the crew of the local, a three-car consist, fails to take the siding to allow the Carolina Special to pass. The impact knocks the boilers off of both locomotives and the engine on the local is catapulted onto the first three wooden coaches of the Special. The impact causes the boilers of both locomotives to explode and the cars of the local passenger train to telescope. At the time, it was the worst wreck of its kind to ever occur in North America. Between 56 and 113 killed.
October 10, 1904 – Warrensburg, Missouri, United States: An eastbound Missouri Pacific Railroad passenger train, en route to the St. Louis World's Fair, collides head-on with a freight train. Thirty people are killed.
December 23, 1904 – Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England, United Kingdom. Derailment. The 0245 am Great Central Railway express newspaper train from London Marylebone to Manchester derailed as it approached Aylesbury railway station from the south, approximately at the location of the junction with the Great Western Railway branch from Princes Risborough. Its speed carried the wreckage along the platforms of the station, and four of those on board the train, including the driver and fireman of the engine, and another driver and fireman travelling as passengers back to their home depot were killed. Two others, both railway staff, were seriously injured. A southbound train, ex Manchester, then collided with the wreckage at low-speed causing damage to rolling stock but no further casualties.

1905

July 27, 1905 – Hall Road rail accident, Liverpool, Lancashire to Southport line, 21 killed.
7 August 1905 – between Spremberg and Schleife on (Berlin-Görlitz railway), 19 people killed and 40 seriously injured in head-on crash as a result of an error by a dispatcher.^[26]
September 1, 1905 – Witham rail crash, Essex. 11 killed and 50 injured.
September 11, 1905 – Ninth Avenue derailment, Manhattan, New York. 13 killed and 48 seriously injured when a southbound train on the IRT Ninth Avenue Line was erroneously switched onto the 53rd Street curve to the Sixth Avenue line.

1906

June 30, 1906 – Salisbury rail crash, Salisbury, England: Racing express train derails, then collides with a milk train on a sharp curve, 28 killed (24 passengers, 4 crew).
August 13, 1906 – Elizabeth, New Jersey, Four boys were killed on the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks by an Eastbound Express. The accident occurred where three levels of tracks crossed over Broad Street. ^[27]
September 18, 1906 – Dover, Oklahoma Territory: Bridge across the Cimarron River collapses beneath a Rock Island train bound for Fort Worth, Texas from Chicago. The bridge was a temporary structure unable to withstand the pressure of debris and high water. Replacement with a permanent structure had been delayed by the railroad for financial reasons. Number of deaths is uncertain; estimates range from 4 to over 100.^[28]^[29]^[30]^[31]
September 19, 1906 – Grantham rail accident, Grantham, England: Evening sleeping-car and mail train from London to Edinburgh derailed, no definite cause ever established, 14 killed.
September 21, 1906 – Napanee, Ontario, Canada: A Grand Trunk Railway passenger train hits a stopped freight train at a crossover in Napanee, Ontario; the engineer stayed at the controls trying to slow his train as much as possible. He was the only fatality. The train's passengers later erected a monument in the engineer's honor.
October 28, 1906 – 1906 Atlantic City train wreck: On the newly-electrified West Jersey and Seashore Railroad a Sunday afternoon passenger train, traveling towards Atlantic City, New Jersey at forty miles per hour, derails on a draw (swing) bridge over a deep tidal channel. The train bumps along the ties for 150 feet (46 m) before departing the bridge and plunging into deep water. Fifty-three die in what will remain the worst U.S. drawbridge accident until the Newark Bay, New Jersey rail accident of September 15, 1958.
November 12, 1906 – Detroit, Michigan, United States: A train of the Michigan Central Railroad drives through the stub end of the Michigan Central's Third Street passenger yard and into the station itself.
December 28, 1906 – Elliot Junction rail accident, Scotland; 22 killed.
December 30, 1906 – 1906 Washington DC train wreck, United States: A Baltimore and Ohio Railroad locomotive running at full speed plows into a passenger train that had just pulled out of Terra Cotta (now Fort Totten) Station along the B&O Metropolitan Branch, telescoping the rear cars and taking the lives of fifty-three passengers.

1907

September 15, 1907 – Canaan, New Hampshire, United States: Quebec to Boston Express wreck; 25 people killed, with nearly 39 injured. The southbound express (No. 30), heavily loaded with passengers returning from the Sherbrooke Fair, collided at 4:26 a.m. on a foggy Sunday morning with a northbound Boston & Maine Railroad freight train (No. 267). The accident, 4 miles (6.4 km) north of Canaan Station, was "due to a mistake in train dispatcher's orders." On March 17, 1907 Chas Anderson was killed due to an accident while working on the railroad. He left behind a wife Jennie and 3 children Otto, Loren, and Francis Anderson.
October 15, 1907 – Shrewsbury rail accident, Shrewsbury, England: Evening sleeping-car and mail train from Manchester to the west of England derailed, probably due to driver error, 18 killed.

1908

April 20, 1908 – Sunshine train disaster, Melbourne, Australia: Rear-end collision, kills 44 and injures around 400.
May 21, 1908 – Kontich, Belgium: 40 people are killed as a train crashes into a stationary passenger train in the railway station of Kontich.

1909

April 12, 1909 – Gary, Indiana, United States: A westbound Chicago Lake Shore & South Bend Railroad train runs past a meet point and causes a head-on collision with the eastbound train, injuring 47 passengers.
April 21, 1909 – Cardiff, Wales: Fitter incorrectly assembles locomotive's safety valves. Boiler explodes in shed, killing three.
June 19, 1909 – Burns Harbor, Indiana, United States: An eastbound Chicago Lake Shore & South Bend Railroad train runs past a meet point and causes a head-on collision with the westbound train. 12 were killed, 52 injured.
Sept. 4, 1909 – Ellwood City, Pennsylvania, United States: A westbound Baltimore & Ohio train is derailed when tracks are deliberately sabotaged along the banks of the Beaver River. Although two men were arrested the next day, they were later released and the crime was never solved. 3 were killed, 20 injured.

1910s

1910

January 21, 1910 – Spanish River derailment Northern Ontario, Canada: Canadian Pacific Railway's westbound Soo Express derails while crossing the bridge at Spanish River. 44 people die, many more are injured.
March 1, 1910 – The Wellington, Washington avalanche: in Wellington, near the Cascade Tunnel, Washington, United States, approximately 100 are killed when a snow avalanche pushes two trains off a cliff.
March 21, 1910 – Green Mountain train wreck, Iowa, United States: A Rock Island Railroad passenger train traveling derailed, killing 52 passengers and severely injuring scores of others.
December 24, 1910 – Hawes Junction train disaster, Cumbria, England: Busy signalman forgets about light engines on main line, and express signalled onto it. 12 killed.

1911

1911 – Port Glasgow, John Sanderson, ran over by Goods train.
January 23, 1911 – Pontypridd railway accident, 11 killed.
July 11, 1911 – outside of Bridgeport, Connecticut: The Federal Express, carrying the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team on a trip from Philadelphia to Boston, plunges down an 18-foot (5.5 m) embankment, killing 14 passengers.^[32] No one from the team is killed.
August 13, 1911 – Fort Wayne, Indiana: The Pennsylvania Railroad's Penn Flyer derails at Fort Wayne. Almost immediately, the derailed equipment is struck by an oncoming freight train, killing four and injuring 57.
August 25, 1911 – Manchester, New York: Two cars connected to the Lehigh Valley Railroad's Number 4 train derail near a bridge in Manchester, New York due to a broken rail. The cars plummet 45 feet (14 m) into the stream below. Nearly 30 people are killed and dozens more injured in the wreck.

1912

1912 – Malmslätt, Sweden: A train runs into a stationary passenger train, leaving 22 dead and 12 injured.
July 4, 1912 – Corning train wreck - Corning, New York, United States: A Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad express train crashes into the rear of a stalled excursion train near Corning on Independence Day, killing 39.
July 5, 1912 – Between Ligonier and Wilpen in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, United States: A locomotive was pushing a passenger coach, which collided with an oncoming freight train, killing 26 on the Ligonier Valley Railroad.
August 29, 1912 – a light engine collided with a rake of nine carriages at Vauxhall. One passenger was killed and 43 were injured.^[33]
September 17, 1912 – Ditton Junction rail crash, driver misread signals resulting in 15 deaths.
San Antonio, Texas – Largest boiler explosion in US history occurred at the Southern Pacific roundhouse in San Antonio, Texas.

1913

January 1, 1913 – West Virginia, United States: A too heavy locomotive goes into the Guyandotte River bridge which is being repaired. Bridge collapses and 7 {engineer and 6 workmen} are killed.
June 25, 1913 – Ottawa train accident, Canada: A train heavily loaded with immigrants derails near Ottawa. Spreading rails sends two immigrant cars into river. 8 die and approximately 50 are injured.
July 26, 1913 – Bramminge train accident, Denmark: A train derails near Bramming due to heat-stressed rails. 15 die and about 80 are injured.
July 30, 1913 – Tyrone, Pennsylvania, United States: Two Pennsylvania Railroad trains collide in front of the station at Tyrone when the engineer of Chicago Mail train No. 13 runs through a stop signal, and his locomotive crushes the rear coach of train No. 15, the Pittsburgh Express. The first postal car of the moving train is thrown across the track into the front of the depot. The engineer is killed and 163 passengers are injured. Collision occurred at 2:38 pm. All-steel cars on both trains are credited with the low mortality.
September 1, 1913 – Ais Gill rail crash, Cumbria, England: Distracted engine crew pass signals at danger, and crash into train stalled on gradient. 14 killed, 38 seriously injured
December 28, 1913 – New Windsor, NY: Locomotive of northbound express passenger train of the West Shore RR runs down and kills Charles Cavanaugh, retired veteran Hudson River brick barge captain, age 66, who had become hard of hearing, and was walking on the right-of-way.

1914

1914 – Exeter crossing loop collision, New South Wales, Australia
June 18, 1914 – Baddengorm Burn, Carr Bridge, Scotland: Cloudburst washed away the foundations of a bridge, which collapsed as a passenger train crossed it. The train split in two, with one coach falling into the burn, drowning 5 people.

1915

January 1, 1915 – Ilford rail crash, The 7:06 express from Clacton to London passed both distant and home signals. The express crashed into the side of a local train that had been crossing the tracks. 10 killed, 500 injured (including those reporting shock).
January 20, 1915 – County School, Norfolk, At 11.46 am, Y14 629, hauling 12 empty and 4 loaded wagons from Foulsham, ran into the 6 coach passenger train from Wells, hauled by T26 locomotive 446 and consisting of 6-wheel stock, on the scissor crossing close to the signal box. Nobody was injured in the crash, which took place at low speed, although both locomotives were damaged, along with other vehicles in both trains.^[34]
May 22, 1915 – In the Quintinshill rail crash near Gretna Green, Scotland, a troop train collides with a stationary passenger train and another passenger train crashes into the wreckage, which also involves two stationary freight trains. The passenger cars are wooden-bodied and a serious fire ensues. The second train was forgotten by a careless signalman following improper operating practices during a shift change at this busy location. This is the deadliest railway accident in British history, with 226 fatalities and 246 people injured.
August 14, 1915 – Weedon rail crash Express train derails after the track on the up main line is forced out of alignment by a detached coupling rod from a passing locomotive heading a down express. 10 passengers killed, 21 injured.
December 17, 1915 – St Bedes Junction rail crash, passenger train collides with banking engine in thick fog, 19 killed.

1916

November 7, 1916 – Boston, Massachusetts: A crowded passenger car of the Boston Elevated Street Railway plunged through an open drawbridge into Fort Point Channel, just outside the South Station terminal. Fifty were killed.
November 31, 1916 – Herceghalom, Austria-Hungary: The train arriving from the funeral of Franz Joseph I crashes into the fast train to Graz. 71 people killed.

1917

January 3 1917 – Ratho rail crash: The unsafe use of hand signals resulted in 12 deaths.
January 13, 1917 – Ciurea rail disaster at Ciurea, Romania: A passenger train overloaded with soldiers and refugees ran away down a bank between Bârnova and Ciurea, derailing at Ciurea station when it was diverted onto a loop line. Between 600 and 1,000 killed in the derailment and subsequent fire.
February 17, 1917 – Mount Union, Pennsylvania, United States: A Pennsylvania Railroad fast freight strikes the rear of a stalled passenger train at Mt. Union. Twenty are killed as the last sleeper, a steel car named Bellwood, telescopes into the next car.
February 26, 1917 – Holmsveden near Soderhamn, Sweden: A train carrying invalid Russian soldiers home from Germany derails, causing the carriages to pile into one another. 11 are killed and 40 injured.
September 24, 1917 – at Bere Ferrers railway station in England a troop train of soldiers from New Zealand going from Plymouth to Salisbury following their arrival in Britain stopped at the station for a brief rest. Being unaccustomed to British railways they alighted from their troop train onto the tracks. Ten soldiers were struck and killed by an oncoming express on another track.
December 12, 1917 – Frejus rail accident, (Modane) near Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne, France: A military train derails at the entrance of the Fréjus Tunnel after running away down a steep gradient; brake power was insufficient for the weight of the train. Around 800 deaths estimated, 540 officially confirmed. The military forced the driver to run an overloaded train.
December 14, 1917 – Two Southern Railway passenger trains collide at 0815 hrs. near Clemson College, South Carolina with the fireman and baggageman on one (train no. 46) killed, both engines demolished and cars leaving the rails and one overturning down an embankment. Train Nos. 43 and 46 strike each other on a curve, one mile north of Calhoun, South Carolina. Blame was laid on an operator's failure to give orders to the crew of Train No. 46 at Seneca, South Carolina. ^[35]
December 20, 1917 – Shepherdsville train wreck, a rear end collision in Shepherdsville, Kentucky kills 49 people.

The Great train wreck of 1918 near Nashville, Tennessee.

1918

June 22, 1918 – Hammond circus train wreck, near Hammond, Indiana, United States: An empty Michigan Central Railroad troop train collides into the rear end of the stopped Hagenbeck-Wallace circus train. 86 killed, 127 injured. The engineer of the troop train had been taking "kidney pills" which had a narcotic effect and he was asleep at the throttle. This accident will be recreated, Hollywood-style, in Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth, released in 1952.
July 9, 1918 – Great train wreck of 1918, Nashville, Tennessee, United States: Two Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway trains collide head-on. 101 killed, 171 injured at Shops Junction-West Nashville, Tennessee.
July 26, 1918 – A freight train carrying dynamite explodes, with passenger cars damaged at Shimonoseki station, Shimonoseki, western Honshū, Japan, killing at least 27, injuring another 106.
September 13, 1918 – Weesp, Netherlands. Heavy rainfall caused the embankment leading to the Merwedekanaal bridge to become unstable. When a passenger train approached the bridge the track slid off the embankment, causing the carriages to crash into each other and the locomotive to hit the bridge. 41 persons were killed and 42 injured. In the aftermath of the disaster, it was decided to establish a dedicated study of soil mechanics at the Delft University of Technology.
October 1, 1918 – Getå, Sweden: Getå Railroad Disaster, the worst train accident in the history of rail transport in Sweden. A passenger train runs off the rails because of a landslide in Getå (currently Norrköping Municipality). 42 die, 41 injured.
November 1, 1918 – The Malbone Street Wreck occurs on the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT) in New York City when an inexperienced motorman (pressed into service due to a strike by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers) drives one of the system's subway trains too quickly into a very sharp curve, derailing the train in a tunnel, killing at least 93 and injuring over 100.

1919

August 14, 1919 – Wood County, West Virginia. A Baltimore & Ohio Railroad switching engine collides with a streetcar operated by the Parkersburg Interurban Trolley System carrying a number of children on a church picnic. 15 people were killed by scalding when the steam lines ruptured.^[36]
November 1, 1919 – Vigerslev train crash, Denmark: An express train collided at speed with a stopped train due to a dispatcher error. 40 people were killed and about 60 injured.
/ December 20, 1919 - Onawa train wreck, Maine. A Canadian Pacific Railway passenger train running through Maine but between Canadian cities collides head-on with a freight train, killing 23.

1920s

1920

March, 1920 – Deerfield Illinois. A locomotive boiler explosion kills 1 and injures 3. ^[37]

1921

January 26, 1921 – Abermule train collision, Montgomeryshire, Wales: faulty operation of train tablet leads to head-on collision killing 17 people.
September 18, 1921 – Nidareid train disaster in Trondheim, Norway. Confusion and unfortunate circumstances lead to a head-on collision between two passenger trains killing 6.
December 5, 1921 – Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania: on the Reading Railroad's Newtown Line at the Bryn Athyn Cut, a head-on collision between two passenger trains killed 27 and injured 70.

1922

February 3, 1922 – At least 87 are killed when six cars of a passenger train fall into the Sea of Japan between Oyashirazu and Ome on the Hokuriku Line, western Niigata, Japan, in an incident caused by an avalanche after heavy snowfall.
July 2, 1922 ^[38] – Winslow Junction Train Derailment, New Jersey: on the Philadelphia and Reading Railway's Atlantic City Railroad 's Line near the Winslow Tower, at shortly before 11:30pm, a derailment of Train 33 with Philadelphia and Reading Railway Eng No. 349,^[38]
August 5, 1922 – Sulphur Springs, Missouri two trains collide on the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway tracks with 34 people killed and 150 injured in the largest train accident in Missouri history.

1923

July 6, 1923 – Ongarue, New Zealand. Southbound express ploughs into mudslide killing 17, including a rescuer.
July 23, 1923 – Domingo, New Mexico, United States: Westbound Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway double-headed fourteen-car passenger train derails on curve at Domingo, killing both engineers and firemen, and injuring 45 passengers.
September 1, 1923 – Nebukawa Station, Odawara, Japan: A landslide caused by 1923 Great Kanto earthquake hit Nebukawa station and a train approaching. 112 passengers killed and thirteen injured.
September 27, 1923 – Glenrock train wreck near Glenrock, Wyoming, United States: A Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad passenger train fell through a bridge washaway at Coal Creek, killing 30 of the train's 66 passengers. This marks the worst railroad accident in Wyoming's history.^[39]

1924

November 3, 1924 – the Lytham rail crash occurs when the lead tyre of a locomotive suddenly fractures. 14 people are killed in the subsequent derailment as the train hit a bridge and then a signal box.
June 3, 1924 – A passenger train derails near Jõgeva, Estonia. 10 people are killed and numerous people are injured. The exact cause of the accident remains unknown. Although the government said this was a criminal act no further comments were given.
July 4, 1924 – A post train derails near Jõgeva, Estonia, due to a broken rail. 11 people are killed.
December 27, 1924 – According to reports in Japanese newspapers Mainichi and Yomiuri, Temiya railroad station and Otaru harbor facilities are destroyed by the explosion of a standing freight train carrying dynamite at Otaru, Hokkaido, Japan, killing at least 94.

1925

January 30, 1925 – Owencarrow Viaduct Disaster. Four killed as a train is blown off a viaduct in Donegal in winds approaching 120 mph (190 km/h).
June 9, 1925 – near Traveston, South East Queensland, Australia. Derailment near Traveston of the Rockhampton Mail train on a high timber trestle bridge. Ten people were killed and 48 injured when a passenger car and the luggage van plunged off the bridge, and another passenger car was pulled on its side. It resulted in baggage cars being specially built for passenger trains and ended, for a time, the use of goods vehicles on passenger trains.^[40]
June 16, 1925, – Rockport, New Jersey (near Hackettstown). A seven car Lackawanna Railroad passenger train travelling to Hoboken, New Jersey encountered an obstruction on the tracks during a torrential rainstorm. The train was derailed and subsequently the engine boiler exploded scalding passengers. Two cars flipped over onto the locomotive, essentially cooking the passengers. Fifty persons were killed. The train was an excursion train with passengers returning to Bremen, Germany. A small memorial plaque marks the site of the wreck.
August 22, 1925 – A train hauled by No.3 Pender ran into Douglas station with insufficient braking power as the brakesman had been left behind at Union Mills. The driver of the train was killed. Vacuum brakes were introduced on the Isle of Man Railway as a result of the accident.^[41]
September 21, 1925, – Two armoured trains crashed near Elva, Estonia. The accident happened during military exercises and left five soldiers dead. The cause of the crash was a coordination fault.

1926

File:Murulla rail.jpg

Rail accident at Murulla, NSW, 1926.

March 14, 1926 – El Virilla train accident, Costa Rica: A train fell off a bridge over the Río Virilla, between Heredia and Tibás resulting in 248 deaths and 93 wounded.^[42]
June 7, 1926 – Barcelona, Spain: The famous architect Antoni Gaudí was run over by a tram and died a few days later. It caused big media attention then, and has ever since.
August 7, 1926 – Manors (East) station, Newcastle upon Tyne: Night-time collision of an LNER six-car electric multiple unit at 35 mph with a goods train at a junction injures a courting couple travelling in an otherwise unoccupied first-class compartment next to the luggage van. A search lasting several hours in the wreckage of the driving cab fails to find any trace of the driver, although the dead man's handle is discovered to have been tied down with two handkerchiefs thus allowing the multiple unit to proceed without a driver at the controls. The body of the driver is later found one mile further back, having been killed and dragged out of the luggage van door by impact with a bridge pier.^[43]
September 13, 1926 – Murulla railway accident, Murulla, Australia: Goods wagons on a siding come uncoupled, roll down a slope and smash into an oncoming mail train, resulting in 27 deaths and 37 injuries.
September 23, 1926 – A Tokyo-Shimonoseki limited express derailed at Hataga river bridge at eastern Hiroshima, Japan, in an incident caused by heavy rain and flooding, killing 34, another 38 are injured.
December 23, 1926 – Rockmart, Georgia: Two express trains on the Southern Railway collide, killing 19 and injuring 123. Southbound train No. 101, The Royal Palm, arrives at Rockmart to take on water while waiting for northbound No. 2, the Ponce de Leon. At the moment of impact, No. 101 was standing at a dead stop, the engine crew having applied the emergency brakes and jumped when it became clear that a collision was inevitable. All of the fatalities occur aboard No. 2, most in the crowded steel dining car, which is telescoped by the coach ahead of it. No. 2 was said to have been going at least 40 mph (64 km/h) at the time of the crash. Official reports blame the failure of a railway official who took charge of train No. 2, as well as its engineer, to fully understand their meet orders with No. 101, and their confusion of No. 101 with a freight train just preceding it.
- Aberdeen, NSW - train derailed on washaway.

1927

January 22, 1927 – Round Rock, Texas: A bus carrying the Baylor University basketball team to a game at the University of Texas at Austin takes a grade crossing just as an International-Great Northern train approaches. Evasive action is taken, but the bus skids on the rain-soaked road surface directly into the path of the train. 10 players are killed, 12 injured. To this day Baylor honors them as the "Immortal Ten."
February 14, 1927 – Hull Paragon rail accident, a head on collision kills 12.
August 24, 1927 – Sevenoaks railway accident: Locomotive derailment kills 13.

1928

March 12, 1928 – Katukurunda, Ceylon: Two trains collide head-on into one another at high speed, crushing several compartments and killing 28 people.^[44]
June 27 – Darlington rail crash, head-on collision kills 25.
August 24, 1928 – New York, New York: A subway train crashes at the 42nd Street-Times Square station, killing 16 in the second worst accident in New York City Subway history.
October 13, 1928 – Charfield railway disaster, Gloucestershire, England: Leeds to Bristol night mail train fails to stop at signals and collides with a freight train being moved into a siding. The mail train derails and then collides with another freight train on the main line. Gas lighting on the passenger coaches of the mail train causes an intense fire, destroying four coaches. An estimated 16 die, and 41 injured according to official report.

1929

January 22, 1929 – Bellevue, Ohio, United States: Bus is struck by an interurban car. 21 killed.
July 18, 1929 – Stratton, Colorado, United States: Flash flood waters sweep away the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad bridge at Stratton, wrecking a passing Rock Island passenger train. Ten bodies are recovered after flood waters recede.
August 25, 1929 – Buir, Germany: The D29 "Nordexpress", running from Paris to Warsaw, derails some 300 metres north of Buir station, near the town of Düren. Due to ongoing construction work, the train is supposed to be diverted to a siding, but the train driver notices the signal too late, entering the siding at 100 km/h instead of 50 km/h. 13 passengers are killed as the train derails, 40 are hurt. This led to the introduction of the La, the German railways' book of temporary speed restrictions on the network.

1930s

1930

January 22, 1930 – Berea, Ohio, USA: New York Central mail train headed for Chicago broadsides a school bus at grade. 9 passengers, all aged 6–11, and the driver died. He had stopped for a passing freight, then proceeded, without looking, into the path of the mail train.
April 11, 1930 – Isleta, New Mexico, USA: Santa Fe westbound mail train No. 7 strikes a Greyhound bus at a grade crossing 12 miles (19 km) south of Albuquerque. 21 killed, 7 injured. Bus's fuel tank explodes on impact, burning many victims beyond recognition. The Interstate Commerce Commission report on the accident mentions that at this time, accidents at railroad grade crossings are causing some 2,000 deaths and 6,000 injuries annually.
June 30, 1930 – USSR: Amidst a rash of Soviet rail accidents, the Irkutsk-Leningrad express derails in northwest Russia, killing 22 and injuring 28. The State Commissar of Railways begins a housecleaning program that uncovers high levels of carelessness and even drunkenness on the job. Severe penalties are put in place for negligence; as a result of the 1930 crashes, 12 railway workers are imprisoned and two executed.
December 3, 1930 – USSR: A tram motorman fails to heed crossing signals and pulls into the path of an oncoming locomotive. 28 die, 19 are injured. The accident leads to the imprisonment of 16 additional railway workers.

1931

January 26, 1931 – Groningen, The Netherlands: An incoming passenger train from Nieuweschans collides with a freight train. The locomotive from the passenger train derails and crashes into a school. A shunter told the freight train driver to accelerate in spite of a stop signal. 3 killed, 5 injured.
May 27, 1931 – Moorhead, Minnesota: The Great Northern Railway's Empire Builder, bound for Chicago from Seattle, is torn from the tracks by a tornado. One coach, weighing 83 tons, is hit full force and flung 80 feet (24 m) through the air. One passenger is killed, 57 injured.
September 13, 1931 – Biatorbágy, Hungary: Sylvestre Matuschka blows up the viaduct under the Budapest-Vienna express train, killing 22 passengers and injuring 17.

1932

January 2, 1932 – near Moscow, USSR: Two packed suburban trains collide after one strikes and kills a person walking the track. The train stops to retrieve the body but puts out no flares, lanterns or flags. The next train on the line slams into it at 50 mph (80 km/h), crushing six cars. In another tragic error, injured passengers are helped to a parallel track, where they are struck by yet a third locomotive. 68 are killed.
September 14, 1932 – Turenne rail accident, Algeria: A 14-car troop train of the French Foreign Legion derails in the Atlas Mountains and plunges 250 feet (76 m) into a gorge. 57 legionnaires and most of the train's crew die; 223 are injured.

1933

August 29, 1933 – The Golden State Limited, a transcontinental passenger train, went through a storm-weakened bridge into an arroyo near Tucumcari, New Mexico. 11 people were killed and 46 injured.
December 14, 1933 – 11 area children were killed when their school bus was hit by an Atlantic Coast Line freight train near Crescent City, Florida, resulting in the deaths of ten of the school children and the serious injury of a score of others--"several of whom are not expected to recover."
December 23, 1933 – Lagny-Pomponne Railroad Disaster: Rear-end collision of Paris-Nancy express and Paris-Strasbourg fast train between Lagny-sur-Marne and Pomponne (Seine-et-Marne), 17 mi (23 km) out of Paris. 204 are killed and 300 injured aboard the Nancy express as its 7 wood coaches are smashed. The driver of the Strasbourg train had passed a signal at danger in darkness and fog, but the "Crocodile" acoustic warning system was found to have failed because the contacts had iced over. The Compagnie de Chemin de fer de l'Est was ordered to pay FFr44,000,000 in compensation to victims' families.

1934

September 21, 1934 – Otsu, Japan: The Biwako Line express train from Tokyo derails off the Seta River bridge in the midst of the devastating Muroto typhoon. At least 11 killed, 216 injured.
September 28, 1934 – Winwick rail crash, near Warrington, England: overworked signal box crew forget a train halted at a signal and allow another train into section; 12 people killed.

1935

April 11, 1935 – Rockville, Maryland: A school bus driver, returning students to Williamsport, Maryland from a field trip at 11:30pm, does not notice the reflective signs at a grade crossing and drives his bus into the path of an oncoming Baltimore & Ohio train. 14 students are killed, 15 others injured. In violation of a Maryland law requiring watchmen at crossings until midnight, the B&O had kept a watchman on duty only till 10pm.
June 15, 1935 – Welwyn Garden City rail crash: signalman's error. 14 killed 29 injured
September 2, 1935 – Islamorada, Florida: The upper Florida Keys are hit by the 1935 Labor Day hurricane. A 10-car rescue train is sent by the Florida East Coast Railway to evacuate hundreds of World War I veterans from government work camps, but is washed from the tracks when the Overseas Railroad is engulfed by a tidal wave at Islamorada. Total train fatalities not known (at least 408 estimated storm deaths). Railway link to Florida Keys is left destroyed.
December 24, 1935 – Großheringen, Germany: A local packed with Christmas travelers, just leaving a depot in Thuringia, runs a red signal on a bridge and sideswipes a Berlin-Frankfurt am Main express. Coaches on the local go over the side into the frozen Saale River. 36 killed, 50 or more injured.

1936

March 28, 1936 – Byron, Georgia: A Central of Georgia passenger train, going too fast through a grade crossing at night, strikes a bus which had failed to stop at the crossing. 11 of the 13 aboard the bus are killed.
July 21, 1936 – Vandergrift, Pennsylvania: An 8" long piece of strap iron left on the track by a 12-year-old boy derails an 87-car PRR freight, killing the engine fireman.
November 24, 1936 – Chicago, Illinois: A North Shore Line interurban rear-ends a Chicago L train at Granville Avenue. Though the crash was at slow speed, steel cars on the L crushed wood cars coupled between them. 10 killed, 59 injured.

1937

April 2, 1937 – Battersea Park rail crash, London: two passenger trains collide. 10 killed, 17 injured. The signalman believed there was a fault with his equipment and overrode the interlocking.
July 16, 1937 – A Delhi-Kolkata express derailed at Patna, Bihar, India, killing 107.
October 22, 1937 – Mason City, Iowa: The Rock Island Line Rocket streamliner strikes a school bus at grade just outside a brick and tile factory after a class tour. 10 killed, 19 injured. Sight lines were obstructed by tile pallets stacked near the crossing.
December 10, 1937 – Castlecary rail accident, Scotland: An LNER Edinburgh-Glasgow commuter express, traveling 70 mph (110 km/h) in white-out conditions, rear-ends a local train standing in the station. 35 killed, 179 injured, most seriously. The local had been running late.

1938

June 15, 1938 – A Shimonoseki-Kyoto passenger train derailed by heavy rain with mud-rock flow at Kumayama-Wake of JNR Sanyo Line, eastern Okayama, Japan, killing 25, another 108 are injured.
June 19, 1938 – Custer Creek train wreck near Saugus, Montana - Milwaukee Road Olympian plunges into Custer Creek when a 25-year-old bridge, weakened by heavy rain, collapses; 47 people killed, many victims in a tourist sleeper that is submerged in 20 feet of water for almost 36 hours. Some bodies recovered as far as 50 miles downstream.^[45]
Jamaica July 30, 1938 – near Balaclava Station, Jamaica: five overcrowded cars derail; 32 killed, 70 injured.^[46]
September, 1938 – Martorell, near Barcelona, Spain: Faulty signals and poor visibility on a curve are blamed after two trains on same track collide head-on. 65 killed.
December 19, 1938 – A freight and passenger train collide near Barbacena, in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Wooden cars splinter and catch fire, killing at least 82. Some of the dead are Boy Scouts.
December 21, 1938 – 45 miles (72 km) from Mexico City, a broken wheel causes 14 cars to derail, killing at least 40. Most passengers were government employees on holiday.
December 25, 1938 – In Bessarabia near Chişinău--which is now in Moldova but was then part of Romania—two passenger trains collide in a snowstorm. 93 killed, 340 injured.

1939

March 20, 1939 – RBD Stettin on main line between Angermünde and Pasewalk Express train D 17 derailed. Boiler of locomotive 03.174 (Borsig 14535 / 1934) exploded due to a boiler water shortage. Two killed and two injured. Locomotive 03.174 had to be scrapped due to severe damage.
August 12, 1939 – An act of sabotage sends the City of San Francisco flying off of a bridge in the Nevada desert; several passengers and crew members are killed, and five cars are destroyed. This case remains unsolved.

November 11, 1939 – RBD Oppeln Cosel - Bauerwitz single line. Passenger trains P 950 and P 957 crashed due to faulty signals. 43 killed and 48 injured.
December 22, 1939 – Genthin, Germany: collision when train D180 drove into previous delayed and overcrowded train D10 from Berlin to Cologne. 186 killed, 453 injured. Highest number of fatalities ever in an accident in Germany.
December 22, 1939 – Markdorf, Germany: collision of a special passenger train and a goods train on the Radolfzell-Lindau line, 101 killed. These were the first accidents in German railway history to claim more than 100 victims; they happened on the same day.
September 17, 1939 – Ramla Tzrifin, Palestine: collision of a freight train traveling from Srfnd with a bus traveling from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. The bus windows were protected against stone-throwing by nets, which prevented the passengers from escaping when the bus caught fire. Of the 30 or so passengers 23 died in the fire, and 6 more (including the driver) died in hospital soon afterwards.

1940s

1940

January 29, 1940 – Three gasoline multiple units carrying factory workers crash and explode while approaching Ajikawaguchi station, Nishinari Line (present-day Sakurajima Line), Osaka, Japan, killing at least 181 people and injuring at least 92.
March 12, 1940 – Turenki, Finland: soldier train and freight train collided, 39 people died and 69 injured. This was the worst train accident in Finland.
April 19, 1940 – Little Falls, New York, United States: The westbound New York Central Lake Shore Limited, running fifteen minutes late, fails to reduce speed to 45 miles per hour at Gulf Curve (nicknamed "Death Curve") near Little Falls, sharpest on the NYC System, and at 59 mph (95 km/h) the locomotive derails, crosses two tracks and strikes a rock wall whereupon it explodes and nine cars pile up behind it. At least 30 known dead, including the engineer, and 100 injured in the accident.
July 31, 1940 – Doodlebug Disaster - Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, United States: The PRR "Doodlebug", a gasoline-electric interurban car, fails to take a siding and collides with an oncoming freight, causing the gas tanks to explode. The crew jump before the crash; all 43 passengers die as the wreck burns too intensely to allow rescuers near for half an hour. A federal investigation suggests the Doodlebug's driver had become disoriented due to carbon monoxide in a poorly ventilated cab.
November 4, 1940 – Norton Fitzwarren rail crash, England: Great Western Railway train driver misreads the signals on a four-track line that merges to two, and runs his train off the end of the track. Coaches telescope, killing 27 and injuring 75. Although driver error is primary cause, an inadequate signal plant is a contributing factor. Track plan was not visible under wartime black-out conditions.
December 3, 1940 – Velilla de Ebro, Spain: Two express trains collide at 4:00 am near this remote depot some 30 miles (48 km) outside Zaragoza, killing 41 and injuring 80. Several of the more gravely injured perish at the scene due to the extreme cold. Investigators establish that no one threw the switch that would have put one express on a clear track.

1941

February 21, 1941 – Piedmont & Northern train no. 5, west-bound through a curve near Fairmont Station, eight miles W of Spartanburg, South Carolina, strikes rear of stopped freight. Flagman jumps from electric ex-Pennsylvania Railroad combine before impact with steel caboose, but engineer killed. Fifteen other passengers in following ex-PRR trailer are injured.^[47]
July 19, 1941 – Krylbo, Sweden: German munitions train explodes in Krylbo. It is unknown whether it was an accident or sabotage. Later the British claimed to be behind this successful sabotage action.
August 9, 1941 – Montreal, Quebec CNR passenger train #242 from Vaudreuil collides with a stationary switch engine in the Turcot Yards... the locomotive and two cars of the passenger train are derailed. The fireman is killed and the engineer is severely burned when the boiler ruptures... 53 passengers are injured.
September 16, 1941 – An express train collides with standing local train inside Aboshi station, Himeji, Japan, killing at least 65 and injuring 71.
October 1, 1941 – A local train bound for Kumamoto, Japan on the Hohi Line derailed at Kawarauchi river bridge on the outskirts of Ōita, Kyūshū, causing 3 passenger cars to plunge into the river, killing at least 44 people, and injuring at least 72.
December 27 – RBD Osten – D 123 crashed on Frankfurt an der Oder - Poznań main line at Bf Leichtholz stopped freight train Dg 7053. The snow plough had damaged signal system. Six tank wagons loaded with benzin exploded burning five passenger coaches of D 123. 41 killed and 57 injured.
December 30, 1941 – Eccles rail crash; Collision in fog kills 23.

1942

December 27, 1942 – Almonte, Ontario, Canada: 36 people are killed and over 200 injured when a passenger train running late was struck from behind by a troop train.

1943

February 28, 1943 – RBD Posen Military vacation express train SF 76 collied with freight train Dg 19540 at Bf Galkau. The stop signal ignored. 25 killed and 12 injured.
June 4, 1943 – Hyde railway accident, New Zealand: Train derails taking a curved cutting at over twice the rated speed. 21 killed, 47 injured. Engineman found to have been drunk on duty; served 3 years for manslaughter.
September 6, 1943 – Frankford Junction train wreck, 79 people are killed, and 117 injured when the Pennsylvania Railroad's Congressional Limited derails in Kensington, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, due to an axle bearing overheating. The accident occurred as the signalman at Frankford Junction was telephoning the next tower to stop the train.
September 15, 1943 – RBD Stettin N 8713 run in heavy fog into the rear of on line stopped N 8702. 18 killed and 41 injured.
September 23, 1943 – Dmw 31 derailed on RBD Königsberg Białystok - Prostken line. 23 killed and 33 injured.
October 26, 1943 – Two freight trains collide with a derailed passenger train at Joban Line, Tsuchiura, Japan, causing two carriages to plunge into the river, killing 110 and injuring 107 according to Japanese media.
December 16, 1943 – Rennert railroad accident, North Carolina; 74 people were killed on the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad when the northbound Tamiami Champion struck the derailed rear three carriages of the southbound Tamiami Champion.
December 25, 1943 – RBD Königsberg E 32 collided with freight train Dg 94476 between Korschen and Lötzen. The driver did not notice warning signal. 15 killed and 34 injured.
December 31, 1943 – RBD Stettin Tantow Military vacation express train SF 62 crashed with two locomotives which were stopped on line. 38 killed and 16 injured.

1944

January 3, 1944 – Torre del Bierzo rail disaster, The Madrid-Coruna express collides with a switch engine and catches fire inside Torre del Bierzo tunnel n° 20 in Leon province, Spain. Smoke and flames in the tunnel delay rescuers for two days. 78 killed officially, maybe over 250; exaggerated estimates of 500-800 still seen in reference books. Date may be Jan 16.^[48]
January 11, 1944 – Accident in Arévalo station in Ávila province, Spain. 41 killed.
February 1944 – Train collision near Breifoss between Hol and Geilo, Norway, at the Bergensbanen line. 25 killed.
March 3, 1944 – Balvano train disaster, Italy: 530 passengers die of carbon monoxide poisoning when their train stalls in a tunnel.
June 2, 1944 – Soham rail disaster, England: The leading wagon of a train carrying American ammunition to a base in Essex caught alight; the burning wagon was pulled clear of the other fifty, but it exploded killing the fireman and signalman.
July 6, 1944 – Troop train crash near Jellico, Tennessee, United States: Passenger train derails due to excessive speed on defective track. 35 killed, 99 injured; all soldiers in U.S. Army en route to deployment.
August 4, 1944 – Stockton train wreck, derailment caused by broken rail kills 47 in Stockton, Georgia
September 28, 1944 – Side collision, passenger and freight train Chicago & North Western Railway at Missouri Valley Iowa 9 killed, 95 injured
November 7, 1944 – Passenger train derails in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico due to excessive speed on a descent. 16 killed; 50 injured.
November 24, 1944 – collision of two trains in Barwałd Średni, Poland, killed 130 people.
November 8, 1944 – Nine killed and 125 injured when, at dawn, the first section of the westbound Southern Pacific Challenger jumped the tracks and hurtled into a ditch three miles (5 km) west of Colfax.^[49]
December 26, 1944 – According to Japanese media, a commuter train collided with another standing commuter train at Tsurumi market station, Keikyu Line, Yokohama, Japan, killing at least 53, and another 94 injured.
December 31 – Bagley train wreck near Ogden, Utah kills 48.

1945

January 10, 1945 – According to Japanese media and government reports, a local train derailed at Masuda river bridge, with two passenger cars plunging into river, Takayama Line, northern Gifu Prefecture, Japan, killing at least 43, injuring 56.
January 10, 1945 – Ballymacarrett, East Belfast, Northern Ireland. Collision in fog. 23 killed, 24 injured.^[50]
January 13, 1945 – Snåsa, Norway: A bridge was destroyed in the Jørstad River bridge sabotage. Later a train passed unaware of the sabotage, crashed into the river below, killing 70-80 people, and injuring some 100 more.
January 31, 1945 – A nine cars of Mexico City-San Juan de Los Lagos extra passenger train, carrying 1,800 people, mainly local pilgrims, collision with a freight train in Cazadero village, Queretaro, Mexico, which kills at least 96 persons with injures another 150. ^{[citation needed]}
May 17, 1945 – According to Japanese media and government reports, two commuter trains collided head-on at Toyama Local Railway (Toyama Chiho Railway) Line, Toyama, Japan, at least 43 killed, another 257 injured.
May 21, 1945 – Piqua, Ohio, United States: a seventeen-car west bound troop train, travelling on the Pennsylvania Railroad line, derails at high speed. Eight cars plunge down a 20-foot (6.1 m) embankment, injuring 24 of the 400 soldiers on board; poor track maintenance due to wartime personnel shortages is blamed.^[51]
June 26, 1945 – Caterham, England: Head-on collision between two passenger trains results in the deaths of both drivers.
July 16, 1945 – Assling, Germany: A US Army train carrying tanks runs into a passenger train which had stalled due to an engine breakdown after the American signalman tells the freight train to proceed despite the track still being occupied. About 110 German POWs are killed as the mostly wooden coaches of the passenger train are destroyed.^[52]
August 9, 1945 – Michigan train wreck, United States: Great Northern's Empire Builder plows into a stalled observation car at Michigan, North Dakota, 34 killed.
August 20, 1945 – Two commuter trains collide head-on at Nishitetsu Tenjin Omuta Line, Omuta, Kyūshū, Japan, killing 40. another 83 are injured.
August 24, 1945 – Two passenger trains collided and plunged into the Tama river, Hachiko-Line, Hachioji, Japan, killing at least 105 people, injuring another 67. Caused by heavy rain and flood.
September 6, 1945 – According to Japanese Railroad Ministry and NHK radio report, a Shinjyuku-Matsumoto local passenger train rammed safety catch point and crushing a locomotive and three passenger cars at Sasago switch back station, Otsuki, Yamanashi, Japan, in an incident caused by train driver is brake failure, at least sixty killed, injuring 91.
September 8, 1945 – Llangollen, Denbighshire, Wales: An early morning mail train crashes after the adjacent canal flooded and washed away the track at Sun Bank, killing the driver and causing a fire.
September 30, 1945 – Bourne End rail crash, England: train fails to slow down for temporary diversion to slow lines and derails, 43 killed.
November 18, 1945 – A commuter train from Sanda derailed at Kobe Electric railroad (Kobe Dentetsu) Line, Kobe, Japan, killing at least 45, injuring another 131.

1946

January 1 – Lichfield rail crash, Point failure results in 20 deaths.
January 28, 1946 – A commuter train crashed and derailed at safety catch point inside Tsurumaki station, Odakyu Line, Hadano, outskirt of Tokyo, Japan, killing at least 30, another 165 injured, in an incident of caused by vandalism of a train appliance by passenger(s).
February 25, 1946 – Hachiko Line rail crash, Komagawa, Saitama, Japan: A train derailed on sharp curve and four cars fell onto a farm. 184 are killed, 495 are injured^[53].
March 20, 1946 – Aracaju train crash, 185 are killed and 300 injured in Brazil's worst ever train crash when a train derails descending a steep gradient near Aracaju, capital of Sergipe state.
April 26, 1946 – Naperville train disaster in Naperville, Illinois, United States: Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad's Advance Flyer, stopped in Naperville station to check the running gear, is rammed by the Burlington's Exposition Flyer, coming through on the same track at 80 mph (130 km/h). 47 killed, some 125 injured.
August 21, 1946 – near Sweetwater County, Wyoming, United States: The Mail Express Number 6 was eastbound at the time of the accident and had passed through Rock Springs at 2:07 a.m. The train was due to arrive in Rawlins at 2:55 a.m. but had derailed about 2:20 a.m. The train derailment occurred about a mile west of the Thayer junction. References: The Rawlins Daily Times, Rawlins, Wyoming, Wednesday, August 21, 1946, Volume LVIII, Number 162, pages 1 and back page and Thursday, August 22, 1946, Volume LVIII, Number 163, pages 1 and 6. Early reports the wreck had been caused by a broken rail or an open switch were not confirmed by Union Pacific. Cause of the derailment was still undetermined on August 22, 1946 and officials were quoted as saying that they doubted it would be announced. Seven men injured and one died. The deceased was the engineer, David Francis Michie, born 4 July 1886 who died on 21 August 1946 in Rock Springs, Sweetwater County, Wyoming at 12:20 a.m. of severe burns he suffered in the derailment.
December 13, 1946 – near Coulter, Ohio, United States: The PRR's Golden Triangle sleeper train derails in darkness when it strikes the wreckage of 2 freight trains which had rear-ended half an hour earlier on an adjacent track. 19 killed, 139 injured. Most of the dead are soldiers on furlough from Fort Dix, New Jersey, seated in two day coaches at the front of the train.

1947

File:CampMountainTrainSmash1947.jpg

Rescuers search for survivors in the Camp Mountain train disaster, Queensland, 1947.

February 17, 1947 – Michigan City, Indiana, United States: A westbound Chicago South Shore & South Bend Railroad train strikes a bus carrying track workers. 13 are killed, 14 others injured.
February 18, 1947 – Blair County, Pennsylvania, United States: The Red Arrow, a Pennsylvania Railroad express passenger train, jumped off the track on the Bennington Curve near Altoona, Pennsylvania and tumbled down a large hill. 24 killed, 131 injured.
May 1, 1947 - Two huge inch-thick steel plates on a Pennsylvania Railroad freight train strike and cut open the side of the first coach of the 15-car New York to St. Louis "American", killing at least four passengers and injuring 40 others in a 1:47 a.m. EST accident five miles W of Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. The steel plates are then jolted onto another track of the four-track mainline, derailing a third train, a freight. ^[54]
May 5, 1947 – Camp Mountain train disaster, Queensland, Australia: A picnic train derails after taking a sharp curve too fast on the Dayboro line to the north-west of Brisbane. 16 killed.
September 1, 1947 – Dugald train disaster, Dugald, Manitoba, Canada: A Canadian National Railway excursion train failed to take the siding and collided with the No. 4 Transcontinental that was standing on the main line. 31 people were killed, most by fire breaking out in two gas-lit wooden cars on the excursion train.
October 24, 1947 – South Croydon rail crash, South London, England: Signalman improperly uses release key to free signals. Two commuter trains collide in thick fog, 32 killed.
26 October, 1947 – Goswick rail crash Flying Scotsman express fails to slow for diversion and derails; 28 are killed.

1948

January 5, 1948 – An express commuter train derails due to excessive speed, at Meitetsu Seto Line, outskirt of Nagoya, Japan, killing at least 35 people and injuring another 154.
January 25, 1948 – Los Angeles, California, United States: Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway's Super Chief experiences brake failure arriving Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal and crashes through a bumper and concrete barrier at the end of track. The locomotive slides to the edge of the station retaining wall and comes to rest dangling 20 feet (6.1 m) above street level. No one is injured.
February 28, 1948 – Wadenswil, Lake Zurich, Switzerland: Swiss South Eastern Railway train runs away down a steep incline and crashes into a house after being diverted into a siding to avoid collision with other trains. 21 killed. The cause was unique: power and regenerative brake were controlled through a two-way handle and the driver firmly believed he was braking, but was in fact applying power.
March 31, 1948 – During morning rush hour, an express commuter train collides with a local commuter train at Hanazono station, Kintetsu Nara Line, Higashiosaka, Japan, killing at least 49 people and injuring another 272. The cause was excessive speed by the express train driver.
April 17, 1948 – Winsford rail accident: Signalling error results in 24 deaths.

1949

August 17, 1949 – Matsukawa derailment: A Japanese National Railways train derails in Fukushima Prefecture, killing three crewmembers.^[55]
October 22, 1949 – Gdańsk-Warsaw express derailed at Dwor, Poland, killing at least 200.

References

^ David Wragg (2004), Signal Failure: Politics & Britain's Railways, p. 46. Stroud: Sutton Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7509-3293-6. Cited as the earliest known railway accident.
^ [1]
^ Richard Balkwill (1993). The Guinness Book of Railway Facts and Feats (6th ed.). Guinness Publishing. p. 219. ISBN 978-0-85112-707-1. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
^ "Corrections and clarifications". London: The Guardian. 2008-06-21. Retrieved 2009-02-05. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
^ Derrick, Samuel Melanchthon, "Centennial History of South Carolina Railroad", The State Company, Columbia, South Carolina, 1930, pages 83-84.
^ Rolt, L.T.C.; Kichenside, Geoffrey (1982) [1955]. "Chapter 8 - Stray Wagons and Breakaways". Red for Danger (4th ed.). Newton Abbot: David & Charles. p. 176. ISBN 978-0-7153-8362-9.
^ Frank Leslie. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (1855-1922) (reprint).
^ Full Details of the Railway Disaster of the 12th of March, 1857, at the Desjardin Canal on the Line of the Great Western Railway. W.A. Shepard. 1857. {{cite book}}: External link in |title= (help)
^ George B. Abdill (1959), Pacific Slope Railroads, p. 159. Seattle: Superior Publishing.
^ http://www.mercuriovalpo.cl/prontus4_noticias/site/artic/20080808/pags/20080808222529.html La ruta fatal
^ Bengtsson, Bengt-Arne (2007). Från Östra stambanan till Ostlänken/Götalandsbanan (in Swedish). Mjölby: Atremi. pp. 213–215. ISBN 978-91-85487-63-9.
^ "The Pickens Sentinel, Pickens Court House, South Carolina, 1872-1893, Historical and Genealogical Abstracts, Volume 1, compiled by Peggy Burton Rich and Marion Ard Whitehurst, Heritage Books, Inc., Bowie, Maryland, 1994, ISBN 978-1-55613-985-7, page 29.
^ [2]
^ "Plunging Into A Creek; Fatal Accident On The Long Branch Railroad". The New York Times. June 30, 1882. Retrieved May 8, 2010.
^ "Sad Fatal Accident on the Tramway". Bucks Herald (Aylesbury). 1883-03-10
^ Jan Bondeson (2006), The Cat Orchestra & the Elephant Butler, pp. 132-133. Stroud: Tempus Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0 7524 3934 0
^ HistoryLink Essay: Streetcar accident results in fatality, first of the kind in Seattle, on May 12, 1889
^ George B. Abdill (1959), Pacific Slope Railroads, p. 126. Seattle: Superior Publishing.
^ "North Coast Inland Trail: The Great Kipton Train Wreck". Lorain County Metroparks website.
^ http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9C05E2D71F39E433A25756C2A9669D94669ED7CF NINETEEN LIVES LOST; New York Central Express Plunges Into the Hudson River Near Garrisons.
^ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B02E2DB1E30E132A25754C0A9649D946397D6CF TRAIN WRECK KILLS SIX, December 6, 1902
^ "22 Dead; 45 Injured: The Estimated Casualties of the Southern Pacific Catastrophe Yesterday", Arizona Daily Star, January 29, 1903
^ "Story of the Esmond Wreck Vividly Told", Arizona Daily Star, February 1, 1903
^ http://homepage.mac.com/icafe/RitaRanch/TrainWreck.html
^ [3]
^ Ritzau, Hans-Joachim (1997). Schatten der Eisenbahngeschichte (Shadow on railway history) (in German). p. 117. ISBN 978-3-921304-36-5. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
^ The New York Times, Published August 14, 1906, "Fast Train Kills 4 Boys"
^ Kite, Steven (September 20, 2000). "Corporate Greed Leads to Death in Oklahoma Territory". Oklahoma Audio Almanac. Oklahoma State University Library. Retrieved May 18, 2010.
^ "Dover". Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Oklahoma Historical Society. Retrieved May 18, 2010.
^ Goins, Charles Robert; Goble, Danney (2006). Historical Atlas of Oklahoma. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 119. ISBN 978-0-8061-3482-6.
^ Sencicle, Lorraine (January 2008). "Dover Oklahoma". The Daughters of Dover: Dover around the world. Dover, England: The Dover Society. Retrieved May 22, 2010.
^ Tuesday, July 11th from BaseballLibrary.com
^ Brodrick, Nick. "LSWR "lavatory brake thrird"". Steam Railway (375, 30 April - 27 May 2010). Bauer Media: p56. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
^ Von Donop, P.G. (1915). Report on Accident at County School staton, 1915 (PDF). H.M.R.I. p. 334. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
^ Walhalla, South Carolina, "The Keowee Courier", Wednesday 19 December 1917, Volume LXVIII, No. 51, page 4.
^ http://einhornpress.com/ParkersburgInterurbantrolleysandstreetcars.aspx. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
^ [4]
^ ^a ^b [[Richard M. Gladulich title=By rail to the boardwalk|Gladulich, Richard M.]] (1986). Glendale, Calif.: Trans Anglo Books. ISBN 978-0-87046-076-0. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Missing pipe in: |authorlink= (help); line feed character in |authorlink= at position 21 (help)
^ Casper Star-Tribune Online - Casper
^ Hallam, Greg (1999). "Chapter 3: The Sunshine Route - Brisbane to Bundaberg". Volume 6: The Sunshine Route - Brisbane to Cairns. SunSteam Inc. Retrieved 2003-04-11. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help) Retrieved from the Internet Archive on 2006-06-09.
^ Gray, Edward (1998). Manx Railways & Tramways. Stroud: Sutton Publishing Ltd. p. 23. ISBN 0-7509-1827-6.
^ The Times March 16 1926, page 16:'Costa Rica Train Disaster'
^ British Railway Disasters. Shepperton: Ian Allan Publishing Ltd. 2004. p. 190-192. ISBN 0-7110-2470-7.
^ [5]
^ Crestview, Florida, "31 Are Known Dead in Montana Wreck", Okaloosa News-Journal, Friday, 24 June 1938, Volume 24, Number 26, page 1.
^ Jamaica Gleaner, Pieces of the Past, Tragedy at Kendal - 1957, bullet point 6 under the subheading "Jamaica's Railway History"
^ Fetters, Thomaas T., and Swanson, Jr., Peter W., "Piedmont and Northern: The Great Electric System of the South", Golden West Books, San Marino, California, September 1974, Library of Congress number 74-14801, ISBN 978-0-87095-051-3, pages 69-70
^ http://www.model-railroad-resources.com/railroadaccidents.html
^ San Francisco Chronicle
^ History of the Railways
^ http://www.indianamilitary.org/NEWSLETTER/2005/February/ TROOP TRAIN DERAILS AT PIQUA, OHIO
^ Geschichte E94 1945-1969
^ http://www.jrtr.net/jrtr33/pdf/f04_sai.pdf
^ Associated Press, "Protruding Steel Girders Rip Open Passing Train", The State, Columbia, S.C., Friday 2 May 1947, No. 20,401, page 1-A.
^ Hirano, Keiji, "Archives detail '49 miscarriage of justice", Japan Times, December 2, 2009, p. 3.

Sources

"Europe's history of rail disasters". BBC. October 11, 2006. Retrieved May 8, 2010.
"World's worst rail disasters". BBC. December 19, 2007. Retrieved May 8, 2010.
"GenDisasters Train Wrecks 1869-1943".
"Interstate Commerce Commission Investigations of Railroad Accidents 1911-1993". U.S. Department of Transportation.
Leslie, Frank (1882-01-21). "Illustrated Newspaper". LIII (1, 374). New York: p 1. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
Beebe, Lucius and Clegg, Charles (1952). Hear the train blow; a pictorial epic of America in the railroad age. New York: Grosset & Dunlap. ASIN B000I83FTC.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
Haine, Edgar A. (1993). Railroad Wrecks. New York: Cornwall Books. ISBN 978-0-8453-4844-4.
Reed, Robert C. (1968). Train Wrecks - A Pictorial History of Accidents on the Main Line. New York: Bonanza Books. ISBN 978-0-517-32897-2.
Rolt, L.T.C. (1966). Red for Danger. David & Charles. ISBN 0-7153-7292-0 (Current edition ISBN 0-7509-2047-5). {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
Karr, Ronald D. (1995). The Rail Lines of Southern New England - A Handbook of Railroad History. Branch Line Press. ISBN 978-0-942147-02-5.

External links

Pendleton, John (1896). Our Railways: Their Origin, Development, Incident and Romance, Chapter XL. Railway Disasters, 1840-1870. London: Cassell and Co., Ltd. {{cite book}}: External link in |title= (help)
Railroad train wrecks 1907-2007

[1] David Wragg (2004), Signal Failure: Politics & Britain's Railways, p. 46. Stroud: Sutton Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7509-3293-6. Cited as the earliest known railway accident.

[2] [1]

[3] Richard Balkwill (1993). The Guinness Book of Railway Facts and Feats (6th ed.). Guinness Publishing. p. 219. ISBN 978-0-85112-707-1. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

[4] "Corrections and clarifications". London: The Guardian. 2008-06-21. Retrieved 2009-02-05. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

[5] Derrick, Samuel Melanchthon, "Centennial History of South Carolina Railroad", The State Company, Columbia, South Carolina, 1930, pages 83-84.

[6] Rolt, L.T.C.; Kichenside, Geoffrey (1982) [1955]. "Chapter 8 - Stray Wagons and Breakaways". Red for Danger (4th ed.). Newton Abbot: David & Charles. p. 176. ISBN 978-0-7153-8362-9.

[7] Frank Leslie. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (1855-1922) (reprint).

[8] Full Details of the Railway Disaster of the 12th of March, 1857, at the Desjardin Canal on the Line of the Great Western Railway. W.A. Shepard. 1857. {{cite book}}: External link in |title= (help)

[9] George B. Abdill (1959), Pacific Slope Railroads, p. 159. Seattle: Superior Publishing.

[10] ttp://www.mercuriovalpo.cl/prontus4_noticias/site/artic/20080808/pags/20080808222529.html La ruta fatal

[11] Bengtsson, Bengt-Arne (2007). Från Östra stambanan till Ostlänken/Götalandsbanan (in Swedish). Mjölby: Atremi. pp. 213–215. ISBN 978-91-85487-63-9.

[12] "The Pickens Sentinel, Pickens Court House, South Carolina, 1872-1893, Historical and Genealogical Abstracts, Volume 1, compiled by Peggy Burton Rich and Marion Ard Whitehurst, Heritage Books, Inc., Bowie, Maryland, 1994, ISBN 978-1-55613-985-7, page 29.

[13] [2]

[14] "Plunging Into A Creek; Fatal Accident On The Long Branch Railroad". The New York Times. June 30, 1882. Retrieved May 8, 2010.

[15] "Sad Fatal Accident on the Tramway". Bucks Herald (Aylesbury). 1883-03-10

[16] Jan Bondeson (2006), The Cat Orchestra & the Elephant Butler, pp. 132-133. Stroud: Tempus Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0 7524 3934 0

[17] HistoryLink Essay: Streetcar accident results in fatality, first of the kind in Seattle, on May 12, 1889

[18] George B. Abdill (1959), Pacific Slope Railroads, p. 126. Seattle: Superior Publishing.

[19] "North Coast Inland Trail: The Great Kipton Train Wreck". Lorain County Metroparks website.

[20] ttp://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9C05E2D71F39E433A25756C2A9669D94669ED7CF NINETEEN LIVES LOST; New York Central Express Plunges Into the Hudson River Near Garrisons.

[21] ttp://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B02E2DB1E30E132A25754C0A9649D946397D6CF TRAIN WRECK KILLS SIX, December 6, 1902

[22] "22 Dead; 45 Injured: The Estimated Casualties of the Southern Pacific Catastrophe Yesterday", Arizona Daily Star, January 29, 1903

[23] "Story of the Esmond Wreck Vividly Told", Arizona Daily Star, February 1, 1903

[24] ttp://homepage.mac.com/icafe/RitaRanch/TrainWreck.html

[25] [3]

[26] Ritzau, Hans-Joachim (1997). Schatten der Eisenbahngeschichte (Shadow on railway history) (in German). p. 117. ISBN 978-3-921304-36-5. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

[27] The New York Times, Published August 14, 1906, "Fast Train Kills 4 Boys"

[28] Kite, Steven (September 20, 2000). "Corporate Greed Leads to Death in Oklahoma Territory". Oklahoma Audio Almanac. Oklahoma State University Library. Retrieved May 18, 2010.

[29] "Dover". Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Oklahoma Historical Society. Retrieved May 18, 2010.

[30] Goins, Charles Robert; Goble, Danney (2006). Historical Atlas of Oklahoma. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 119. ISBN 978-0-8061-3482-6.

[31] Sencicle, Lorraine (January 2008). "Dover Oklahoma". The Daughters of Dover: Dover around the world. Dover, England: The Dover Society. Retrieved May 22, 2010.

[32] Tuesday, July 11th from BaseballLibrary.com

[SR375-33] Brodrick, Nick. "LSWR "lavatory brake thrird"". Steam Railway (375, 30 April - 27 May 2010). Bauer Media: p56. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help)

[34] Von Donop, P.G. (1915). Report on Accident at County School staton, 1915 (PDF). H.M.R.I. p. 334. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

[35] Walhalla, South Carolina, "The Keowee Courier", Wednesday 19 December 1917, Volume LXVIII, No. 51, page 4.

[36] ttp://einhornpress.com/ParkersburgInterurbantrolleysandstreetcars.aspx. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

[37] [4]

[byrail-38] [[Richard M. Gladulich title=By rail to the boardwalk|Gladulich, Richard M.]] (1986). Glendale, Calif.: Trans Anglo Books. ISBN 978-0-87046-076-0. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Missing pipe in: |authorlink= (help); line feed character in |authorlink= at position 21 (help)

[39] Casper Star-Tribune Online - Casper

[40] Hallam, Greg (1999). "Chapter 3: The Sunshine Route - Brisbane to Bundaberg". Volume 6: The Sunshine Route - Brisbane to Cairns. SunSteam Inc. Retrieved 2003-04-11. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help) Retrieved from the Internet Archive on 2006-06-09.

[Manx-41] Gray, Edward (1998). Manx Railways & Tramways. Stroud: Sutton Publishing Ltd. p. 23. ISBN 0-7509-1827-6.

[42] The Times March 16 1926, page 16:'Costa Rica Train Disaster'

[BRD-43] British Railway Disasters. Shepperton: Ian Allan Publishing Ltd. 2004. p. 190-192. ISBN 0-7110-2470-7.

[44] [5]

[45] Crestview, Florida, "31 Are Known Dead in Montana Wreck", Okaloosa News-Journal, Friday, 24 June 1938, Volume 24, Number 26, page 1.

[46] Jamaica Gleaner, Pieces of the Past, Tragedy at Kendal - 1957, bullet point 6 under the subheading "Jamaica's Railway History"

[47] Fetters, Thomaas T., and Swanson, Jr., Peter W., "Piedmont and Northern: The Great Electric System of the South", Golden West Books, San Marino, California, September 1974, Library of Congress number 74-14801, ISBN 978-0-87095-051-3, pages 69-70

[48] ttp://www.model-railroad-resources.com/railroadaccidents.html

[49] San Francisco Chronicle

[50] History of the Railways

[51] ttp://www.indianamilitary.org/NEWSLETTER/2005/February/ TROOP TRAIN DERAILS AT PIQUA, OHIO

[52] Geschichte E94 1945-1969

[53] ttp://www.jrtr.net/jrtr33/pdf/f04_sai.pdf

[54] Associated Press, "Protruding Steel Girders Rip Open Passing Train", The State, Columbia, S.C., Friday 2 May 1947, No. 20,401, page 1-A.

[55] Hirano, Keiji, "Archives detail '49 miscarriage of justice", Japan Times, December 2, 2009, p. 3.

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 * {{flagicon|United States}} February 17, 1947 – [[Michigan City, Indiana]], United States: A westbound [[Chicago South Shore & South Bend Railroad]] train strikes a bus carrying track workers. 13 are killed, 14 others injured.
 * {{flagicon|United States}} February 18, 1947 – [[Blair County, Pennsylvania]], United States: The Red Arrow, a [[Pennsylvania Railroad]] express passenger train, jumped off the track on the Bennington Curve near [[Altoona, Pennsylvania]] and tumbled down a large hill. 24 killed, 131 injured.
+* {{flagicon|United States}} May 1, 1947 - Two huge inch-thick steel plates on a [[Pennsylvania Railroad]] freight train strike and cut open the side of the first coach of the 15-car New York to St. Louis "American", killing at least four passengers and injuring 40 others in a 1:47 a.m. EST accident five miles W of [[Huntingdon, Pennsylvania]]. The steel plates are then jolted onto another track of the four-track mainline, derailing a third train, a freight. <ref>Associated Press, "Protruding Steel Girders Rip Open Passing Train", ''The State'', Columbia, S.C., Friday 2 May 1947, No. 20,401, page 1-A.</ref>
 * {{flagicon|Australia}} May 5, 1947 – '''[[Camp Mountain train disaster]]''', Queensland, Australia: A picnic train derails after taking a sharp curve too fast on the [[Dayboro, Queensland|Dayboro]] line to the north-west of [[Brisbane]]. 16 killed.
 * {{flagicon|Canada|1921}} September 1, 1947 – '''[[Dugald train disaster]]''', [[Dugald, Manitoba]], Canada: A [[Canadian National Railway]] excursion train failed to take the siding and collided with the No. 4 Transcontinental that was standing on the main line. 31 people were killed, most by fire breaking out in two gas-lit wooden cars on the excursion train.

v t e Rail accidents
Classification	Boiler explosion Derailment Head-on collision Rear-end collision Runaway Signal passed at danger Telescoping Train wreck Tram accident Train-pedestrian fatalities
Chronology	Before 1880 1880–89 1890–99 1900–09 1910–19 1920–29 1930–39 1940–49 1950–59 1960–69 1970–79 1980–89 1990–99 2000–09 2010–19 2020–present
Lists	By country By death toll By classification boiler explosions bridge failures level crossing crashes terrorist incidents