Description: Image of the train involved in the Ashtabula Train Disaster, showing the train at the Ashtabula Railroad Depot and passengers waiting to board. The caption reads: "The Doomed Train, as it left Ashtabula, a few minutes before the Wreck." This illustration comes from a pamphlet titled "The terrible Ashtabula rail road calamity, on the evening of Dec. 29th, 1876, together with a few incidents of P.P. Bliss, the immortal singer," published by A.S. Benner, 1877. While this illustration is identified as the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway cars that plunged into the Ashtabula River, it does not appear to depict the actual train involved in the disaster or the Ashtabula LS&MS station at the time of the incident On December 29, 1876, a Howe truss bridge near Ashtabula, Ohio, collapsed while a train with three passenger cars was crossing it. The train and its passengers plunged sixty feet into a ravine and creek, and the lamps and stoves used to light and heat the train cars quickly ignited the wreckage. Ninety-two people died either in the accident or as a result of their injuries, and more than sixty of the surviving passengers were injured. Railroad accidents were commonplace during the late nineteenth century, due in part to tracks built quickly and cheaply by companies hoping to make tremendous profits. Railroad companies built thousands of miles of track in Ohio during the late nineteenth century, providing more opportunity for accidents to occur. Even after the Ashtabula Bridge collapse, the Howe truss bridge remained popular, primarily due to its relatively cheap cost. Still, railroad companies began to feel pressure from their customers to provide a safer means of travel. By 1888, more than two thousand iron bridges existed in Ohio. The state had fewer than nine hundred wooden bridges still in use at this time. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL07759
Subjects: Transportation--Ohio--History; Trains; Railroad accidents; Railroads--Ohio; Bridges--Ohio;
Places: Ashtabula (Ohio); Ashtabula County (Ohio);