Evans
Colorado School Bus/Train Crash
The
Morning that Christmas Died In Weld County
Dec 14th
1961
Back when I was a child, living in the small town of
Boykins, Virginia, the school bus bringing students home from Southampton High School (Bus #
18...yep, I still remember the number!) would stop just shy of the
railroad crossing that bisected Main Street to let the kids who lived
in town off. Now, this was a signaled crossing that had three tracks
(Two track main line and a siding), and if a train was coming, the lights and bells would
start well before it reached the crossing.
Those lights and bells gave more than adequate warning that a train was coming, but one bus rider...usually a student who didn't live in town...would still climb down, walk across the tracks looking in both directions, then, if all was clear, wave the bus across before climbing back aboard. In the event he saw a head light approaching, he'd walk back to the bus and look inside, telling the driver something to the effect of 'Train's coming'. The bells and lights would generally begin their warning clang and flash just about the time he gave the driver that information.
Those lights and bells gave more than adequate warning that a train was coming, but one bus rider...usually a student who didn't live in town...would still climb down, walk across the tracks looking in both directions, then, if all was clear, wave the bus across before climbing back aboard. In the event he saw a head light approaching, he'd walk back to the bus and look inside, telling the driver something to the effect of 'Train's coming'. The bells and lights would generally begin their warning clang and flash just about the time he gave the driver that information.
I
lived in Boykins until the end of my 8th
grade year, and on the one or two occasions after I hit Jr High that
I rode Bus 18 home instead of riding with the carpool of
Boykins kids that went to Southampton Jr High, there was still a student 'walking
the track'. As I climbed off of bus 18, and walked towards my dad's
insurance office, anticipating sucking down the 16 ounce Pepsi that would be waiting for me
in the ancient 'fridge in the back room, I didn't give the 'Track
Walker' a single thought...it was just a normal part of the ride
home. I had no idea just why
the policy of 'walking the track' was started, nor that nearly a half
century later I'd be writing about the incident that caused it to be
put in place.
But,
here I am, forty years and change after I left Boykins, doing just that. And be warned, gang...this one's gonna rip your heart out.
To
chronicle this one we're heading out west, to one of the most beautiful of U.S.
States, The Rocky Mountain State...Colorado. When the great majority
of people think 'Colorado' they think 'Rocky Mountains'. The highest
peak in the Rockies is located in Colorado, John Denver famously sang
about Colorado's Rocky Mountains, and the entire state's at least
3000 or so feet above sea level...heck, the state's known as
'The Rocky Mountain State'.
Thing is, while The Rockies dominate the western portion of Colorado there's still lots and lots of flat land in Eastern Colorado, and Weld County...shaped a bit like a stylized 'S' and butted up against the Wyoming state line in the northeastern part of the state...is generally dinner-table flat, covered with corn fields, and dotted with small towns and several small to medium sized cities. One of those small cities is Evans. a pretty little burg of around 20,000 souls situated in the western portion of the county, hard by the southern boundary of Weld County's county seat of Greely. It's also the site of what is, to this day, the worst...and most heart breaking...traffic accident in Colorado history.
Thing is, while The Rockies dominate the western portion of Colorado there's still lots and lots of flat land in Eastern Colorado, and Weld County...shaped a bit like a stylized 'S' and butted up against the Wyoming state line in the northeastern part of the state...is generally dinner-table flat, covered with corn fields, and dotted with small towns and several small to medium sized cities. One of those small cities is Evans. a pretty little burg of around 20,000 souls situated in the western portion of the county, hard by the southern boundary of Weld County's county seat of Greely. It's also the site of what is, to this day, the worst...and most heart breaking...traffic accident in Colorado history.
In
the western part of the U.S. the transition from urban 'City' landscape
to rural 'country' landscape can be as sudden and abrupt as the flip
of a switch, and from looking at Google Maps' satellite and street
views, the scenery in and around Evans goes from City to Rural just that
abruptly as you drive east on 37th Street, heading out of town towards
a curve where a rural country road used to cross the Union Pacific tracks.
I'm taking you around your elbow to get to your thumb a bit to get to that curve, BTW, but there's a method to my madness. Thirty-Seventh Street becomes State Route 54...and decidedly rural...as you leave Evans, heading east. Take S.R.54 east for about a mile and three quarters past the city line until you get to a dirt and gravel rural road numbered County Rd 45 branching off to the south. Hang a right on County Rd 45 and take it south, across the Union Pacific tracks, then through the very small community of Auburn, until you get to County Rd 52. Keep Auburn in mind, BTW...this tiny community plays a huge part in the story to come.
I'm taking you around your elbow to get to your thumb a bit to get to that curve, BTW, but there's a method to my madness. Thirty-Seventh Street becomes State Route 54...and decidedly rural...as you leave Evans, heading east. Take S.R.54 east for about a mile and three quarters past the city line until you get to a dirt and gravel rural road numbered County Rd 45 branching off to the south. Hang a right on County Rd 45 and take it south, across the Union Pacific tracks, then through the very small community of Auburn, until you get to County Rd 52. Keep Auburn in mind, BTW...this tiny community plays a huge part in the story to come.
CR
45's intersection with CR 52 is one of those strangely laid out
crossroads that every rural community in the U.S. has at least a couple of. West County
Rd 52 'T's into CR 45 from the west, while CR 45 becomes East CR 52 at that same intersection
and curves gently to the left until it's
aimed just about due east. When we reach that intersection, we're going to hang a right on the also
dirt and gravel-paved West CR 52 , blow past the left turn where a
short, dead end section of CR 45 continues south, and
head west on CR 52
 |
| Map of the area where the crossing used to be. The square denotes the approximate area of detail of the first satellite view, the circle the approximate area of the close-up satellite view. The location of old Auburn School, and the tiny community of Auburn itself is also denoted...old Auburn School is where Duane Harms started his bus route that fateful morning. Delta Elementary...where the majority of the kids on Bus#2 were headed that morning...was located on 20th Street, well north of the area covered by the map. Map Courtesy of Google Maps. |
The
Union Pacific tracks, along with County Road 45 and West County Road 52, form a rough
triangle, with the tracks...slanting southward from east to
west...forming the triangle's long side. West County Rd 52 parallels the
tracks for a very short distance after you turn off of CR 45, then bends to the right and runs due west. When you hang that right onto West C R 52, then round that curve to the right the tracks are probably a
good two football fields and change north of you, but they're
slanting diagonally across the landscape, closing in on the site of
what used to be the grade crossing where CR 52 crossed the tracks.
There's a reason I sent you guys on this round-about
trip, by the way. I want you, with your mind's eye, to approach what used to be the grade
crossing where CR 52 crossed the Union Pacific tracks from the same
direction Duane Harms approached it from while driving Weld County
School Bus #2 on the frigid, snow-dusted morning of December 14th,
1961.
Today,
as County Road 52 approaches the tracks it takes a sweeping bend to
the left to run parallel to them until it 'T's into County Rd 43. To
continue west on 52, you hang a right on CR 43, cross the tracks at the signal-controlled crossing there, then, a tenth of a mile or so north of the crossing, take a left back onto County Rd 52 where it again continues westward. Now...go back and
take a look at that sweeping curve where CR 52 bends away from the
tracks...then look at the intersection where 52 continues westward off of CR 43.
Better
yet, take a look at the pair of maps I knocked out below to show the road layout and now long-gone RR crossing as they existed in December 1961. Back then the intersection of CR 52 and CR 43 was a '+' intersection, and CR 52 used to cross those tracks right at the point where it now curves away from them. It doesn't take but a very
casual glance to see that the road crossed the tracks at an extreme
angle...less than thirty degrees. That's the angle Duane Harms had to deal
with on that frigid December morning nearly 53 years ago as I write
this. And that's where our story starts.
 |
| Satellite view of the area of the old crossing, with C.R. 52's old alignment, as well as the directions of travel of both the bus and train, indicated. You can see how extreme the crossing's angle was here. Satellite View Courtesy of Google Maps |
 |
| Close-up satellite view of the crossing area, with the old alignment indicated. Here you can really see how sharp the angle between C.R. 52 and the tracks was, and as a result, how screwed up the sight-line for drivers looking for a train would have been. The memorial that was erected to remember the kids who lost their lives is in the center of the image. Satellite View Courtesy Google Maps |
Up
until about 1960 the kids in the Auburn area had their own school...a
small, blond-brick three room building at the intersection of County
Roads 54 and 45...but the consolidation of hundreds of one or two
building school districts across the state had closed Auburn School
at the end of the previous school year, and in September 1961 the
kids in Auburn had become students of the now long gone Delta
Elementary, as well as Meeker Jr High, and Greeley High, all in
Greeley. To get the kids in the newly formed Greeley School District
#6 into town required the use of those oil-smoke belching yellow
monsters from all of our childhoods...school buses. One of them was
Bus #2, a nearly new 1960 GMC-Wayne 60 passenger bus. It was under
the command of a slender 23 year old named Duane Harms, a school
janitor at Delta who also reluctantly took on the twice daily job of
driving Bus #2 to grab some extra income for his new family...Wife
Judy and new-born daughter Lynda. They lived, a little ironically,
next door to the now shuttered Auburn School, in the small house once
occupied by the school's teacher. On the brutally cold morning of
December 14th, 1961 Duane had gone outside and started
bus#2 up to get the heat rolling, then gone back inside to finish
getting ready and possibly...I'll even go with probably, with the
temp being a not-so-toasty 6 degrees...down a hot cup of coffee.
 |
| A 1960 GMC school bus, much like the one involved in the Evans accident. |
 |
| Old Auburn School, now a private residence. Duane Harms lived in the small house to the right Image Courtesy Google Street View |
Meanwhile,
along the roughly square bus route he covered, around 50 kids from
six years old to sixteen were diving into the morning
get-ready-for-school-tasks we all remember. Most would catch Bus #2.
A few woke up with that scratchy throat, sore-all-over, absolutely no
energy feeling that signaled a cold coming on. Moms would feel
foreheads and, with the expertise known to Moms the world over, declare them unfit for school on that particular day...these kids would get to
roll back over and go back to sleep. A pair of sisters, tired from
getting in late from a Christmas pageant rehearsal, overslept.
Another young man caught a ride in with his older bro so he could
speak to a teacher about a project. Another, standing in the bitter
cold, had a neighbor, on the way in to town anyway, take pity on him
and offer a ride in a warm truck cab rather than a long wait in
frigid temperatures. A third had a dentist appointment. Thirty-six
kids would end up catching the bus.
Eighty
or so miles away, a trio of bright yellow and gray EMD E9
locomotives roared west across the flat plains of Northeastern
Colorado, riding point on 16 equally brightly colored passenger
cars...the Union Pacific Railroad's City of Denver, under the command
of veteran Union Pacific engineer Herbert Sommers. Sommers was a
40-plus year veteran of railroading. He'd been with the U.P since
1918, had been an engineer for 20 years, and had been promoted to
Senior Engineer four months earlier...a position that allowed him to
pick his assignment. He'd chosen the starting/homebound legs of the
City of Denver's daily round trip to Chicago...from Denver to
Sterling in the afternoon, pass the train off to another crew in
Sterling, sleep there over night, then drive the train back into
Denver on it's home bound trip the next morning. Normally, they
roared through Auburn in-bound to Denver at just a shade past 6AM,
but this morning each stop brought a huge volume of Christmas mail to
be loaded, so they were running nearly two hours late. Herb
Sommers had the big E9's throttle cranked open to try to make up
time, streaking towards Denver at that section of line's speed limit
of 80 miles per hour.
Three
of Duane Harms regular passengers were waiting for him after he
finished that last cup of coffee, kissed Judy and Lynda goodbye, and
strode out to the idling bus. Their dad had decided that six degrees
was far too cold for them to stand outside and wait for the bus, he
had to go right past Duane Harms' house on the way to work, and he
knew that Duane always cranked the bus up on cold mornings so the
kids would have a warm ride when the bus reached their stop. He
dropped them off at the bus, and they climbed aboard and grabbed a
seat a couple of rows back from the front. A few minutes later Duane
climbed aboard the big GMC-Wayne, likely cheerfully greeted his trio
of early arrivals, then took the drivers seat, closed the door, put
the bus in gear, pulled out, and hung a right. His last run as a
school bus driver had begun...and twenty kids had just begun their
last hour on this earth.
As
Duane Harms drew a big square in the Colorado countryside that cold
December morning kids were chattering, and gossiping...greetings, to
both the kids already on the bus and to the driver, who was well
liked by both kids and parents, were exchanged as each new group
climbed aboard. The heater's blower motor...on high to boost heat to
the back of the nearly 40 foot long ride...was roaring. At each stop,
the motorized flasher for the warning lights kept time with that
'Tick-tick-Tick-tick' that all of us who grew up in the sixties and seventies came to know. At one stop about halfway through the route a lanky 16
year old named Jerry Hembry shouted for Duane to hang on, he was
coming, then, as the warning lights ticked at them, ran hell-bent down the drive. He pulled himself up the
steps, spun around the vertical chrome bar that supported the privacy
panel separating the front seat from the step well and plopped down
in the front right-hand seat. Harms probably asked him something to
the effect of 'Where are your (Add an affectionately joking
adjective) cousins?'.
Jerry
likely replied with an equally sarcastic...but still equally
affectionate...comment about the two sisters over-sleeping. Greetings
were exchanged with the rest of the kids on board Bus #2 as Duane
Harms pulled the chrome handle that closed the bus doors, eased off
of clutch and brake, and pulled off...
Railroaders (Like the members of a few other professions) tend to do the job because they love the job.
And, like the members of those other professions, they know their job like the back of their hand. Herbert Sommers
had been taking the City of Denver out and back to Sterling...about
125 or so miles each way...daily for about 4 months now, and had the
location and peculiarities of every grade crossing imprinted
indelibly in his mind. And at every one, before he even passed the
square sign with a big 'W' painted on it...the point where he had to
start blowing for a crossing...he was supposed to reach up, grab a
wood-dowel tipped cord and pull it, pulling and releasing to blast the
E9's multi-chimed air horn in the pattern that all
of us...without even realizing it...know by heart...
'WOOOOOOOOOOOONK...WOOOOOOOOONK...WOONK...WOOOOOOOOOOOOONK!!!'
Notice I said 'Supposed to'. That pattern of horn blasts
lets motorists at a grade crossing know that a train's approaching.
And it's the series of blasts that a school bus driver was supposed
to listen for in that pre-track walker era as he pulled up to a
crossing, stopped, and opened the door. Most would reach over and
turn or flip the small switch that deactivates the warning lights,
silencing the flasher ...a noisy little beast, especially up front
where both the ticking of it's relay and the whir of it's electric
motor can be heard...and tell the kids to quiet down for a minute or
so to make sure he could hear a train blowing for the crossing.
Duane Harms had picked up somewhere between twenty five
and thirty kids when he got to the first crossing...the one on CR 45,
in the little community of Auburn...and stopped. He opened the doors,
looked, saw and heard nothing, and proceeded across. He wasn't even
really expecting to see a train. In the four months he'd been
driving the bus he hadn't seen one, and the one train that everyone
knew came through twice a day...the City of Denver...was
usually just about arriving at Denver's Union Station about the time
he started his route, having blown through Auburn sometime between
6:00 and 6:15. Of course the train had been late the day before,
too...even later, in fact. The Christmas Rush often did that to it's
schedule.
From what I could gather, it sounds like Duane's bus
route had him hanging a left on C.R. 52 after he came through Auburn,
heading east on 52 for a bit picking up more kids as he went, then
turning around in a circle drive to head back towards Evans and
Greeley. He was about three quarters of the way through his route and
under a quarter mile from the evilly-angled railroad crossing where
C.R.52 crossed the Union Pacific tracks when he stopped at the foot
of a drive leading up to a big, fairly new farm house, the home of
the large and energetic Brantner clan, where he usually picked up
three of their eight kids...12 year old Bobby, 9 year old Kathy, and
6 year old Mark...but Bobby was the one who'd caught a ride in with
his two older brothers so he could ask about a school project. Only
Kathy and Mark got on board. They grabbed seats and Duane Harms put
the bus in gear and pulled forward...he had one more stop between the
Brantners and the crossing...there a ten year old named Jerry Baxter
clamored aboard into the welcome heat of the bus' interior. Duane
pulled the door shut, released the clutch, and pulled off. The
crossing was 900 feet away.
Again, this was a cold morning. A frigid six
degree morning with a good heavy dusting of snow hanging around. One
of those mornings that coats windshields and windows with something
that's not mere 'frost'...it's more like thin layer of ice. The bus
defroster had cleared the windshield, and the rear windows were
clear, but the side windows on both sides were all but completely
frosted over, save for about a two inch wide strip along the top of
the windows. It was toasty inside the bus by now...or as toasty as
the inside of a school bus ever gets, at any rate...but the frost was
thick on the windows, and the heat inside the bus hadn't even put a
dent in it.
The City of Denver was bearing down on Auburn as Duane Harms pulled away from Jerry Baxter's house. At that same moment Art Larson was driving a delivery truck on CR 45, just over a half mile east of CR 52 as he rolled up to the crossing in Auburn. He had to go right past the high school in Greeley, so his oldest
daughter was riding with him. His youngest daughter Alice as well as
his son Steve were aboard Bus #2. Now...remember that familiar
Long-Long-Short-Long horn pattern blown at crossings? The one that's
blown at every crossing? Here's where we run into a bit of
controversy that continues to this very day.
As Art pulled up to the crossing in Auburn he noticed that the
truck's passenger side mirror was frosted over...he asked his oldest
daughter, Nancy, to roll her window down and scrape it for him. And
as she cranked the window down...before she ever reached out to
scrape the mirror...they both heard it. The fast approaching deepthroated rumble of diesels and the click-click of steel wheels
hitting rail joints. Art eased up a bit further and glanced right to
see the headlight glaring from the rounded, yellow prow of The City
of Denver's lead engine, bearing down on the crossing fast. He
and his daughter watched as the train streaked past, the 'Union
Pacific' painted on the sides of the cars no more than an orange
blur, windows coalescing into blurred silver gray streaks, the wheels
making rapid fire 'click-CLANK click-CLANK click-CLANK's as they
passed over the rail joints. Art's head swiveled left, following the
train. He saw the bus sitting at the CR 52 crossing, actually looking
at the back of the bus because of CR 52's extreme angle, and it's
brake lights were glowing red at him...a fact that he made a mental
note of. It took a shade under ten seconds for the train to clear the
crossing...as the rounded rear end of the City of Denver's
observation car cleared the crossing, Art eased forward, and headed
for Greeley.
Note that at no time did Art Larson or his
daughter hear the brassy bray of diesel locomotive airhorns...a sound
that's pretty hard to miss. As he eased across the tracks, the front
end of Union Pacific locomotive 955 was just about 10 seconds away
from the crossing at County Road 52...
Alice
and Steve Larson had swapped seats a couple of minutes before their
dad glanced down the tacks and saw the bus sitting at the crossing.
As the bus stopped at the Brantners' Alice slid out of her seat near
the back of the bus, walked forward, and sat next to a young lady
named Mary Lozano. Kathy Brantner slid into the seat next to them. A trio that I have a feeling was a bit like a younger, tween girl
version of The Three Musketeers was now complete. Only one of the
three would survive the next few minutes. Meanwhile, as Alice walked
forward, Steve Larson moved to the back of the bus and plopped down
near several of his friends...all sitting in those seats that
straddle the rear wheel wells Also near the back of the bus, seven
year old Debbie Stromberger had finally gotten her galoshes off. Near
her, six year old Sherry Mitchell sat, looking royally pissed as well
as sad...she had wanted to stay home so she could go visit her dad at
the hospital. Her mom had vetoed that idea.
Duane
pulled up to the crossing, stopping forty or fifty feet back...well
within guide-lines and law in The State of Colorado (And indeed every other state in The Union). But
he had a problem...several of them. First, to see down the tracks he
had to turn his head and look back over his right shoulder, actually
looking through the right side windows of the bus, which of course,
were nearly completely frosted over save for that two inch strip at
the top edge, cleared by the heat gathering at the upper part of the
bus. Then there were the telephone poles lining the tracks. Because
of the extreme angle of the road, an optical illusion made the poles
appear to be closer together than they actually were...more like the
pickets in a picket fence, creating a very definitely obstacle to
seeing something like, say, an oncoming train.
He
eased to a stop, brakes squealing faintly. (ALL school bus brakes
squealed back then...trust me on this), lifted himself as high as he
could, and craned his head around, looking back over his shoulder to
look through the windows. All he could see was frost, and a two inch
strip of day-light. The kids chattered and talked and laughed behind
him...he reached for the door lever and pulled it towards him,
folding the bus doors open. A wall of cold air poured in through the
open door. It wouldn't surprise me if someone good naturedly yelled
for him to close the door. He looked out of the door as the warning
lights...triggered by the door opening...ticked at him. He may or may
not have flipped the switch that cut them off.
All
he could see were telephone poles. He strained his ears, listening
for an airhorn, then looked at Jerry, asking him if he heard
anything. Jerry noted that he didn't, then leaned around the door
frame, looking out of the door, and reported that he couldn't see
anything either. Someone again possibly yelled, possibly fractionally
less good naturedly, for him
to close the door, possibly inquiring if he was trying to freeze the
bunch of them.
The only train that was due to come through here
anywhere within a couple of hours of 8AM was The City of Denver, and
it should have gone through a couple of hours ago. Duane
sighed, pulled the door closed, and let his foot up off of the
clutch.
Herb Sommers watched as a school bus approached the
crossing, moving slowly as The City of Denver gobbled up track at 115
feet per second Across the cab, fireman Melvin Swanson said 'I sure
hope he stops....'
And as both watched in horror, the bus rolled onto the
tracks...
As the bus rolled forward, the kids on board continued
their chatter and laughter, a few studying for tests or finishing up
homework, none even thinking about the railroad crossing...they
crossed two of them, twice a day. There had never been a train. Then
again, Jerry Hembry had never sat in the front seat, either. He
usually sat a few rows back, closer to the middle of the bus, but
this morning he was hard by the stepwell as the bus pulled forward.
If asked today, Jerry probably couldn't tell you what made him either
wipe the fog that formed on the inside of the window as the frost
finally began melting, or drop the upper pane of the window...but
when he did so and glanced out of his window, his blood ran cold as,
for a millisecond, his brain refused to accept as fact what his eyes
were telling it. The piercing yellow eye of a headlight, shining from
the rounded nose of a bright yellow and gray locomotive, the winged
'Union Pacific' seal across the front of it probably looking like it
was as big as the bus, really really close and bearing down on
them really really fast...
“TRAIN!!!!!!!!!”
High up in the cab of the lead engine, Herb Sommers
grabbed a horizontal brass lever and slammed it back as far as it
would go, throwing the brakes into full emergency...air dumped and
brake shoes pressed against 176 steel wheels...but the brakes barely
began to grab...
Jerry
had instinctively grabbed the chrome bar atop the privacy panel with
both hands even as he saw the train bearing down on them and yelled.
The 35 other kids barely had time to comprehend what he'd yelled
before the rounded nose of the lead engine...still moving at a bare
fraction under 80...slammed explosively into the back of the bus.
Because of the angle of the crossing, the train all but rear ended
Bus # 2, the middle of the engines front end catching the right side
of the bus between the back wheels and the back of the bus with an
explosive 'CRUMP!!!!.
The force of the collision was cataclysmic, and a few
dozen things, none of them good, happened in the same millisecond.
The rear body of the bus tore away from it's mounts while the body
mounts further forward bent, stretched...but held firm. The last ten
or so feet of the body...now unsupported and deformed beyond
imagination...ripped away jaggedly along body panel seams and wrapped
itself around the nose of the locomotive even as the left side of the
torn away rear end split apart. This rear few feet contained four
seats, and the kids in those seats were all ejected from the bus
explosively...
The rear axle and wheels ripped loose and bounced across
the snowy field next to the track as the shattered rear body rode the
front of the locomotive...part of it dragging and bouncing along ties
and rail...for 419 feet before spinning away and bouncing a couple of
times to land upright on the south side of the tracks. The front
section of the bus, with the mangled frame rails protruding from the
truncated back end like a pair of broken buck teeth, spun violently
and began rolling. Duane Harms probably went through the windshield,
which, just as it was designed to do, popped out in one piece. Jerry
Hembry was thrown all the way from front to rear and out of the chasm
where the rear ten or so feet of the bus used to be. Almost all of
the other kids in the front section were also thrown clear, only a
few riding the shattered vehicle as it rolled, finally landing on
it's right side 191 feet from the crossing, on the north side of the
tracks. The kids who managed to stay with the shattered hulk were
among the least seriously injured.
It took just about four seconds for dozens of lives to
be forever altered...four seconds between the instant that the front
end of Locomotive 955 bit deeply into the back end of the bus and the
second that the City of Denver came to a stop. Several seconds of
near silence, broken only by the squealing of train brakes and
ticking of the cooling bus engine, followed the explosive collision,
then moans and cries and calls for help rose from the wreckage. Duane
Harms and Jerry Hembry, both among the least injured of the bus'
occupants, came to and got to their feet first. Jerry found himself
lying partially in a snowy ditch with the bodies of several
kids...kids he knew...lying around him. He pulled himself to his feet
and spotted several kids either standing as if in a daze or trying to
walk away, heading for home. Jerry gathered them into a group,
picking one up (Despite a shattered collarbone), took the hand of a
little girl, and started walking towards a nearby farm house. Duane
Harms regained consciousness on the ground in front of the bus, at
first not realizing what had happened...then he saw the front half of
the bus, lying on its side. He dragged himself to his feet, and
walked around the hulk, seeing several things at once...the rear end
of the bus was gone, there was a crumpled mass of metal painted the
exact same color as the bus several hundred feet away on the other
side of the tracks, and several hundred feet beyond that, the rounded
rear end of The City of Denver's observation car, with the train
stretching beyond it...stopped. And the horrible realization of just
what had just happened...and, far worse, what he had just
done...slammed into him like a belly punch from a giant.
Albert Bindel had just missed being an eye witness. He
lived just down from the crossing...between it and the Brantner
farm...and had actually seen the bus' brake lights glowing at him as
it sat stopped at the crossing, but he went inside to gather his
three kids and get them in the car so he could take them into Greeley
to the Catholic school they attended, there-by missing the crash (A
fact that he was likely forever grateful for). He loaded his kids in
the car, pulled out of the drive and headed for Greeley...and the
crossing. As he approached the crossing his eyes saw a sight that his
brain just refused to even process for an instant or two, much less believe...the battered, truncated hulk of the bus, lying on it's side.
He foot stabbed the brakes, slammed the car into reverse, and
three-point turned in the middle of the gravel road, spinning tires
as he headed back towards his farm. He shooed his kids back inside,
yelled for his wife to call it in, then hauled ass back to his car,
taking off and heading first for the Brantner farm, where he found
Joe Brantner (Who had also come with-in a hairs-breadth of witnessing
the crash) and told him what had happened. Seconds later the two of
them were making what had to have been one of the longest quarter
mile drives that anyone has ever had to make.
The first notification went to the Colorado Highway
Patrol and the Weld County Sheriff's department, and within five
minutes of the crash CHP unit 19 was dispatched to the scene of an
'Accident with injuries, possibly a school bus hit by a train'. CHP
Officer Don Girnt very likely called for the troops even as he spun
his Plymouth around on U.S. 85, flipped his lights on, and thumb
pressed the horn ring, winding the siren out as he raced towards C.R.
52 and the tracks. He'd make the run in 6 minutes.
The two towns closest to the crossing were Kersey and
LaSalle, and in both towns the peace and quiet of a frigid December
morning was shattered as their VFDs' house sirens wound up to a howl,
the cold clear air letting the rise-and-fall wail drift out far
beyond the town limits. Of course, this was fifty-three years ago. If
this same incident had happened in, say 2010, the words 'School bus
hit by a train' would have had several pumpers that were also
equipped with rescue equipment, at least one heavy rescue, and
several Advanced Life Support ambulances heading for the scene on the
initial alarm. Likely everyone responding would have been an EMT or
higher. And the first out rigs from both Kersey and LaSalle, if I'm
not mistaken, would have been manned by a salaried crew.
Things were different back in 1961, though. Both fire
companies were still all volunteer, so it took a few minutes to get
the rigs on the street. There was no such thing as true prehospital
care, unless you were lucky enough to have a Doctor or an R.N either
as a member of the rescue squad or willing to ride on a bad call.
Generally, though, 'Prehospital Care' consisted of an ambulance with
a big engine, capable of getting the patient to the hospital
quickly. Rescue equipment was still basically hand tools assisted by
railroad jacks, come-a-longs, and porta-powers. Wreckers were used to disentangle
trapped patients.
On December 14th, 1961, Kersey responded with
a 1955 GMC pumper, a converted bread truck as the rescue, and a
converted hearse for an ambulance. I wasn't able to find out what
kind of equipment LaSalle had at the time, but it was probably
equivalent. I have a feeling that both Greeley and Evans also sent at
least ambulances if not also a couple of engine companies. By the
time rigs started arriving Joe Brantner was already taking care of
business.
Joe Brantner had his heart shattered minutes after
arriving at the scene when he all but literally stumbled over the
bodies of two of his children...nine year old Kathy and twelve year
old Mark. He said a prayer over the bodies of his children, looked
around at the injured children lying in the snow, and told Al to take
him back to his farm so he could grab his station wagon...he was back
in something under five minutes (Just after Trooper Girnt rolled
in)...he backed the wagon in close to the scene, dropped the tail
gate, and started loading injured children on board.
He headed for the hospital with five of them, four
critically injured...he was heading for the hospital well before the
first fire unit or ambulance rolled in.
Joe Brantner wasn't the only parent to roll up on the
scene early into the incident, nor the only one to suffer the
agonizing heartbreak of finding the body of their own children. Jim
and Loretta Ford were on the way into Greeley and ran up on it just
about the time Joe Brantner returned with his station wagon...they
had three kids, all typically rambunctious boys, on the bus, and they
found the body of the oldest...thirteen year old Jimmy...between the
tracks and the road minutes after they bailed out of their car. Their
youngest son, Bruce, was lying nearby, unconscious but breathing. And
even as they prayed over their two children, Jim Ford looked over at
the shattered front end of the bus to see their middle
son...Glenn...climb out of the wreckage, relatively unscathed. Glenn
was bruised, cut, missing his front teeth, and temporarily blinded by
cinders and debris that ended up in his eyes, though, and would be
one of the kids that Joe Brantner transported.
Another of the kids that Joe Brantner transported would
be Alice Larson, who swapped seats with her brother only minutes
before the crash. Alice was critical, with serious internal injuries.
Her parents were the third set of parents to roll up on the accident
soon after it happened. Juanita Larson would ride in with her
daughter...and wouldn't find out that Joe Brantner had lost two of
his own children until they arrived at the hospital.
They also carefully carried Nancy Alles...suffering
from fractured vertebrae, among other injuries...to the Brantner
station wagon. Her sister Linda wasn't as lucky...she was one of the
twenty children killed in the accident. Her brother survived because
he was the one with a dentist appointment that morning.
Allan Stromberger was also suffering from spinal
injuries and was also transported by Joe Brantner. His little sister
Debbie, who struggled with her galoshes in one of the rear seats of
the bus only minutes before the crash, would be the only child from
the rear section of the bus to survive.
Just thinking about transporting any of these
kids in the back of a station wagon, without any spinal
immobilization what so ever, would likely get an EMT or Cardiac
Tech's certification yanked this day and time. But it worked...all
five kids survived. Nance Alles, when told that she'd never walk again, told the doctor that he was lying then preceded, several
weeks later, to walk out of the hospital.
News of the accident sped across the community like wild
fire as people learned about it, then called friends who they knew
might have kids on the bus, and dozens of parents descended on the
scene, frantic with worry, searching for their own kids until
Sheriff's Deputies and State Troopers set up a perimeter and moved
them back. Ambulances and fire rigs arrived on scene, and the crews,
with the resources they had at the time, went to work and in
something a bit less than an hour all of the injured had been
transported. The old armory in Greeley was set up as a temporary
morgue, and the bodies of twenty dead children (A two word phrase
that should never have to be spoken or written) were transported
there to be identified. And, ten days before Christmas, a town's
heart snapped in two.
Herb Sommers backed the train closer to the scene, part
of his crew heading for the shattered bus to offer whatever
assistance they could while Trooper Girnt met Sommers and got a
statement from him. Sommers, for the first of several times, made a
statement that's been more than a little controversial to this day.
He swore that he had indeed sounded the train's horn, and that the
bus, though moving slowly, hadn't stopped. An hour after The City of
Denver slammed into Bus # 2, Herb Sommers was cleared to take it into
Denver, with a promise that he and his crew would be back in Greeley
for a Coroners Hearing that afternoon.
Duane Harms was among the least injured of the
bunch...the laws of physics saved him as the drivers seat, being the
furthest from the impact and the approximate pivot point of the bus's
spin, caught the least force from the collision. Keep in mind that 'Least Force' is a relative term here. Remember, the front half of the
bus rolled and somersaulted for nearly 200 feet. He was patched up at
the hospital...a nasty cut on one leg and a few dozen bruises and
abrasions...and taken to the sheriffs department for an official
statement. And the controversy started. Of course he couldn't
remember the accident itself, or the few moments immediately
preceding it...he'd had his bell rung pretty completely. But he was
pretty sure he had stopped the bus, despite what Herb Sommers said.
Ahhh, the coroner's inquest, held at 1:45 that afternoon
at the Weld County Courthouse (Meaning that Herb Sommers and the rest
of the crew of The City of Denver had to hustle a little bit to get
back in time). The only ones who were present to testify were four
members of the train's crew, and Al Bindel, the farmer who'd been
getting ready to take his kids to school when he almost witnessed the
crash.
Bindel testified that he was absolutely sure the bus had
stopped...but admitted that, due to the angle he was looking at it
from and the distance, there was a possibility that it could
have been moving slowly. The train crew to a man, testified that the
bus entered the crossing at about 5 miles per hour without stopping.
Sommers also noted that he had sounded the horn as required,
plus a couple of short blasts when he realized the bus wasn't going
to stop. The next morning Duane Harms was charged with twenty counts
of Involuntary Manslaughter, Bond was set and posted, and a trial
date was set. And amid all of the heartache and sorrow, a pretty
amazing thing happened...something that likely wouldn't happen today.
The entire community, with a couple of notable and
understandable exceptions, rallied around Harms, and they had some
pretty good evidence as to why they should do so. That
particular crossing was a known hazard, and I have a feeling that
everyone had at least silently wondered when...not if...it's
completely screwed up sight lines would result in an accident. Jerry
Hembrey, from his hospital bed, insisted that the bus had indeed
stopped. He also insisted that he had not heard the train's
horn. Not from a distance. Not close up. Not at all. And he wasn't
the only one...Art Larson and his daughter both swore that they never
heard the train's horn.
The support for Harms continued up to the trial (And
continues, posthumously sadly, to this day). The general consensus
was that it was an unavoidable accident (I have to disagree on that
point) and that he had suffered enough from guilt and heartache of
having been responsible for the death of twenty children. Petitions
were signed and letters of support written and delivered to the
court, asking that he not be charged...or, once he was charged, that
the charges be dropped. I have a feeling that seating a jury that
hadn't heard about the case (And who didn't already have an opinion)
was just shy of impossible. Of course the hinge-point of the case was
whether or not Harms had indeed stopped at the crossing, opened the
door as required, and listened for the train...back then that was
literally all that was required at any crossing in any
state.
The trial took place in March of 1962, at the Weld County Courthouse, and lasted for four days, during which more of the
same testimony that was heard at the Coroners Inquiry the day of the
accident was heard...just in more detail. Of course, this time Jerry
Hembry was there to swear, under oath, that Duane Harms did indeed
stop the bus before driving into the crossing. And Herb Sommers still
testified that the bus didn't stop, also testifying that he
did sound his horn. Meanwhile both Art Larson and his daughter
Linda were there to testify that they never heard the horn.
Harms was the final defense witness, and his testimony
perfectly matched the statement he'd given the Weld Count District
Attorney three months earlier...he was almost sure he'd stopped and
opened the bus door, as required by law. And he was sure that he did
indeed listen for a train...specifically for the horn, and heard
nothing. He couldn't remember for sure because the memory of the
crash itself, as well as the couple of minutes preceding it was
entirely blank.
The jury got the case after four days of testimony, and
deliberated pretty much overnight before returning a Not Guilty
verdict...of course if you think this was the end of problems for
Duane Harms (Or, indeed, anyone ) you're way off. A couple of civil
suits were filed (A mere fraction of a fraction of what would have
been filed this day and time) and settlements were made in all. Then
he had to deal with his guilt and regret, and the opinions of the
minority that didn't support him. Almost the entire populace of the
area may have supported him, but that doesn't count for much when a
couple of irate fathers who had lost children showed up at his house
to make their dislike for him known...and yes that did happen, and
thankfully for all involved, words were all that were exchanged.
Within a few months of the accident, Duane Harms had packed up Judy
and Lynda and moved to California to get away from both the negative
vibes and his own guilt. He never really managed to get completely
away from either.
Then there were the parents. Twenty sets of parents had
lost at least one child, four sets of parents had lost two children,
and three of those families were tragically and completely decimated when they lost
their only two children. Several sets of cousins were among
the kids that died...meaning that several parents lost not only a son
or daughter, they also lost a niece or nephew.
Sixteen kids were injured, with the injuries ranging
from a few cuts and bruises to critical, life threatening injuries.
In several cases a family had lost one child and had another in the
hospital clinging to life. Christmas all but came to a stop in Weld
County in 1961.
AN interesting facet of life back than (And one that I
remember well, though thankfully I never had to deal with anything
that even approached the outskirts of being this tragic) is the
complete lack of grief counseling for the kids. The general consensus
was that the best way to get over something was to...well, get over
it. To basically suck it up and go ahead with life. We know now, of
course, that emotional trauma doesn't just go away...all of the
surviving kids on Bus #2 as well as their parents were affected by
this to some extent, and the majority of those who are still around
will tell you that it still affects them to one extent or the
other to this very day. A tragedy of this nature stays with you. You
may not think about it daily, or even for weeks or months at a time,
but it's always just under the surface, waiting for something as
simple as seeing a bus sitting at a rail crossing to bring it back to
the surface.
Another effect of the accident...one often not thought about...was the kids who missed the bus...many of them suffered from survivors guilt, and some still do to this day. Collean and LaDean Yetter...the two sisters who overslept and missed the bus...are good examples of this. Both girls ended up at the scene when their parents went to pick Jerry up from the farmhouse he'd taken several of the children to, saw the wrecked bus, then spent a long, torturous day at the hospital wondering about their friends, only to find out that they had lost many of them. And the ' Why did I live and my friends not' thoughts began. This kind of guilt can be rough on an adult. Collean and LaDean were both under 12.
Another effect of the accident...one often not thought about...was the kids who missed the bus...many of them suffered from survivors guilt, and some still do to this day. Collean and LaDean Yetter...the two sisters who overslept and missed the bus...are good examples of this. Both girls ended up at the scene when their parents went to pick Jerry up from the farmhouse he'd taken several of the children to, saw the wrecked bus, then spent a long, torturous day at the hospital wondering about their friends, only to find out that they had lost many of them. And the ' Why did I live and my friends not' thoughts began. This kind of guilt can be rough on an adult. Collean and LaDean were both under 12.
Many surviving siblings also felt the pangs of
Survivors Guilt (And interestingly, some siblings born after
the accident also felt a form of the same type of guilt.) And, once
again, psychological effects on children (And anyone else for that
matter) resulting from being involved in an ultra-traumatic incident such this
were dealt with using the ineffective, and probably damaging 'Suck it
up and deal with it' philosophy. This wasn't intentionally abusive,
of course...it was just, sadly, the way things were done back then.
I remember being told not to worry about things affecting my
friends back in that same era (The phrase my dad would use was 'It's
none of your business'). Of course, as it wasn't ever anything
remotely close to this level of tragedy I can't even begin to
identify with any of the survivors of the bus crash. As for Collean,
LaDean, and any of the then-kids who survived, most if not all will
tell you it affects them...some of them deeply...to this very day.
The Brantner family was arguably, affected the most by
the bus crash...they lost two of their children in the accident, and
it seems a cloud of tragedy hung over them for quite awhile...and if
it was any family that absolutely didn't deserve this it was
this very religious, faithful, and hard working family.
Only seven weeks or so after the bus crash...before
Duane Harms' trial had even started...the two oldest Brantner kids,
sixteen year old Johnny and fourteen year old Jimmy, were on the way
to school in Johnny Brantners Chevy, when a pick-up blew a stop sign.
Johnny Brantner stood on the brakes, but still broadsided the pick-up
at highway speed. He was ejected, and died shortly after
reaching the hospital. Younger brother Jimmy was trapped in the car
with critical injuries.
Before the numbness and despair of December 14th
had even begun to ease up even a little, Joe and Katherine Brantner
were again getting that phone call that every parent dreads, then
rushing to the hospital, fearing for the lives of two more of their
kids. Jimmy survived, but with debilitating injuries, and to add a
twilight-zoneesque feeling to the accident, Bobby Brantner cheated
death a second time that morning. He'd ridden with Johnny and Jimmy
every morning since the bus crash...but Joe Brantner finally decreed
that he had to ride the bus. His older brothers had to go too far out
of their way to drop him off at school. The morning Johnny was
killed...Feb 7th, 1962...was the first morning Bobby rode
the bus.
A year or so after the bus crash, Joe Brantner would
donate a good sized chunk of his property for a project. The project?
That short stretch of C.R. 52 between that curves away from the tracks and 'T's into CR 43,
bypassing the severely angled crossing where the bus crash occurred and allowing traffic on CR 52 to cross at the already existing crossing on County Road 43. CR 43 crosses the tracks, BTW, at nearly a right angle...as it should be. The
old crossing was removed, and the original stretch of CR 52 between
the crossing and CR 43 was plowed under and became part of the field
next to the tracks.
Within a few months of the accident Weld County Colorado
put a policy in place that an adult...hired for the purpose as a 'Bus
Aide'...would 'Walk The Tracks' at each and every railroad crossing,
and the bus would not move until the aide waved him across. School
districts across the nation put similar policies in place...my home
county of Southampton County, Virginia being one of them. To be
honest, I'm not sure that the policy ever became state law anywhere
(And I'm being a scosh lazy because I haven't really researched it
that deeply) but I've been told that the policy is still in effect in
numerous rural school districts throughout the country.
<***>
Notes, Links, And Stuff<***>
The other posts in this series
in the order they were posted.
http://disasteroushistory.blogspot.com/2015/02/spring-city-tenn-bustrain-crash.html Spring City Tenn. August 1955
March 1972
October 1971
August 1976
http://disasteroushistory.blogspot.com/2015/02/fox-river-grove-illinois-bustrain-crash.htm Fox River Grove Illinois October 1995
http://disasteroushistory.blogspot.com/2015/02/conasauga-tennesee-bustrain-crash.html Conasauga Tenn. March 2000
http://disasteroushistory.blogspot.com/2016/03/sandy-utah-bus-train-crashthe-worst.html Sandy, Utah Dec 1938
http://disasteroushistory.blogspot.com/2016/03/proberta-california-train-bus-crash.html Proberta, California Nov 1921
http://disasteroushistory.blogspot.com/2016/02/shreve-ohio-and-berea-ohio-school.html Shreve and Berea Ohio Jan. 1930
http://disasteroushistory.blogspot.com/2016/03/crescent-city-florida-trainschool-bus.html Crescent City, Florida December 1933
http://disasteroushistory.blogspot.com/2016/03/rockville-md-train-bus-crash-april-11th.html Rockville, Maryland April 1935
http://disasteroushistory.blogspot.com/2016/03/mason-city-iowa-bus-train-crash.html MAson City, Iowa Oct. 1937
http://disasteroushistory.blogspot.com/2016/03/eads-tennessee-trainschool-bus-crash.html Eads, Tennessee Oct. 1941
http://disasteroushistory.blogspot.com/2016/03/sandy-utah-bus-train-crashthe-worst.html Sandy, Utah Dec 1938
http://disasteroushistory.blogspot.com/2016/03/proberta-california-train-bus-crash.html Proberta, California Nov 1921
http://disasteroushistory.blogspot.com/2016/02/shreve-ohio-and-berea-ohio-school.html Shreve and Berea Ohio Jan. 1930
http://disasteroushistory.blogspot.com/2016/03/crescent-city-florida-trainschool-bus.html Crescent City, Florida December 1933
http://disasteroushistory.blogspot.com/2016/03/rockville-md-train-bus-crash-april-11th.html Rockville, Maryland April 1935
http://disasteroushistory.blogspot.com/2016/03/mason-city-iowa-bus-train-crash.html MAson City, Iowa Oct. 1937
http://disasteroushistory.blogspot.com/2016/03/eads-tennessee-trainschool-bus-crash.html Eads, Tennessee Oct. 1941
<***>
This post turned into a project of some magnitude...I started off intending to post about the Evans crash...and the Evans bus crash only. Then, as I researched, and went back over my list of potential subjects for this blog, I realized just how many schoolbus-train collisions there have been over the last 110 years and change. Far Far too many of them. So I decided to do something a little different with this series of posts...and that's exactly it..It's going to be a two part series of posts, all sent out into the interwebs at the same time, both remembering the incidents and their young victims, and following the evolution of both the laws dealing with school bus safety at grade crossings as well as a minor study on how such incidents have been handled over the years. And yes, I may speculate, as I'm a bit prone to do, here and there. The fact that I don't have much sympathy for anyone who, through ignorance or idiocy, puts a bus load of children in front of an oncoming train just might peek through as well. That's the nice thing about blogs...you don't have to be impartial, and you can voice your opinion.
I'm doing this in two parts, with the first series of posts covering the period from 1955 to 2000, and the second part, a couple of months down the road, covering the period from 1921 to 1954.
I'm doing this in two parts, with the first series of posts covering the period from 1955 to 2000, and the second part, a couple of months down the road, covering the period from 1921 to 1954.
<***>
You'd think, with this accident being Colorado's worst
traffic accident, being as horrific as it was, and occurring in
fairly modern times, there would be reams of information about it on
the web.
Guess what gang...there isn't. There are incidents and
accidents of all kinds that occurred nearly a century earlier with so
much information available on line that you can pick and choose what
you want to use as research for a post such as this. The Evans
Colorado Bus Crash, however, has very little info on the web,...not
even comparatively, but very little, period. It's as if Colorado, the
country, and the world just wanted to forget about it.
If it wasn't for an outstanding series of articles
written about the accident for a now defunct newspaper, this post
would have been a couple of paragraphs long, using information from a
genealogy site that archives newspaper articles about disasters from
the past. (The very same site that I use, among other sources, to
hunt for subjects for this blog)
With that thought in mind, before I do anything
else I need to acknowledge Kevin Vaughan, the author of 'The
Crossing', a 34 part series on the accident that was published in
the now defunct Rocky Mountain News back in early 2007. This was not
only a very thorough, yet sensitive and respectful account of the
tragedy and the effect it and on the victims and families, it was my
primary source of facts and information for this post.
A blog on the paper's site also carried information
about the series, as well as hundreds of comments, several from
family members of the kids on the bus...most notably Mary Brantner,
who was an infant when her brother and sister died in the accident.
I'm forever grateful to all for the reams of information and correct
facts that these two sources provided.
Of course, with 'The Rocky', as residents of Colorado
called the paper, out of business I had to dig a little to find The
Crossing's text, and finally found all but a couple of installments
thanks to 'The Way-back Machine' web archive. The one thing I
couldn't find, anywhere, were pictures of the scene...but that's not
necessarily a bad thing at all. I think the descriptions given in The
Crossing and the comments from The Rocky's blog were more than
enough. It's not the type of image I'd want to have in my mind for
any length of time. I've included links to both the blog, and 'The Crossing' below.
<***>
While the Evans accident was horrific in it's own right, it was not the worst school bus/train accident on record...that highly dubious distinction belongs to the Sandy, Utah bus/train crash, which occurred on December 1st, 1938, killing 25 students and the bus driver, making it not only the worst school bus/train crash in U.S. history, but the worst grade crossing accident of any kind in U.S. History. In a strange twist of both history and fate,The Sandy and Evans accidents, separated by twenty-three years, share a striking number of similarities:
>Both occurred in December, in small towns in the Western U.S.
>Both occurred in the morning,while the bus was on the way in to school.
>There was snow on the ground at both scenes.
>Both occurred at unsignalled crossings.
>The chassis of both buses were built by GMC (Known as General Motors Truck Corp back in The Thirties)
>The bus windows were fogged over in both cases
>The driver actually did stop the bus short of the crossing in both cases...then proceeded after not seeing the oncoming train.
>The driver actually did stop the bus short of the crossing in both cases...then proceeded after not seeing the oncoming train.
>A passenger sitting in the front seat of the bus saw the train and shouted 'TRAIN!!!' an instant before the collision in both accidents.
>In both accidents the driver was known to be very responsible, making it all the more puzzling that he drove in front of a train.
<***>
There have, sadly, been way more than a few
train-school bus accidents over the years...167 between 1902 and 2015, with the most recent happening only a couple of weeks ago as I get ready to post this, and I've found information on about 20 or so of them while
searching out subjects for this series of blog posts. Among them were a pair of accidents in Alabama, in January and March of 1960...nearly two
years earlier...that were eerily similar
to the Evans Bus Crash, .
The first was in Fackler Alabama, in far northeastern Alabama's Jackson County . Very similar
circumstances...A rural dirt road, slow moving school bus, and a
driver who claimed that he never saw the train that hit them, though
he cited 'the brakes giving out' as the reason he couldn't or didn't
stop. And, just as happened at Evans, the bus was torn in two by
the crash, with the rear portion of the bus being dragged nearly three quarters of a mile. This time the bus had 17 aboard counting the driver. Four
of the kids were killed, two of them not only brothers but nephews of the driver as well, while the other two were a brother and sister.
The driver not only stated that the brakes failed, he
said that they had failed 'Numerous times' in the time he'd been
driving it. The school board's superintendent, quoting the system's
chief mechanic, said that the bus had undergone preventative
maintenance within the past couple of months, and was in good shape.
Brakes included. I'll let everyone come to their own conclusions on
what actually happened.
Not much info on The Web about this one, though I did find bits enough bits and pieces on a couple of genealogy sites to get the location and general gist of what happened. There are a
couple of reasons why the accident didn't garner the same interest as
the Evans crash. There were fewer killed, a mechanical failure (True
or not) was cited as the cause, and the bus (A 1951 model) being
nearly ten years old lent some credence to the 'Brakes Failed' story,
leaving no lessons to be learned that weren't already known.
Interestingly the crossing where the accident
happened...which is still in place, on Jackson County Road 169, hard by County Road 45...is to this day still only protected by a
cross buck sign and stop sign with no lights or gates. The area...like that around
Auburn, Colorado...is still extremely rural.
The second one occurred on March 22, 1960 on the opposite end of the state, in the Wilcox County community of Coy,
Alabama. Despite the fact that, with 8
fatalities, the death toll was twice that of the Fackler accident
there is all but nothing on the web about it. I was able to find out
that it occurred in the afternoon on a rural road at another unsignaled crossing and that the bus (An very late Forties or early fifties GMC or
Chevy) was hit just about broadside on the right side by a freight
train and pretty much ripped apart.. I got this info thanks to a
single captioned A.P. picture on a site that has the images for sale
for far more than I was willing to spend to post it here. Interestingly enough, I discovered that picture...and this crash...while searching out information on the Fackler bus crash.
It can be pretty well assumed that in the Coy bus crash the bus driver either
didn't see or hear the train, or thought he could beat
it...unfortunately no information about the cause of the crash was
included. And...sadly...I think I know why very little info is
available about this one. 1960 was still very much the era of
segregation in the Deep South. I'll let my readers make their own
conclusions from that single statement.
It should be noted, though, that the law requiring
school bus drivers to stop, look, and listen at RR crossings had been
in place for several years by 1960, but apparently some drivers just
weren't getting the message.. (The accident that finally spear-headed
a move to make it a Federally Mandated Law will be covered next in this series of
posts).
<***>
As to why Duane Harms never heard The City of Denver's
horn and therefore pulled onto the crossing after stopping (And yes,
number me among those who think he did indeed stop)...I have a
theory. Obviously I wasn't there, and I could be way out in left
field, but I don't think Herb Sommers blew Locomotive 599's air horn
that fateful morning...not anywhere near the crossing, or the one a
half mile or so east of it at County Road 45 at any rate. Too many
people said they didn't hear it...and I'm inclined to believe that if
they say they didn't hear it, it's because it wasn't being
blown for them to hear. Those big, multi-chime air horns carry
a long long way....I regularly hear trains blowing for a
crossing that's a good mile and change from my house.
Now, as to just why Herb Sommers didn't blow the
horn in the required approaching crossing pattern, I don't think it
had anything to do with incompetence or laziness...Herb Sommers had
been an engineer for 20 years and a railroad employee for 43 years, so he knew the Union Pacific's policy and procedure manuals backward and
forward. And sounding the horn wasn't exactly a major expenditure of
effort...you reached up and over to the left, grab the wooden dowel
on the end of the whistle cord, and give it a yank.
But he was just as prone as any of us, you and
me included, to a little fault named complacency. The City of Denver
normally went through a bit after 6AM, before anyone's really on the
road in a farming community such as Auburn. Also, there are
several grade crossings, one right after the other on that stretch of
track...back in '61 there were three within a mile right at
Auburn...the one at CR 45, in Auburn itself, the fatal crossing at CR
52, and the one at CR 43, which meant that he would have been
sounding that Long-Long-Short-Long all but constantly from the time
he approached Auburn until he was well past the fatal crossing at
C.R. 52...trust me on this, someone would have heard that horn if he
was sounding it constantly for nearly a full minute.
Two things probably happened...One, he sounded the horn
for one of the crossings before he got to CR 45 (There were several
east of Auburn as well), and knowing there was usually absolutely no
traffic on those back roads when he came through, and that people
were either still asleep or just stirring, didn't subject them to the
afore mentioned minute or so long airhorn concert. So it's quite possible that he didn't blow the airhorn out of a misplaced sense of politeness. Of course, on this
particular morning, he was coming through Auburn nearly two
hours later than normal, and there were people up, out, about, and on the roads.
This takes us to 'Thing Two'...Sommers and his fireman were likely carrying on a conversation as they approached CR 52, possibly even about the bus, because I think it's more than possible that, as he approached the crossing at CR 45, he saw the bus stopped...Art Larson saw it from the CR 45 crossing. The bus would have probably been visible, from an extreme ¾ angle from the right rear, making the glowing brake lights visible. And, seeing the bus stopped, Sommers assumed that the driver saw him and was going to stay stopped...then turned his head for the theoretical few seconds to make a comment to his fireman.
This takes us to 'Thing Two'...Sommers and his fireman were likely carrying on a conversation as they approached CR 52, possibly even about the bus, because I think it's more than possible that, as he approached the crossing at CR 45, he saw the bus stopped...Art Larson saw it from the CR 45 crossing. The bus would have probably been visible, from an extreme ¾ angle from the right rear, making the glowing brake lights visible. And, seeing the bus stopped, Sommers assumed that the driver saw him and was going to stay stopped...then turned his head for the theoretical few seconds to make a comment to his fireman.
Remember, The City of Denver was moving at 79 miles per
hour...round it up to 80, and they were rolling along at 115 feet or
so every second. If he glanced over towards his fireman...looking
away from the windshield...for four seconds, he's just covered a
little less than two football fields since he crossed CR 45, and
before he looked up again. By the time he looked up he was less than
a quarter mile.. between 1000-1200 feet lets say...from the crossing,
and the bus is moving.
When they do see it moving a few seconds later, Sommers
and the fireman maybe both at first think that he's just moved up a
little to better be able to see down the tracks. A few seconds later
they realize he isn't stopping... they're maybe 500-600 feet away. If
the bus is moving at 5 miles per hour as it crosses (Not at all
unlikely on the rough country road crossings of that era...we had 'em
in Virginia, too.) it was moving at about 7 feet per second. If the
bus is 35 feet long that's five seconds for it to clear the crossing.
They were about a quarter way across when Jerry Hembry cleared his
window, turned his head and stared straight into the train's
headlight...by then the City of Denver was probably a football field
or so away from them, though it looked like it was even closer. This
is also possibly where Herb Sommers threw the brakes into emergency.
Duane Harms may have punched it to try to clear the tracks...but, as
school buses traditionally have the pep and acceleration of a cruise
ship, that was all but a pointless gesture. When Jerry yelled
'TRAIN!!!', Herb Sommers yanked the brake valve into emergency, and
Duane possibly punched it, the City of Denver was about three seconds
away from them.
They almost made it across...the front of locomotive
#599 tore into the very back of the bus...the last 63 inches. Five
feet and three inches. If they had had another second or so...if the bus had been going two miles an hour faster, or if Sommers had slammed the City of Denver's brakes into full emergency the instant he realized the bus was moving...all it
would have been was a close call.
<***>
I have all the sympathy in the world for Duane
Harms...any of us can make a mistake. And when we do we can only hope
and pray it won't be the cataclysmic kind that happened at 7:59 AM on
December 14th, 1961. But, while many of Duane Harms
supporters stated that the accident was unavoidable, it could
have been avoided, though, if you really look at it, you can kind of understand why it wasn't
avoided. That complacency that just might be the reason that
Herb Sommers didn't sound the City of Denver's horn?
Me thinks Duane Harms was suffering from a pretty hefty dose of it as well. He
had never encountered a train on his morning run, so he was
likely being no more or less cautious than he always was. He, in fact, took an extra step that fateful morning...he asked Jerry Hembry if
he heard anything, and Jerry also glanced out of the door, seeing and
hearing nothing.
During testimony at his trial, Duane stated that he
probably stopped forty or fifty feet back from the tracks...with-in
both legal and district policy guide lines...opened the door and
listened for a train. Which he probably always did. Remember
the poles,and the optical illusion, caused by the crossing's severe
angle, that made them into an almost solid wall? Because of that
optical illusion, and the fact that he actually had to turn and look
over his shoulder to check, if this is where Harms always stopped, he
had never been able to see down the tracks towards the east.
There had never been a train...not even a distant head
light...at that or any crossing during his morning run and he had
opened the door every morning and heard nothing...just as he had this
morning...so he had, in his mind, no reason at all to do anything
more than he usually did. OF course, looking back with hindsight
that's always 20/20, the majority of people hear this story and say
'What was he thinking??? Simple...he was thinking that he
couldn't hear a train, and that there had never been a
train so there wasn't a train there that morning either.
What's really sad is the fact that the key to avoiding
the accident was sitting in the front right passenger seat...if he
had said something like 'Jerry, how 'bout running up to the tracks
and taking a look', Jerry Hembrey would have done so, seen the fast
approaching City of Denver, and all that would have happened as he
climbed back on board would have been he or Duane saying something
like 'Whoa, The City's' running late this morning!' But again, in
Duane's mind, there was no reason to send Jerry to look down the
tracks, therefore the thought never occurred, So Jerry stayed in his
seat. And Duane did the same thing he'd done at every crossing, twice
a day at each, for four months. Listened, heard nothing, and preceded
across And the rest is history..
In the blog comments from The Rocky Mountain News
several people noted that 'Harms should have gotten out and looked'
but that wouldn't have worked either. It was probably against
district policy to leave the bus running, loaded, and unattended, so
he would have had to have shut the engine off, run up to the
crossing, looked, run back, gotten in, started the bus back up, put
it in gear, and started rolling. More than enough time for a train
that wasn't visible when he looked to suddenly be bearing down on
them. Granted and admittedly, the fact that there was a train
that morning makes any excuse for not looking himself somewhat moot.
But it would have been a pain in the ass to do so, and neither he,
nor, very likely, any driver had ever gotten off of the bus
themselves to check for a train.
Keep in mind also that this wasn't (And isn't )
the only railroad grade crossing with a seriously screwed up sight
line in one direction or the other. And I have a feeling that, until
more stringent Federal laws mandating otherwise were put on the
books, Duane Harms wasn't the only driver who handled unsignalled,
badly aligned crossings this very same way...by simply opening the
door and just listening for a train (Again, I'm talking
nation-wide...not just in Weld County, Colorado). He was just the one
that got caught. And tragically, 36 kids payed the price...20 of them
the ultimate price.
<***>
Duane Harms moved to California shortly after he was
acquitted of manslaughter in the bus crash, but bad luck still
followed him. The family moved to Southern California, where he got a
job in the maintenance department of a good sized school district,
and Judy Harms got a job teaching elementary school in the same
district. Things seemed to be looking up for them until a congenital
condition that Judy had inherited reared it's ugly head, and she
began to slip into the dark grasp of mental illness. Duane could only
watch as she slipped away from him, her body still very much alive,
but inhabited by someone that he didn't know. He first had himself
named as her conservator, than as her condition worsened and he
became unable to care for her, she was institutionalized. And fate
still wasn't finished with Duane Harms.
His daughter Lynda had grown up to be a perfectly normal
teen...she graduated with the Class of 79, and during her years in So
Cal, she'd likely become a typical 'California Girl' and had
accumulated a cadre of close friends, as teenage girls are wont to
do. One afternoon after she graduated, while she and a friend were
out and about in the friends car, the other girl lost control, went
off the road, and slammed into a tree, apparently on Lynda's side.
Lynda had internal injuries and spent a month in the hospital before
coming home to recuperate. She recovered from her physical injuries,
but her mental condition began to deteriorate...whether from an
undiagnosed head injury, or the same type condition her mom suffered from,
triggered in some way by her accident, is unknown. She lived at home,
hardly ever going out, for years before, I believe,. she was also
ultimately institutionalized.
As for Duane Harms, he was diagnosed with an inoperable
brain tumor in the late Summer of 2007. He passed away on November
18th of that same year...finally at peace.
<***>
Herb Sommers died three weeks or so shy of four years
after the bus accident...ironically in another grade crossing
accident. On November 20th, 1965, just five days before
Thanksgiving, Herb Sommers was bringing the City of Denver into Denver
on the last leg of it's overnight Denver-Chicago-Denver round trip.
He was almost into Denver as he bore down on a signal and gate
protected grade crossing at East 96th Ave. The City of
Denver had probably slowed from it's cruising speed of 80 down to 40
or 50 as it entered the Denver metro area and approached Denver's
Union station, but that's still rolling when you have 900 tons or so
of momentum behind you. But this was a signaled, gated crossing...
Lack of common sense is not a new ailment. Even as Herb
Sommers watched in disbelief a tanker...freshly loaded with 9000
gallons of gasoline at a tank farm less than a quarter mile east of the
crossing...slalomed around the gates and started crossing in front of
the train. With a horrified sense of Deja Vue, Sommers slammed the
brakes into emergency and the train slid....
It wasn't even close...the rounded nose of the lead
locomotive ripped into the tanker broadside, popping it like a
balloon, unleashing a tidal wave of gasoline that didn't even have to
search real hard for an ignition source.
A fireball engulfed the locomotives and crossing, all
9000 gallons of gas lit off, and only the luck of the Irish and the
fact that the area around the crossing wasn't all that built up (And
still isn't truth be known) kept this from becoming a conflagration
of devastating proportions. The City of Denver, flames rolling from
the lead locomotive, slid nearly a mile before it stopped.
The truck's driver was thrown clear, and employees who
ran from the tank farm...Denver Products back then...dragged him
clear of the burning tanker. He would die from his injuries a week
later. DFD's white painted fire rigs descended on the scene to find
that they had two fire scenes...the burning tanker and 9000 gallons
of burning gasoline at 96th Ave as well as the fully
involved lead locomotive almost a mile south, where the train finally
drifted to a blazing stop. DFD dumped a multiple alarm assignment on
the tanker fire, and sent another assignment to the train fire, which
was knocked down fairly quickly. When firefighters entered the cab of
the burned out lead locomotive they discovered the bodies of both
Herb Sommers and his fireman. Sommers was buried three days later.
As If this wasn't tragic enough, four months later his wife of 40+
years, unable to take the grief of losing her husband any longer,
took her own life.
<***>
Two years after the bus accident, Delta Elementary
School...the school that many of the passengers aboard Bus # 2 that
morning were bound for...was replaced by a new elementary school. The
school was named 'East Memorial Elementary', in memory of the 20 kids
who died in the accident, and a brass plaque, engraved with the names
of the children, was placed on the wall in a prominent location, near
the school's office.
The school and plaque are still there, though the school's being 'Downgraded' to a K-3rd grade school this (2014-2015) school year.
The school and plaque are still there, though the school's being 'Downgraded' to a K-3rd grade school this (2014-2015) school year.
 |
| Plaque near the office at East Memorial Elementary School. The picture to the left of the plaque is a picture of the planting of a Memorial Tree at the school on the 25th anniversary of the accident. |
<***>
For
decades the plaque in the hall of Memorial Elementary, near the
office, was the only
memorial to the kids who died in the bus crash, Someone always
placed flowers or a wreath on a fence post near the curve where County Road 52
once crossed the tracks, especially around the anniversary of the
accident, but there was nothing permanent to mark the site or
memorialize the children who had been killed. Tim
Geisick, whose mom was Katherine and Joe Brantner's oldest daughter
Susan, had never gotten to meet his
aunt and uncle...Kathy and Mark Brantner. He had also always
wondered just why there was
no memorial at the site itself, something he felt was completely
unacceptable. He started
a movement to have a permanent memorial erected at the site where the
accident took place before 'The Crossing' was ever published in The
Rocky Mountain News. The publication
of the series drew support and contributions, both nationally and
internationally, and donations for the monument rolled in from as far
away as Germany.
A
land owner named Lonnie Bunting donated the land for the memorial
site as well as the first 250 dollars, and various local government
officials did what they could to smooth out the application and
permit processes. The 6500 dollars Tim needed to erect the simple
memorial was raised fairly quickly and donations of time, and help in
organizing pretty much every facet of erecting it and unveiling were
also made, leading to the memorial's dedication on August 27th,
2007.
It
consists of a simple but elegant 6 foot granite obelisk with the
names of the 20 children and a short paragraph telling about the
accident engraved on one face, and stands as a fitting memorial to
the twenty children who climbed aboard a school bus for the last time on
a frigid December morning a shade over 53 years ago.
 |
| The Crossing Memorial |
 |
| Close-up of the Memorial's obelisk, with the names of the 20 kids who lost their lives inscribed there-on. |
 |
| The Twenty Angels of The Crossing |
<***>Links<***>
As I noted at the beginning of the 'Notes', there is very little on line about the accident, which doesn't even have it's own Wiki page. I did find a few links other than The Wayback Machine's archive while doing research, (Link to that's immediately below), most about the memorial, or forum threads/blog posts about the accident.
https://web.archive.org/web/20090303043113/http://cfapp2.rockymountainnews.com/crossing/
Wayback Machine internet archive link for Kevin Vaughan's series 'The Crossing. The great majority of the chapters are searchable, though most of the images don't show up. Just click 'View Chapter XX' at the bottom of each chapter's description. A very interesting read.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140701172125/http://blogs.rockymountainnews.com /rockytalklive/archives/2007/08/test_1.html Link to the Wayback Machine Internet Archive 's file of the RMN's blog post about the accident, with comments. Another extremely interesting read!
https://web.archive.org/web/20090303043113/http://cfapp2.rockymountainnews.com/crossing/
Wayback Machine internet archive link for Kevin Vaughan's series 'The Crossing. The great majority of the chapters are searchable, though most of the images don't show up. Just click 'View Chapter XX' at the bottom of each chapter's description. A very interesting read.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140701172125/http://blogs.rockymountainnews.com /rockytalklive/archives/2007/08/test_1.html Link to the Wayback Machine Internet Archive 's file of the RMN's blog post about the accident, with comments. Another extremely interesting read!
http://www.railroadforums.com/forum/showthread.php?16777-Passenger-train-hit-school-bus-in-1961-Rocky-Mountain-News-33-part-series&s=6c165e2e792271d513de769485fd49c0 Railroad history site forum about the accident...another school bus/train crash in Canada is also discussed.
https://brookewolfephoto.wordpress.com/2008/06/09/the-crossing/ Post from another blog, with the text of Chapter 1 of The Crossing included.
http://www.schoolbusfleet.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=15402 Schoolbus Fleet forum post about The Crossing, with the text of one of the chapters (Chapter 27) included.
http://www.greeleyhistory.org/pages/east_memorial.html East Memorial Elementary School's page about the accident and their memorial.
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_6733512?source=rss A Denver Post article about the memorial placed in memory of the 20 kids who lost their lives.
https://www.reverbnation.com/peterschaff/song/6889920-bus-driver Link to a song about the accident, written...but never recorded...by Len Chandler and covered by Peter Schaff. It doesn't do Duane Harms any favors, and, in fact, gets a couple of key facts wrong, but it's still an interesting tribute to the twenty kids who lost their lives in the accident.
Bonus fact...Bob Dylan borrowed the melody of his song 'The Tale of Emmett Till' from this song.
Thanks to fellow Blogger Chris for pointing me to this link!
https://www.reverbnation.com/peterschaff/song/6889920-bus-driver Link to a song about the accident, written...but never recorded...by Len Chandler and covered by Peter Schaff. It doesn't do Duane Harms any favors, and, in fact, gets a couple of key facts wrong, but it's still an interesting tribute to the twenty kids who lost their lives in the accident.
Bonus fact...Bob Dylan borrowed the melody of his song 'The Tale of Emmett Till' from this song.
Thanks to fellow Blogger Chris for pointing me to this link!
