Norwalk Bridge Disaster. May 6th, 1853. The Nation's First Bridge Disaster

Norwalk Bridge Disaster

Norwalk, Connecticut

May 6^th, 1853

The Nation's First Bridge Disaster   

The Year The Horrors Began

The steam railroad's explosive expansion in the mid 19th Century kicked off what could well be one of the single most revolutionary transportation developments in the nation's history, as well as one of the most amazing sixteen year runs of astonishingly good luck our nation's transportation system has ever experienced.

Don't believe me? Lets take a look.

In 1837 there were fewer than 1000 miles of rail line in the U.S. You could still find horse-drawn rail cars in use here and there, and you could probably come close to counting the number of steam locomotives in use on those few miles of track using your fingers and toes. Speeds were slow (25 mph was flat out 'gettin' it') and, while accidents were pretty frequent, most didn't result in injuries, much less fatalities. 

That being said, 1837 also brought the infant U.S. rail system the  very first multiple fatality rail accident in U.S history . That accident, BTW happened right here in The Old Dominion, and was also the very first head-on collision in U.S. history. Three of the six fatalities were a trio of wealthy sisters, or possibly cousins, who were the daughters of a well known, well connected, and very wealthy local family. 

Then, the Portsmouth and Roanoke Railroad...the line that accident happened on...managed to give the media (Spelled 'Newspapers' as they were the only game in town 184 years ago) yet another related story the night after the accident when the rescue train, carrying injured passengers to a hospital in Portsmouth, hit and killed two men walking on the tracks. And just like that, rail accidents had killed more people in under 12 hours than had died in several years worth of rail accidents previously...a fact that newspapers of the time very likely hammered home to their readers.

Speakin' of those newspapers, media coverage of the accident was comprehensive and huge, with wood-cut engravings and full page stories on the front pages of multiple newspapers nation-wide, along with the inevitable follow up stories about the investigation into the accident's cause and editorials bemoaning the horrors of this new-fangled technology. 

You'd think the public would have taken a look at the sudden carnage and backed off from this new and obviously dangerous way to travel, but that didn't happen.  In fact, the accident didn't even put a dent in the development and expansion of our nation's rail system. 

People had found that they really, really liked spending only hours on a, say, 50-100 mile long trip trip, riding in comparative comfort, rather than a day or more on horseback or enduring a long, dusty, bumpy, exhausting ride by buggy, wagon, or stage coach. Ditto, the fact that they could board a train at daybreak, travel 100 miles, take care of what ever business had necessitated the trip, and return home by...or even before...nightfall, something that was a ne'er to be realized pipe dream before the steam railroad made it possible.

Businesses and industries got a double dose of good karma from the new technology...they could ship larger quantities of goods further in less time, there-by making higher profits through more sales.  At the same time, they could order raw materials and other supplies in larger quantities at lower bulk-purchase prices, and have them arrive more quickly, allowing them to make (And sell) more finished product in a shorter period of time...again, higher profits through more sales.

The public wanted more rail lines, with more destinations, and they wanted more speed...and they got their wish.

Track mileage nearly tripled, to around 2500 miles, by 1840. And it kept growing...all but exponentially. By 1853 (The year this post is zeroing in on) there were just shy of 10,000 miles of revenue-generating rail line in the U.S. Horse-drawn rail cars were a distant memory, railroad stations were part of the small-town and big city landscape, steam whistles blowing for crossings, and signaling arrivals and departures from stations had become familiar and well-loved back-ground sounds, rail travel had become comfortable and commonplace, and steam locomotive technology had advanced to the point that passenger trains regularly rolled through the countryside at the then-blistering speed of 40 or so miles per hour.

During that same fifteen or sixteen years steam locomotives evolved, quickly, from small, slow little rigs that strained to reach 20-25 mph to big, highly advanced machines capable of pulling a 6-8 car passenger train at 40 MPH, and a 20-30 car freight...that was a long train in, say, 1850...at 30 MPH all day long. Cabs were semi-enclosed, boilers were well constructed, valve assemblies were complex, well engineered, and beautiful to watch in action, and those steam whistles!

 Aaaaand safety technology was, well, pretty much nonexistent. And that's where our run of good luck comes in. Hey, I said that rail travel had become comfortable...I didn't say anything about it being safe. because, well, it really wasn't.

The problem was, the technology to keep these soon-to-be-legendary iron beasts under control just hadn't evolved as quickly as the locomotives themselves...if at all. While iron 'T' rails had been developed and were in use on the majority of those miles of track, there were also hundreds of miles of primitive 'strip rail...flat iron strips laid on top of long wooden timbers...in use. Almost all main lines were single track, requiring strict adherence to time tables to avoid head on collisions. There were no time zones yet, so keeping those time tables straight was a near impossible chore because every city, town, and county set their clocks to their own local...or 'sun'...time.

And, most importantly, there was no really effective way to stop a train quickly once it got rolling. Yeah, you read that right...these early trains basically had no effective brakes. Oh they had brakes...they were just primitive. As in real primitive. Locomotive brakes, if they existed at all, consisted of leather covered iron shoes forced against he outside rim of the driving wheels by a lever in the cab. The brakes on the cars were only slightly less primitive.

On the tender (The car directly behind the locomotive that carried fuel and water) and the cars themselves, a chain and lever assembly, controlled by handwheels at each end of the cars, forced similar shoes against the wheels. There was absolutely no way whatsoever to apply all of the brakes instantly, or even quickly. Each train had brakemen who, when the engineer whistled for brakes, had to run along the tops of the cars (Or along narrow catwalks on the sides on flat cars) and spin the handwheels to set each car's brakes individually.

 This also, of course, meant that the brakeman was exposed to the elements as well as the ever present danger of falling from...or being knocked from...the catwalk. He had a choice if he fell...either go off the side (At best, resulting in severe and likely either debilitating or fatal injuries) or going between the cars, resulting in an inevitable and horrible death. 

The catwalk was only a foot or so wide, and would be swaying with the motion of the car itself...and each car would be swaying in a slightly different direction, making crossing from roof to roof a treacherously dangerous maneuver. Then. once he got to the brake wheel on each car, he had to keep his footing while trying to get the thing to turn to turn.  This would have been hard enough to do in good weather. Now...imagine trying to cross the roofs of those swaying box cars and get the brakes set in the middle of a wind-blown gully washer of a July thunderstorm. Or, even worse, make it the middle of January, with the catwalks covered in snow and ice. 

At least on passenger cars, the brake wheels were on the platforms at either end of the car, so our brakeman could run through the car to get to the hand wheel rather than climb ladders and run across the tops of the cars, negating the dangers from elements and falls. All he had to worry about was getting the train stopped before the wreck it was getting ready to have actually occurred.

This box car's brake wheel can be seen extending above the roof. The small platform below the handwheel was for the brakeman to stand on when a car, or string of cars was being shifted at low speed in a train yard, not for use when the train was running on the mainline. Also, note that the catwalk extends past the edge of the roof...this has a dual purpose. This supposedly made it a bit easier to go from car to car, as well as giving the brakeman a little more foot room when trying to turn the brake wheel. From this angle, IMHO, it doesn't inspire a great deal of confidence.

This was the only way to slow or stop a train before airbrakes were introduced in about 1872, and the brakemen had to literally run along the tops of freight cars and set each car's brakes separately. It was rough, punishing, dangerous work. Exactly how rough, punishing, and dangerous? Take a look at the next pic...

This woodcut illustration of a pair of railroad brakemen at work during the winter, with the tops of the cars...and therefore the catwalks...covered in snow and ice, perfectly illustrates the dangers these guys faced. There were several different ways they could loose their footing and be thrown from the train...or worse, fall between the cars, which always meant a horrific death. 

Brakemen on passenger trains had it easier than their freight train riding counterparts. At least passenger brakemen got to stay mostly out of the elements, and they weren't exposed to fall hazards when going from car to car because, as seen here, the brake wheels were on the cars' end platforms.

This brakemen is using a 'Brakeman's Club', or 'Breaker Bar' to give himself some extra leverage when trying to turn the often stubborn hand wheels. Of course, if one of those stubborn brake wheels should free itself, and suddenly turn freely, that could throw him off balance...a nasty fall on the platform of a passenger car, all but sure death on the roof of a freight car.

This is a newer car than was used on the Boston Express, and was probably built in the early 20th Century or very late 19th Century...note the modern couplings, air brake hose, and raised 'clerestory' roof...but it still perfectly illustrates the brakeman's job.

Freight or passenger train, he still had to set each car's brakes individually. At the train's head end, if a sudden emergency developed, the engineer would whistle for brakes, ignore the locomotive's own ineffectual brakes, and, if he had time, slam the big steamer into reverse. His ( And his fireman's) very next act was very likely to be jumping clear to save themselves.

 Meanwhile the brakemen would scramble along the tops of the train cars, or through the passenger cars, and spin the brake wheels (Which were often so stubbornly hard to turn that the brakemen carried wooden 'brake clubs' that they slipped between the handwheel's spokes to give them more leverage) feverishly, desperately trying to get as many sets of brakes set as possible.

 A modern train, with high-tech modern airbrakes that set instantly on every wheel on the train when the brakes are slammed into emergency, often still requires more than a mile to stop. Stopping even the short, comparatively light weight and slow moving trains of the 1840s or 1850s at all, much less quickly, in an emergency was a hopeless task.

You'd think that this near total lack of any safety tech at all would have turned that decade and a half of explosive growth into a blood bath, with trains regularly slamming into each other, careening off of the rails, and hurtling off of bridges, slaying dozens of passengers at a time when they did so, but believe it or not, that just didn't happen. 

Oh there were accidents. Trains derailed pretty regularly, and, less often, ran into each other, but very few fatalities resulted. In fact, looking through a pair of sources (Wikipedia, and GenDisasters.com) I only found eleven fatal accidents in that 16 year period, only a couple of which resulted in more than one or two fatalities. The worst train wreck in the 1840s was an 1844 crash that occurred when a runaway freight car slammed into the rear car of a passenger train, killing four passengers....the most fatalities in a single accident since the 1837 head on collision near Suffolk, Va. that was the country's first multi-fatality train wreck..

The accidents became more frequent...and more severe...as road mileage, ridership, and speed all rose together, and 1852 actually boasted a couple of fatal accidents, the worst of which was a derailment in Meredith New Hampshire that killed six...equaling the toll in that first deadly head-on collision near Suffolk.

 I counted a total of 23 people killed in those 11 fatal accidents. Of course, twenty-three accidental deaths is tragic, no matter how long a span those deaths occur over, but it's still amazing, given the lack of safety technology of that period, that accidents weren't killing that many people per accident on occasion.

Even today, with safety technology that's hundreds of times more advanced than the technology that existed nearly 170 years ago, U.S. railroads average around 10-15 employee and passenger deaths per year, and a major accident, with five or more deaths, every three or so years...a far higher death rate than the US rail system suffered during that 16 year span from 1837-1853. 

So it had to be luck....an astounding run of amazingly good luck....for hundreds of trains to travel thousands of miles at speeds of thirty or more miles per hour for 16 years with absolutely no way to stop quickly in an emergency, and still have fewer than twenty-five fatalities occur in under a dozen fatal accidents during that decade and a half.

 It was also a run of good luck that absolutely couldn't last. And, well, it didn't.

1853 would come to be known as 'The Year The Horrors Began', and it was kicked off by a fatal train wreck that made national headlines., even though it only resulted in a single fatality. That wreck occurred on January 2nd of that year, in Andover, Ma, when the coach that President Elect Franklin Pierce and his eleven year old son Benjamin were traveling in broke an axle, derailed, and flipped down an embankment. The President-Elect suffered only minor injuries, but Benjamin, sadly, was the accident's sole fatality. The death of his son was said to have demoralized Pierce so much that it badly impacted his ability to govern the country.

The nation, assisted by the Media, grieved right along with the President-Elect, and newspapers carried the story and it's spin-offs and side bars, for at least a couple of weeks. People all over the country, no matter who they'd voted for, read these articles along with morning coffee, shook their heads sadly, and wondered, just what other horrors a year that started off this tragically could hold. 

They would find out just over four months later, on May 6th....that run of good luck was about to come to a spectacular and horrible end.

<***>

For this one we head for the northern shore of Long Island Sound, to the pretty and historic little city of Norwalk, Connecticut. Norwalk's about about 40 miles Northeast of New York City, and 9 miles west of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and pretty much straddles all of the East Coast's major North-South transportation corridors. Both I-95 and U.S. Rt 1 pass through Norwalk (Both, despite being north-south roads, running almost due east and west, to follow Long Island Sound, as they roll through Connecticut). The city is also a well known pinch-point for rail traffic on the busy North-South rail corridor, a distinction it's held for at least 168 years or so.

Back in 1853 one of the primary North-South rail lines heading out of The Big Apple was the New York and New Haven Railroad, and on it's way north it cut through Norwalk, using just about the exact same right-of-way that Amtrak, CSX, and North Metro use to this very day. And, then as now, trains passing through the city crossed the Norwalk River on a drawbridge.

Ok, drawbridges have been around in one form or the other since the middle ages, but they became more refined and far more numerous in the mid 19th Century, as rail lines pushed across both Europe and the U.S. . Any time a road or railroad crossed a navigable river, there were two bridge-building options that would allow ships to pass. You either built the bridge high enough for all ships to pass beneath it (Think about the masts on mid-19th century sailing ships...every bridge would've had to have had at least 120 or so feet of clearance between water and span) or built a drawbridge that could be moved out of the way of approaching river traffic, allowing ships to pass unhindered. The drawbridge was always the quickest, easiest, and most importantly, least expensive alternative.  

So, when the NY & NH built their main line through Norwalk in 1847, they built a single track wood  and iron truss swing-bridge across the Norwalk River. The bridge was about 400 feet long, with a 140 or so foot long swing-span mid-river, across the main channel. The swing-span was built on a geared turntable, which was supported on a large abutment mid-river, and was capable of being turned 90 degrees, opening a pair of 60 foot wide channels, on either side of that central abutment, for ships to pass. 

A steam engine...most likely a small 'Donkey engine'...was probably used to turn the bridge, very likely with a manual back up (Spell that a big crank), and the bridge tender's cabin was likely next to the track on the swing span, while the machinery to turn the span was probably behind, or maybe below, the bridge tender's cabin.

The swing span itself, from illustrations I've seen, looks like it was a 'box truss', with a 20-30 foot tall central tower, also a truss design, mid span. This tower was an integral and important part of the bridge structure, designed specifically to support the ends of the swing span when it was open. A quartet of heavy chains ran from anchor points at the top corners of the tower to similar attach points about fifteen or so feet from either end of the swing span. 

A good schematic of the Norwalk swing span, from Famous Structures magazine, showing the center tower and 'The Ball'...raised here to indicate the bridge is closed and safe to cross...to good advantage. The Ball's mast was a good 60 or so feet tall, and would have been sticking up above the tree-tops, which should have made it easily visible during the day. Official reports noted that it was visible from about 3300 feet out.

 Though I couldn't find any info on the turning mechanism, I think the bridge tender's cabin would have been under the tower on one side or the other, and steam engine that turned the bridge was either below the cabin or behind it. 

The way this system worked was actually pretty simple.  When the bridge was closed, the chains had a bit of slack in them because the ends of the swing span were supported on pilings, but when the bridge started to swing as it opened, the ends of the swing span would droop slightly as they swung away from those supporting pilings, and the chains would tighten up as they took the load (Probably with a series of audible 'CLANK!'s), supporting the ends of the span. 

Those chains, BTW, were absolutely essential parts of the bridge structure. The swing span was not designed to support it's own weight when open, and the ends of the swing span would have been cantilevered over the river with absolutely no support what so ever without the chains supporting them. Without them, the swing span would have very likely collapsed into the river the first time or so it opened.

While supporting the swing span was the tower's primary function, it wasn't it's only function. The bridge tender had to have a way to warn on-coming trains that the draw span was open, and this warning needed to be visible from far enough away to allow the engineers of approaching trains to see it, then get stopped well before they reached the open draw span. The best way to make this signal visible from a distance, of course, was to have it as high up as possible.

 A forty or so foot 'L' shaped mast sprouted from one side of the tower, putting the top of the mast about 60 or so feet above the river. A large, bright red hollow metal or wooden ball was attached to a halyard that ran through a pair of pulleys at the top of the mast...one on either end of the short, horizontal section of the 'L'. This allowed the ball to be hoisted to the top of the mast, or conversely, lowered to the track. Whether or not that ball was visible indicated whether the bridge was open or closed.  This signal was said to be visible for about 3300 feet before the train reached the bridge, and was definitely visible from a quarter mile out.

This system actually worked backwards from what you might expect, BTW. You'd think that when the red signal was visible at the top of the mast, it would indicate that the bridge was open, and that oncoming trains must STOP...but that's not the way it worked. Instead, if an engineer could see the red ball at the top of the mast, it meant that the bridge was closed and that he could cross safely. However if the ball wasn't visible, the bridge was open, and he knew he had to bring his train to a stop before reaching the bridge. 

 To make sure the engineers of approaching trains actually looked for the signal, the NY & NH erected a sign next to the track at that quarter mile point, lettered 'LOOK OUT FOR THE DRAW', with a painted -hand pointing in the direction of the bridge. When he passed that sign, the engineer was required to look for the signal mast, if he hadn't already done so.  

And, though it wasn't mentioned anywhere, I have a feeling that if our engineer couldn't find or see the mast, or 'The Ball' for some reason, he was required to assume the ball was down, and stop immediately.

 Of course, in order for him to actually get the the train stopped in that quarter mile (Or, actually in order for the brakemen to get it stopped) our engineer had to be going slow enough to both give the brakemen time to get as many sets of brakes set as possible, and, once they were set, still have enough room for them to actually stop the train before it reached the open drawbridge. And for that to happen, the engineer had to slow way down well before he could actually see the ball (or lack there-of). 

The railroad had that covered as well.

N.Y. & N.H.R.R's Rules and Regulations required engineers to reduce speed to between 10 and 15 MPH as they approached all drawbridges, including, of course, the Norwalk River bridge. The bridge was opened several times daily due to the heavy traffic on the river, so it was a pretty good bet that it would be open...and the ball down...when a train approached, making that speed reduction absolutely essential. Slowing to below 15 MPH well before they reached the bridge, and before they could even see 'The Ball' not only gave the train crew more time to look for the ball, it made actually getting stopped if the ball was down far, far more likely. 

Of course, getting stopped if the ball was down was still a pretty complicated ordeal, even at the slower speed. The engineer had to whistle for brakes even as he throttled back even more while also being ready to reverse the locomotive if necessary. The brakemen, meanwhile, started scrambling as soon as they heard the whistle signal for brakes, running along the tops of the cars (Or through the passenger cars on a passenger train), jumping from car to car and madly spinning the brake wheels to apply the brakes on each car. As noted above, this was not a quick or easy process at all, and I can only imagine that more than a few sighs of relief were breathed as a train lurched to a stop short of an open draw bridge.

 But generally, they did get stopped, usually well short of the bridge. At least they did until May 6th, 1853 at around 10:30 AM.  Keep that big red ball and the 'Reduce Speed' rule in mind, gang...they play a huge part in what's to come.

<***>

 

The American Medical Association was founded in 1847. This was just about the same time that various business and professional organizations, such as the AMA, realized that the fast, easy travel provided by railroads would allow people of like interests from far and wide to gather in one location to discuss their common interest and interact with each other, spending money while they were at it...and the convention was born.  

The AMA held their sixth annual convention in New York City during the first week of May, 1853. The convention kicked off on Tuesday, May 3rd, and ran through Thursday, May 5th. By the time  the morning of Friday the 6th rolled around, ideas had been exchanged, knowledge had been imparted, drinks and stories had been shared, promises to keep in touch had been made, and physicians from far flung cities and towns were gathering at New York's first rail station, on Chambers Street, to board trains for home. 

One of these trains was the 8AM New York and New Haven RR express train, bound for Boston with a few other stops, such as New Haven and New London, Connecticut and Providence, Rhode Island, in between. Annnd, we already have a problem, before the first of two hundred or so passengers even boarded the train. The engineer who was normally on that run had begged off for reasons lost to history.  His replacement, Edward Tucker, had only driven the Boston Express three times, so he hadn't yet developed the familiarity-bred 'Muscle Memory' that allowed an experienced engineer to slow and stop when needed almost without even thinking about it.  On top of that, Tucker was just getting back to work after recovering from injuries he'd sustained in an accident, so he may not have been performing at 100 percent himself.

This pic is purportedly a photo of a NY & NH passenger train from the same era as the disaster, and, even though it's shorter by four cars than the ill-fated Boson Express, it still gives you a pretty good idea of what the Express looked like as it bore down on the open drawbridge. This is probably a posed shot, BTW...note the way the crew is posed.

Those two hundred passengers didn't know any of this, of course, nor did they likely care. In fact, they very likely gave Ed Tucker no more thought than the passengers boarding an Airbus or Boeing today give their pilot. Like modern travelers boarding a plane, the passengers boarding the Boston Express assumed that their engineer knew what he was doing, and all they cared about was getting to their destinations, and, maybe (Then as now) getting a window seat rather than an aisle seat. 

Among these passengers was Dr. Gurdon Wadsworth Russell. He climbed aboard the third passenger car, exchanging greetings with several fellow convention-goers as he made his way up the aisle. He finally, after actually trading seats with one fellow MD, eased himself into a seat near the rear of the car, and for some reason I picture him opening a just purchased newspaper as he got comfortable. Keep Dr. Russell in mind as well...

As Dr. Russell got situated, porters and baggage handlers loaded bags and trunks into the baggage car as Ed Tucker pulled a pocket-watch from a front pocket of his striped over-alls, popped it open and checked it...a few minutes to eight. They absolutely had to pull out of the station by 8AM to stay on schedule, and most importantly, not delay the rest of the trains on the line. The Boston Express was likely a priority train, meaning that all southbound trains on the single-tracked line had to, at a given time, take a siding and wait for the Express to thunder past. 

At just about 8AM the train's conductor, Charles Comstock, got word that the baggage loading was complete, and that the baggage car was buttoned up...he gave  Ed Tucker the 'high' sign, and Tucker reached up, grabbed the whistle lanyard, and gave it two pulls, sending a pair of long, piercing wails through the station. The train's brakemen, already in place, moved through the train's five coaches, smoking car, and baggage car, spinning the handwheels on the end platforms to release the brakes.

 One of the train's brakemen...or it's only brakeman if there was only one... likely ended up at the tender, so he could give Tucker the word that the brakes were off. (This could have well also been Charles Comstock, who may have pulled double duty as both conductor and brakeman). Even as that brakeman released the tender's brakes, Tucker reached up, gave the whistle two more quick blasts, then eased the throttle open. The big 4-4-0 that was all but inevitably heading up the train belched out the iconic CHUF!CHUF! CHUF! of a steam locomotive starting it's run, spitting puff-balls of smoke out of it's diamond shaped stack as she pulled out. The slack 'Clanked!' out of the couplings, and each car gave a quick little jerk as the train started moving...The Boston Express had begun what was to be her most infamous northbound run.

The train pulled out of the Chambers Street station and headed north through Manhattan, following present day Park Av (Then known as 4th Ave) through Harlem and crossing the Harlem River on a swing bridge before rolling into a very rural, pre-Bronx Westchester County. Somewhere around 15 minutes after pulling out of the Chambers Street station, the Boston Express rounded a couple of wide, right-hand sweepers that aimed the N.Y. & N.H tracks eastward so they were roughly parallel to Long Island Sound's northern shore.  The U.S. Rail System's sixteen year run of astonishingly good luck was only a couple of hours away from being brought to a spectacular and devastating close. 

<***>

In 1853. the 280 foot long, 2700 ton sidewheeler S.S. Pacific was one of the fastest, largest, and most modern transatlantic steamers afloat. One of four big sidewheelers ordered and built for the newly-formed American Collins line in 1849 specifically to go head to head with arch-rival Cunard Line's steamers, she immediately began breaking speed records, snagging the much-cherished Blue Riband on one of her first voyages.

S S Pacific...the ship that the Norwalk River Bridge had been opened for. Her crew would be among the heroes of the disaster, immediately launching boats and making numerous rescues.

The Pacific would be lost less than three years later, disappearing without a trace on an eastbound trip from Liverpool to New York.

She'd sail on the New York-Liverpool route for the entirety of her short career (More on that in Notes). The New York-Liverpool route would, of course, become the same New York-Southampton/ Southampton-New York route that dozens of liners (Including an inauspicious little vessel named the Titanic) would sail for well over a century...but there was a huge difference in the western terminus of that voyage in, say, 1853 as compared to even a couple of decades later. 

In the early days of transatlantic liners, travel from outlying communities to the line's main U.S. terminal...it's pier in New York in Collins' (And Cunard's) case...was not a quick, easy trip, so these transatlantic voyages both started and ended as 'local' voyages.  As the Collins line and Cunard liners made their way in or out of New York, they made stops in many if not most of the smaller ports along Long Island Sound's northern shore to embark or disembark passengers.

One of these ports was Norwalk Connecticut. I don't know whether the Pacific was in Norwalk at the beginning or end of a trip, or whether, at a little before 10 AM as she backed away from the dock on the Norwalk River, she had just dropped off or picked up passengers, but whichever was the case, her captain whistled through voice tubes (Engine Room Telegraphs were still decades in the future), backing on one wheel as he went ahead on the other. He expertly brought her around in little more than her own length, her straight-up-and-down bow swinging until it was aimed south.

Her bow was now aimed towards Long Island Sound, pretty much visually splitting the very item that, would soon make these stops along The Sound unnecessary...the N.Y. & N.H Rail bridge that crossed the Norwalk River.  Her captain reached up and yanked on the whistle lanyard, sending the deep, throaty blast of a steamboat whistle up-river....a sound that the bridge tender was likely waiting for...

...Bridge tender William Harford was probably already aware that he'd have to open the bridge, because he very likely had two very important schedules in his cabin...a train schedule and a schedule of ship movements. These pieces of paperwork were doubly important back in this era, as communications were hundreds of times slower back then than they are now.  While the telegraph was becoming well established by 1853, it wasn't yet widely used to control train movements, and even if it had been, there probably wouldn't have had a key/sounder in the bridge tender's cabin, because of the difficulty in disconnecting/connecting the line when the bridge was moved. And even if he could have had a telegraph key in his cabin, it would have been a moot point...he still had absolutely no way to communicate directly with either ships or trains.

So these ship movement/train schedules strictly dictated whether he could open the bridge or not. More than likely, if a train was due with-in a given time limit (Say, ten-fifteen minutes), he wasn't allowed to open the bridge until the train had crossed it, because he wouldn't have enough time to open the bridge and lower the ball to warn the train's engineer. So when the Pacific's whistle brayed out across the river, Harford quickly checked his train schedule. The only train movement pending would be the Boston Express, not due for a good twenty minutes or so...more then enough time for it's engineer to see that 'The Ball' wasn't visible, and get stopped. Had that not been the case, Harford would very likely have used the bridge's own whistle to send a signal (Say, possibly a given number of short blasts) telling the ship's captain he'd have to wait for a train to pass before the bridge could be opened.

On that May morning, however, Harford answered with the whistle signal advising the Pacific's captain that she could proceed. Even as the bridge whistle's wail died out in the morning air, Harford started hustling. First he had to unlock the bridge, and lift the short sections of rail connecting the track on the swing-span with the track on the fixed sections of the bridge...both operations performed by big manual levers that moved rods and cranks that disengaged the locks and raised the rail sections. Then he pushed the directional lever that controlled the steam flow from 'Neutral' to 'OPEN, and finally opened the steam engine's throttle. The 'donkey engine' started chuffing...pumping smoke up from it's own stack...and the bridge began turning...

...Aboard the Pacific, her captain saw a puff of smoke from the bridge's own steam engine, then saw the bridge begin to turn.  He whistled up all ahead on both engines, and her paddle wheels began beating the Norwalk River into dirty white foam as she eased forward, probably at quarter speed or so, heading for the slowly opening bridge...

Automated controls and 'Stop Switches' hadn't even been thought of yet, so Harford had to stay at the throttle as the bridge opened. Of course, he'd probably been opening and closing the span for years, so he knew just when to back off of the throttle, disengage the gears that turned the swing-span, and let the bridge drift the last few degrees until it was fully open. The swing-span bumped against it's stops, and Harford pulled yet another lever that set the brake, locking it open. A pair of 60 foot wide channels were now clear on either side of the open swing span. But Harford still had one more task to complete... possibly the most important task of all. 

As soon as he yanked the locking lever to lock the swing span open, Harford quick-stepped out of the door and possibly across the track, to where the signal ball's mast was mounted on the bridge structure.  He unwrapped the halyard from a cleat at about chest level, and started lowering the red ball, probably letting the rope run through his curled fingers as he did so. He was listening even as he let the hollow ball bump gently onto the track...his timing was good, or so he thought. As he lowered the signal ball onto the track, the high-pitched tweet of a train whistle drifted in as the Boston Express blew for a crossing somewhere west of Norwalk. 'He's got plenty of time to get stopped...' Harford may have thought as he walked back across the track to his cabin. watching the Pacific approach the channel on the west side of the draw span as he did so.  Thing is, as he watched the Pacific enter the channel between swing-span and the river's western bank, Harford had no idea that his day was about to get really really memorable in all the wrong ways.

<***>

The N.Y.&N.H. passed into history 150 years ago, and was then buried in another century and change worth of acquisitions and mergers, but trains still roll along the very same right-of-way that the line once occupied. The rail line entering Norwalk from New York now boasts 4 tracks rather than only one, but it still occupies the same basic footprint that it occupied in 1853, complete with a swing bridge over the Norwalk River, and a pair of pretty distinctive curves...forming a long, stretched out 'S'...just west of the bridge. And, thanks to this fact, The Boston Express would round the same two curves that fateful morning that a modern Amtrak or Metro North train rounds on the way through Norwalk today.

The results, however, of the The Boston's Express' trip through town and across the river that morning would be 180 degrees apart from every other crossing of the river before or since.

The first curve, about a mile and a half from the bridge, is a long, left hand sweeper that swings the rail line north as it approaches the river. The line then runs north-northeast, converging on the river, for about a mile and a half before a second, tighter, right hand curve swings it back eastward about 750 feet from the span. When a train comes out of that second curve, it's actually only about 400 feet from the bridge.

It was absolutely essential for engineers to get their trains slowed to the required 15 mph or slower between those two curves. The reduced speed made seeing the ball or it's mast far easier, of course, but that wasn't the main purpose of the speed reduction. The main reason they slowed down was so they could get stopped if the ball was lowered.  They were far more likely to be able to get stopped safely from 12-15 MPH, than they were from 30-40 MPH...remember, they needed to be going slow enough to both give the brakemen time to set the brakes on each car, and leave enough distance once the brakes were set to get stopped before they reached the bridge.

To slow to the required 15 MPH, the engineers who regularly drove that route very likely throttled back as they approached that first curve, letting the friction of the rails against the wheels on the outside of the curve help slow them. They did this all but instinctively, almost without conscious thought. 

On that Friday morning, though, the Boston Express didn't slow at all as it approached the bridge. The train instead leaned hard into that first curve, wheels screaming against the rails as it heaved into the curve at somewhere around 30 MPH, eating up the next three quarters of a mile in just a bit under two minutes. 

The rail line cut through dense woods right up to, and maybe even a bit beyond the point where present day Martin Luther King Blvd crosses the tracks, which was just about a mile from the bridge. Ed Tucker should have already slowed the Boston Express to the required 15MPH by then, and he should have started looking for the mast shortly after, just before they reached the area now occupied by the South Norwalk Metro-North station.

 The mast was just tall enough to peak above the trees then lining the Norwalk River's banks, and, had Tucker actually reduced speed and looked for it, he would have seen it, seen that 'The Ball' was down, and whistled for brakes, brakes that should have already been squealing as the brakeman...or men...spun the brake wheels to set them.

But Ed Tucker didn't back the throttle off a single notch, so when the Boston Express thundered through the grove of trees where the Metro North station now sits, she was still rolling along at a good 30 MPH, punching a column of smoke skyward, her exhaust huffing that already iconic 'chf-chf-chf-chf-chf' of a steam locomotive at speed...

Tucker apparently wasn't even thinking about the draw bridge over the Norwalk River, much less looking for the signal mast.

A portion of an 1899 map of Norwalk, Connecticut...as can be imagined, the city had had grown a bit since 1853, but the the route the rail line took through Norwalk is clearly visible. The original Norwalk River bridge had actually been replaced twice when this map was published...the present (And soon to be replaced itself ) Walk Bridge had been built three years before the map was published.

A general satellite view of the modern day Norwalk area, with the rail line labeled, as well as the train's direction of travel and the two curves. I cropped this view for a more detailed view of the area around the bridge, which is below.

 As you look at these satellite views, keep in mind that the area has changed tremendously over the past 167 years.

Tucker should have probably started backing off of the throttle before he reached that first curve...he could have used the friction of the outside wheels against the rails to help slow the train, to the required 12-15 MPH.  The 'Ball' was supposed to be visible from 3300 feet out from the bridge...a bit over a half a mile...and I've roughly indicated where he should have started looking for it in earnest, as well as the approximate location of the 'Look Out For The Draw' sign. IMHO, if he 'hadn't seen the ball by the time he passed the sign, or very shortly after,, he absolutely should have whistled for brakes ands brought the train to a stop. But, of course, he didn't...

Detail view of the area immediately adjacent to the bridge. Again, keep in mind that this area has changed tremendously since the disaster, but the rail line following the same right of way allows you to...kind of...see where the various events that made up the disaster occurred.

With all the changes that have been made, a few things have remained constant. That curve before the bridge has always been there, as has the bridge over Washington Street just west of the former site of the railroad station. The 'Look Out For The Draw' sign would have probably been just out of the frame, to the west of the railroad station, and by the time Tucker blew by the sign, he had inadvertently committed his train to disaster.

He was able to see that the bridge was open as he came out of the curve, and probably desperately whistled for brakes in the general area that I indicated. By then there was no way they were going to get stopped, so he and his fireman jumped to save themselves just before reaching the bridge approach...the area that I indicated would have been heavily wooded 167 years ago.

By now, Ed Tucker's fireman should have been all but yelling at him that he needed to slow the heck down, should have been shouting something like 'Drawbridge, Ed, Drawbridge!!!...one of a locomotive fireman's many jobs is to remind the engineer of such rules and regulations...but on that May morning, that didn't happen. I'm thinking the Boston Express' fireman was either also new to the route, or so busy stoking the engine's boiler that he didn't notice where they were, because, instead of reminding Tucker to slow down and look for 'The Ball', he was apparently busy tossing wood into the firebox. 

Tucker, meanwhile, had assumed that iconic steam engineer pose on the right side of the cab...head out of the window so he could look down the length of the boiler and, sort of, see ahead of them, wind whipping through his hair, the trees, brush and buildings beside the right of way blurring past. There was one final; chance to, maybe, get stopped...the 'Look For The Draw' sign. If Tucker whistled for brakes the instant  he saw that sign...

...A quarter mile from the bridge, the Boston Express blew past the 'Look For The Draw' sign without even slacking up, And, even though he was watching for obstructions on the track ahead, Ed Tucker apparently didn't even notice the sign. Looking for 'The Ball' hadn't even entered his mind. And their last chance to get stopped quickly receded behind them.

Homes, stores, and streets had replaced trees alongside the tracks as they approached a short bridge just beyond the sign, over what, today, is Washington Street. The Norwalk train station was just beyond that short bridge, I believe on the north side of the tracks. Train stations were always very active and dynamic places during the day back then, and several people were on the station platform as the train bore down on the station. Several of them turned, wide-eyed, as they heard the train's wheels hit the rail joints on the bridge. 

All of us have been near a track as a train passes at speed, all of us have heard that melodic 'clank-CLANK clank-CLANK clank-CLANK clank-CLANK ' of wheels pounding across across rail joints. No one, however, who was on the Norwalk station platform that morning had ever heard them clicking across the rails with that fast paced train-at-speed cadence there, because the station was only about 300 yards...900 or so feet...from the drawbridge. The train should have been rolling along slowly as it passed the station, and they absolutely knew it.

 They watched in abject horror as the train thundered past, windows on the coaches a blur. A couple of them may have gestured... frantically and in vain...towards the river. One or two may have started running towards the drawbridge. All of them had heard the exchange of whistle signals between the Pacific and the bridge, and knew the bridge was open, and knew they were witnessing the opening scene of a major disaster.

Ed Tucker could see the tracks curling into that second, sharper curve just beyond the station, and he may have backed off of the throttle a bit as they entered the curve. As they leaned into the curve... entering it just beyond the station...they were between seven hundred and fifty and eight hundred feet from the bridge approach. He probably couldn't see the bridge just yet. because it was most likely still hidden by trees, and maybe a few buildings as they rolled into the curve. 

That all changed just seconds later, as they got further into the curve, actually started coming out of it, and he could see the morning sun kicking back off of the river...and then his blood ran cold as he suddenly spotted the end of the swing span peeking out from behind the trees on the south side of the tracks, then watched it get longer and longer as it emerged from behind the tree line...

Tucker probably let out a curse as his eyes went wide with shocked, fearful surprise, then he finally searched out the mast, finally seeing it, stabbing skyward without the ball at it's top end as if to mockingly confirm both his negligence and what he was seeing. He dived for the whistle cord, yanking hard on it, giving the signal for 'DOWN BRAKES!!' The brakemen started scrambling...but it was already far, far too late.

They were coming out of the curve now, maybe 500 feet from the bridge, about eleven seconds away at 30 MPH...the speed quoted in official reports.....which was no where near long enough to even slow down but so much, much less get stopped, before they reached the open draw span.

The train came out of the curve, entering the straight stretch approaching the bridge, giving Tucker an eyeful of the morning sun glinting and glimmering off of the strip of open water separating the swing span and the rest of the bridge. Four hundred feet from the bridge...about nine seconds away from disaster.

He'd whistled for brakes, and there was no way to get stopped... no time to even try to reverse the locomotive to try to slow them down. He and his fireman could only save themselves, and they were running out of time to even do that.

"Jump for it!!" he yelled before stepping on the platform between tender and cab, taking a quick glance at the ground blurring by, and finally leaping from the train. pushing off hard with his feet, then tucking and rolling as he hit the ground, bouncing and tumbling for what seemed like an eternity before he finally stopped, and sat up just in time to see the last couple of cars of the train blurring past a few yards away as he took inventory and found, to his amazement, that all he'd suffered were a few bruises.. The fireman had also leaped clear, and, as the last car flew past them, looked over at Tucker from the other side of the track, very possibly raising his arm in an 'I'm OK' greeting.

At almost that same instant they heard an insanely loud, hissing splashing crash, and both quick-twisted their heads, looking towards the river where a huge, ever-expanding column of mixed water and steam was blossoming skyward, the water column reaching it's apogee, folding in on itself. then cascading downward as the steam continued rising, the whole spectacle sound-tracked by a horrendous series of crackling, splintering crashes as the baggage cars and coaches followed the locomotive into the river...

The two brakemen (If there were two...more on that in 'Notes') had an even more hopeless task. The lead brakeman was probably stationed in the baggage car...when he heard the whistle shrieking the signal for brakes, he likely bailed out onto the car's front platform...between tender and the car...then onto the tender's narrow rear platform, where he grabbed the tender's brake wheel and heaved on it, willing it to turn. As he wheel started turning, he may have even seen either Tucker or his fireman tumbling after they jumped...then he saw the river, realized they were on the Norwalk River bridge, and a stab of terror lanced through him as he realized why the engineer had whistled for brakes at the same instant he felt the tender heave and tilt as they went off the bridge.

If there was a lead brakeman, he died in the wreck...there were no reports of three people jumping.

I'm pretty sure there was a brakeman in the last or next to last car, and if there was only one brakeman, it was very probably Charles Comstock. He had a better deal than the lead brakeman because of the train's 350-400 foot length. When the locomotive plunged off of the bridge, the last car was still between five and eight seconds away from the gap where the swing span had been. I have a sneaking suspicion that, when he heard the whistle's manic screaming, he dived out on to the last car's front platform...between it and the sixth car...and then onto the sixth car's rear platform, where he strained to free the brake wheel, then spun it madly, feeling the brakes set... 

<***>

...Harford was very likely standing in the doorway of his cabin, enjoying the warm weather as he watched the Pacific clear the channel between swing span and shore, waiting for her to clear before closing the bridge again, when he got the very first inkling of impending disaster.. He could see the smoke column being punched skyward by the locomotive, moving forward even as it was boosted above the tree-line.

It was moving way too fast, a fact confirmed by the fast-paced chuffing of the steam exhaust as it hurtled towards the bridge. Then his eyes went huge as the locomotive appeared from behind the trees, leaning gracefully into the curve, the string of coaches following. The locomotive was coming straight at him...standing in the doorway of the cabin, he would have likely been staring across the channel, and straight up the track, towards the curve. He was suddenly staring the locomotive dead in the face as it roared up the 400 foot straight stretch of track between curve and bridge, and his heart jumped into his throat and stayed there as the onrushing locomotive ate that short stretch of rails up in, it seemed, less than an instant...

'...Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my GOD, there's absolutely no way he's gonna get stopped!!!!

As if to confirm his thoughts, the locomotive's whistle split the morning air, kicking a column of steam into the smoke cloud as it desperately screeched the signal for 'Brakes!!'  then. even as the whistle's scream echoed across the river, Harford watched two men dive from opposite sides of the cab, hit the ground, and roll...and then the train was on the bridge.

Harford likely dived sideways as the train thundered onto the 130 foot or so long fixed bridge section, seemingly and relentlessly bearing down on the bridge-tender's cabin, wheels pounding across rail joints like sledge hammers striking an anvil, steam exhaust roaring like an enraged beast, eating up the fixed bridge section's length in less than four seconds, giving him a front row seat that he absolutely didn't want...

The locomotive pitched downward hard the instant it hurtled off of the end of the fixed bridge section, pointed pilot slicing into the river followed by the rest of the engine as 20 tons of momentum shoved her under water, actually cratering the water for a nanosecond before a huge column of water and steam, sand and mud erupted skyward in a massive, rushing, hissing, crescendo of noise, making it as high as the top of the tower before it crashed earthward, leaving a massive cumulous cloud of steam in it's wake.

The dying locomotive probably twisted on the way down. twisting sideways and flipping end over end,  burying itself in the muddy river-bottom even as it slid, dredging it's own channel for twenty or thirty feet before slamming into the submerged portion of the central bridge pier...and the rest of the train kept coming.

The tender was dragged off the bridge behind the locomotive, swinging almost 90 degrees, ripping free of the locomotive, flipping on it's side, and slinging firewood onto the channel as it disappeared into the massive column of water and steam. The baggage car uncoupled from the tender, careening into the river right behind it and slamming hard into the bottom of the tender and the front end of the flipped-over locomotive, the front half of the car splintering even as the smoking car telescoped the back half before being crushed by the onrushing first passenger coach.

At least eight men are thought to have died in the smoking car, but the real horror unfolded in the first coach.

That first coach was a death car...even as it was crushing the back half of the smoking car, the second coach slammed into it and just kept coming, splintering it it into kindling as it telescoped it, probably killing everyone aboard, before over-riding the first car's wreckage and slamming over on it's side.

 The third coach started off of the bridge but shuddered to a stop even as it's forward truck dropped off of the bridge, slamming down violently, tilting the front end of the car downward, maybe even beginning to lift the car's rear wheels off of the track...then, with a crushing, crackling crash, the forward half of the car tore away, end platform slamming down on the wrecked, overturned second coach while it's broken end slammed back against the bridge as the rear half of the car slammed  back down onto the rails, leaving the front half of the third coach, it sides and roof shattered, tilted sharply downward, while it's rear half stayed on the bridge, almost as badly broken as the front half and tilted slightly downward, it's front end....what had been middle of the coach only seconds earlier...resting on the track, partially supported by it's violently removed front half. 

The train's last two cars were safe...the brakeman had gotten the brakes set on on one and possibly both of them,...enough to drag the last three cars of the train to a stop before they could plummet into the river (Breaking one of them in half in the process) and save most of their occupants.

The water column collapsed and fell, part of it cascading against the track, bridge tender's cabin, and Harford, soaking him to the skin even as he felt the jolt of the submerged, sliding locomotive slamming to a stop against the bridge pier, then the further shocks of the other four cars slamming into and over each other, each impact shoving the engine, and giving the bridge pier another jolt.. The water column and steam cloud blocked Harford's view of the rest of the train careening into the river, but he could still hear the horrendous, crunching, crashing, splashes and see more water bursting skyward as the tender and four cars careened off of the bridge in the span of only a couple of seconds...

...And then it was over, and the water fell back into the river, and the steam cloud drifted up and off, and Harford could see what looked like one car on it's side, mostly submerged, and another...no half of another....hanging off of the end of the bridge. Fire wood...the wood from the tender, that had been fuel for the locomotive up until a few seconds ago...was floating on the river, cordwood floating along with flotsam and wreckage, and bodies...some moving, others...not. 

Calls for help were intermingled with screams of pain and terror, screams back-dropped by the Pacific's whistle wailing an emergency signal.  Out of the corner of his left eye, Harford could see the steamer's sidewheels splashing river-water, back-turning hard in reverse, as her captain brought her to an emergency stop. On deck, her crew was going for the boats. After what seemed like an eternity to Harford, but was likely only a few seconds, he too, went into emergency mode and started moving...

This engraving is probably the best known and most viewed image of the disaster, and has appeared in pretty much every article written about the accident since 1853. You're looking south, towards Long Island Sound. The artist had a pretty keen eye for small details...note the Pacific's funnel visible beyond the bridge. Also note that the swing span's mast is shown with the ball down.

As detailed as this is, it was a wood cut engraving of a drawing rather than a photo...the first photograph wouldn't be taken of a train wreck until August of this same year. Getting images into a paper or magazine was not an easy task back then...newspapers and magazines employed some seriously talented artists and engravers.

<***>

The Boston Express' passengers didn't have a single clue that they were about to be dropped into the middle of a watery horror show. In fact, as the train thundered past the Norwalk train station and started leaning into that second curve, they were doing what passengers on trains...and later busses and planes...have always done. Sleeping, or reading, or chatting with their seat mate, or just watching the scenery scroll past the windows.

Dr. Russel could have been doing any of the above when the third coach leaned into the curve, though it's a good bet that, as they rolled out of the second curve, he glanced out of his window to see where they were. He may have even noted that they were nearing the Norwalk River, maybe even getting a glimpse of The Pacific easing her way down river, when he and his un-named seat mate bounced together, then he bounced off of the sidewall, and back against his seat mate again, one or both of them possibly yelling a heart-felt 'What the hell?!?!even as the car tilted up, then slammed down and to a stop, pitching both of them hard against the seat ahead amid a crunching, glass-tinkling, wood tearing cacophony of sound, and flying dust and bouncing, ricocheting  bits of debris, and lots of sunlight suddenly flooding in from ahead of them, where the front half of the car should have been blocking it...

And then it was over. One of his fellow physicians shouted 'Everyone OK!?', and Dr. Russel quickly took inventory of his own injuries, finding, to his surprise, that he was unhurt (A miracle in itself, he likely thought, with the broken window glass all over the place). And then he looked ahead of him, where all of that unaccounted sunlight was streaming in, at about the same time he became aware of the shouts and screams coming from the same direction.

It was probably at that same instant he realized just how amazingly lucky they had been because their car was absolutely trashed, and he was sitting all but out in the open, at the very lip of a man-made mini-cliff.. One sidewall of the car was was torn away almost all the way back to his seat, and the roof...or at least part of the roof...had collapsed, dropping down partly into the car,...but that wasn't the worst of it. 

"Aw man..." He started, staring at the gaping maw where the other end of the car used to be. The floor, seats, everything was gone, broken loose...no tilted down...from just ahead of him forward. "....The car's broken in tw..." Then he looked even more closely, and realized he could see a sort of wedge shaped slice of sky, and river, and bridge railing.  "We're off the bridge, guys!!!" He may have shouted, even as he moved towards the broken, steeply tilted forward end of the car. It wasn't a long trip...the broken-off floor tilted down suddenly and sharply only a row or so ahead of him.

He looked down the slanted length of the car's forward half, where twenty or so passengers were trying to climb up, or at least keep out of the water sloshing around at the end of the car. A couple of his fellow passengers joined him at the edge of the chasm. The car hadn't gone into the river...only the farthest row or so of seats were under water...but all of the windows were broken, the roof had torn free and was tilted crazily into the river, the side walls were shattered and tilting, and a couple of seats had torn free and tumbled toward the submerged front end of the car, along with every thing that wasn't fastened down,  including many of it's occupants. All of those occupants seemed to be conscious, alert, moving, and all of them wanted out, like right then. Dr. Russel took a second or so to examine the wrecked end of the car, figuring out just how difficult it was going to be to make that happen. As he did, he also breathed a sigh of relief, relief that lasted until he realized why that half of the car wasn't in the river...the wreckage of the cars ahead of it had stopped it...the rest of the train, he realized with horror, had gone off the bridge.

"Everyone OK?" He called down, to be answered by a second miracle. 

"Yeah, I think all of us are good, just bruised up some!!" Someone yelled up. "We just need some help gettin' outa here!"

"OK...'" Dr. Russel quickly took charge. "...Pass the women and kids up first!..."

The men in the down-tilted section of the broken coach probably used the seats that were still in place as a make-shift ladder to pass the women and kids upward to Dr. Russel and his crew. Of course, some of the seats had torn free as the car broke in two, leaving gaps, and the car itself was all but falling apart around them, so this was not a particularly easy task. Then factor in the fact that the kids were terrified, the ladies were dressed in the long, voluminous dresses that were in fashion for the era (Especially to travel...back then you dressed up to travel!), and the fact that a few of them were injured, and you wonder how any of them made it up that slanted, shifting slab of wreckage. 

After all of the women and children were safely in the more intact rear half of the car, the stranded men again used the seat backs as a ladder to climb up and out, likely puckering every time the broken half of the car shifted a bit, and trust me, it had to be shifting and moving some. 

As the women, children, and men were pulled up into the intact section of the car (Which, BTW, would have also been tilted a bit) the menfolk heading the impromptu rescue operation helped them off of the train, and off of the bridge...they likely either climbed down from the platform between the third and fourth cars and walked along narrow plank catwalks beside the track and off the bridge, or walked through the train to the rear platform of the last car, climbed off there, and made their way off of the bridge from there.

The occupants of the broken section of the car were joined by the passengers from the last two cars...all uninjured save for a few bumps and bruises...as they climbed from the train. After disembarking from the train, most of them hiked the the 900 or so feet to the Norwalk train station, which would very soon become a makeshift aid station.

As the uninjured passengers made their way towards the station, Dr. Russel, along with several of his fellow physicians and several male passengers, made their way back to the end of the fixed section  of bridge, where they found a scene of watery devastation. The sixty foot wide channel between fixed bridge and swing span was chock full of wreckage and debris, with the overturned, partially submerged second coach stretched across the channel.  Part of the roof of one of the cars was resting against the bottom of the overturned car, one end of which was partially crushed by the forward end of the broken-in-two third coach. The roof of the third coach had also broken free, and was tilted downward into the river, partially resting against the overturned second coach. 

Shouts for help and moans of pain drifted out of the soggy mass of broken rail cars. The Pacific had launched a pair of life boats, which were nosing into the wreckage, their crew members using oars to push wreckage aside, and to reach for train passengers who had, miraculously, made it out of the crushed cars. Those who were able to would grab the oar so they could be pulled aboard the boat. A couple of the passengers were so badly injured that they couldn't grab the oar, and Pacific crewmembers had to carefully climb over the gunwale of their boat and drop into the river (Diving into that mass of debris would have been suicide) to disentangle injured passengers from the mass of wreckage, and help them into one of the boats.

Dr. Russel and a couple of other uninjured passengers made their way off of the bridge and down to the river bank, waded into the river...probably walking across or pushing aside debris as they did so...and pulled themselves up onto the tilted side of the overturned second coach. The car had twisted as it went off the bridge, partially dislodging the roof and cracking the sidewall, and all of the windows were broken out, but it was, at least, still in one piece and mostly out of the water. 

After he and a couple of his fellow passengers pulled themselves up onto the side of the overturned car,  they stood splay-legged on it's tilted sidewall, balancing themselves as they looked down through the broken windows, into the car's interior.  Much of it was in deep shadow and filled with water, but they could see several passengers down inside the car. 

"Ok,  how many are injured," Dr. Russel may have called down into the car, to be told "We've got some hurt bad...a couple dead, too." Dr. Russel sighed...they were running out of miracles. "OK, let's get the women and kids first. Then help the injured get out...'  Even as they started hauling women, children, and injured passengers through the windows and onto the perilously slanted sidewall, one of the Pacific's boats bumped against the car, and a Pacific crewman called to them to load the passengers aboard the lifeboat, which already had several passengers who'd been plucked from the debris-choked river aboard.

'You Sure?' Dr. Russel may have asked...even as he helped the first passenger from the overturned car aboard. 'Looks like you guys are already pretty well loaded down...' 

"We can take a slew more,...' That same crewman told them, then turned and nodded towards the river bank. 'We only have to go about a couple of hundred feet..' And it was settled. Dr Russel, the guys assisting him, and the boat crew loaded as many of the passengers as they could fit aboard, probably assisting the women aboard first, then tucking the two or three kids who were among the uninjured in among them before finally assisting a couple of the lesser injured passengers aboard. 

The boat was low in the water as her crew backed her away and used the oars to pivot her around and row towards the riverbank, pulling the boat ashore near the west end of the bridge. This was probably at least fifteen minutes into the incident if not a bit more, and townspeople had shown up in force...A group of them helped the passengers out of the boat and aimed them towards the railroad station, some carrying the injured. It's a good possibility, in fact, that a couple of people may have even dragged a baggage cart from the station to the river, using it as an impromptu 'ambulance' to transport the injured who couldn't walk back to the train station. 

The Pacific crewmen pushed back off, pivoted the unwieldly lifeboat back around...these boats were absolutely not designed for maneuverability in tight quarters, BTW...and pulled back towards the overturned coach, as Dr. Russel and the men assisting him readied a smaller group of injured passengers for the short trip to shore. The boat's bow once again bumped against the low side of the sharply tilted car, her crew expertly swinging her so she was side-to the car, her bow pointed towards shore. 

Dr. Russel and his own quickly assembled crew had to balance themselves on the car's tilted side as they, with the assistance of the Pacific crewmen, loaded several more injured passengers aboard.  "Any more in that thing?" One of the Pacific crewmen asked...Dr. Russel, or possibly one of the other uninjured passengers assisting him, just sighed and said "Only a few bodies." 

"Climb aboard..." One of them told Dr. Russel... "No need for you guys to get any wetter than you already are..."  

"Yeah..." Dr. Russel and the passengers who'd been assisting him on the rescue carefully climbed aboard the lifeboat as a couple of her crew stood half in the boat, half on the car to hold the unwieldly craft steady. "I can probably do more up there...' He continued, nodding towards the train station. "...Than I can here...

The boat crew pushed off from the wrecked coach and made the quick trip to shore, nosing the bow of the boat up into the muddy river bank. As soon as Dr. Russel and his crew had helped the injured passengers ashore (Possibly loading them on another baggage cart for the trip to the train station), the boat crew pushed off, and rowed back into the mass of wreckage, searching for more injured passengers...but it's a good bet that their job was just about done.

The train had just more than 200 passengers aboard...206 I believe is the head-count I read...spread out among five coaches and a a smoking car. Eight men, all of whom were killed, were said to be in the smoking car.  This would leave 198 passengers in the five coaches,...about 40 people in each coach.. The two coaches that went in the river, then, had eighty or so passengers aboard, and forty of them were killed (The total death toll was 48). Twenty four passengers were listed as injured,...64 total casualties in the two coaches, with 15 or 16 uninjured, and I can just about bet you that all of the survivors came from that second coach. The Pacific's boat crews would have had to transport about 40 people...all of the passengers they pulled from the river, plus the ones who were pulled out of the 2nd coach. They could have easily been taken to shore in two trips, three at the most, fairly quickly once they were aboard the boats, .

But first they had to get them aboard the boats, and this was not quick or easy, though...make no doubt about it. While transporting the passengers who needed rescuing to shore didn't take but a couple of minutes, finding them, disentangling them from the wreckage, then getting them aboard the boat, was a chore. When Dr. Russel and company climbed on the teetering side of that overturned coach, they, along with the Pacific crewman aboard the two life boats, found themselves smack dab in the middle of a dynamic and confusing incident scene that would have been a major challenge today.

They had over three dozen people who needed rescue, many of them injured, and while most of the injuries were of the 'sprain, contusion, and abrasion' variety, they still had several with unspecified injuries listed as 'Serious' or 'Much Hurt'....injuries that very likely made it difficult or impossible for the victims to get themselves to safety without help. Someone had to go in the water and and assist them into the boats before they could get them to safety on shore.

The one thing the train's surviving passengers had on their side was the fact that most, apparently, weren't physically trapped. Those that were, likely died before they could be removed simply because the heavy, powered rescue tools needed for just such a task hadn't even been dreamed of yet. With that thought in mind, it's quite possible that at least a few...and maybe more than a few...passengers survived the accident itself, only to drown before they could be extricated.

But miracles...or at least one miracle...still happened. The crew of one of the boats found a young girl either trapped in the wreckage, or, more likely floating amid the debris, and pulled her aboard the boat...as they lifted her over the craft's gunwale her arms and legs flopped and bounced like a rag doll's, and water streamed from her hair and the now sodden dress she was wearing.

Her first name wasn't listed, but her last name was Griswald, and I got the impression that she was a small child. Her lips were blue, and she was barely breathing if she, in fact, even was breathing. The boat's crew swung the ponderous craft around and made for shore. Now, these lifeboats were not built for either speed or maneuverability, but the crew somehow made it to shore in less than a minute. They spotted Dr Russel, walking towards the train station.

'DOC!!...' One of the crewmen possibly yelled at the top of his lungs while the boat was still a good twenty feet from the bank.  '...We've got a little girl...I don't think she's breathing!!!'

Dr Russel turned and ran back to the riverbank even as the bow of the lifeboat slid up onto the gravel and mud of the bank.  One of the Pacific crew, carrying the little girl bride-over-threshold style, leapt from the boat and handed the child off to the doctor, who quickly turned and carried her up a bit further onto shore, to a dry patch of grass. There he dropped to his knees, lowered the child to the ground, and began trying to resuscitate her.

Ok, I know exactly what I...or any EMS or Medical professional...would do today in this situation. But I have absolutely no clue what methods were used to resuscitate (Or at least attempt to resuscitate) nonbreathing patients 167 years back. Whatever method Dr. Russel used to resuscitate the child, however worked...that one time...and I have a sneaking suspicion that the child was actually barely breathing when the Doctor began working on her, and his efforts improved her breathing, and returned normal respirations.. It almost goes without saying that she had to have had a pulse...methods of restarting a fibrillating heart in the field just didn't exist in 1853, and wouldn't exist for nearly a century and a half. 

Dr Russel likely saw to it that the little girl was transported to the train station, very possibly riding on one of the afore-mentioned baggage carts with her, monitoring her during the bumpy, jolting ride as best he could. She was ultimately transported to a hospital in critical condition. No mention was made of her long term survival, but it's a fair to good bet that she was the last person pulled from the river alive. 

The Pacific's whistle wasn't the only emergency signal sounded when the train plummeted into the river...Harford also sounded the bridge's emergency signal (Being trapped on the bridge, that was one of the few things he could actually do.). Norwalk's population was just north of 4500 in 1853, and a good many of them showed up on the banks of the river, some just to gawk, but dozens of others were there to help. Being a seafaring town, many of the residents worked on the water in one capacity or the other, and with-in minutes of the whistle blasts, several other boats, a couple of them well crewed, were assisting the Pacific's lifeboat crews.

It's even a good bet that a couple of these boats were on the scene while live rescues were still under way, and it's also possible (Despite my very speculative version of the rescues described above) that the town boats very likely made several of these rescues...but all of the living were pulled out of the water early on in the incident. 

After the little Griswald girl was pulled from the river, all that was left, unfortunately, were bodies, and the boat crews began pulling them from the river , transporting them to shore, and loading them on the baggage carts that had so recently been loaded with the injured. One of the few other ways Harford could assist in the rescue and recovery efforts was by pointing out people in the water...living and dead...that the crews on the boats hadn't seen yet, and their combined efforts began paying off, if that's the right term to use. The boat crews began pulling more people aboard. Unfortunately, all of these were now deceased.

At the train station, Dr. Russel had quickly taken command, and had actually set up something resembling a modern triage operation to determine who went to the hospital first...but he was still behind the eight ball in a big way. Even with the fact that several of his fellow MD were uninjured and were also lending a hand, they really couldn't do but so much. 

Whatever medical equipment they had had with them (And trust me on this, they likely had their medical bags with them.) were now at the bottom of the river in the crushed wreck of the baggage car. All Dr. Russel and his associates could really do was make their patients comfortable until they were transported to a hospital (Likely by a special train sent by the railroad...more on that in 'Notes').

Then the bodies started arriving, and Dr. Russel and his fellow MDs attempted to resuscitate them, even knowing it was a hopeless task (Note here, some of the MDs may have actually made their way back to the riverbank, and may have been meeting the bodies as they were brought ashore). 

The destruction of that first coach was so complete that a majority of the bodies must have either floated free on their own, or were easily freed by rescuers, because the macabre head-count of the dead given by Dr. Russel in a first-hand account of the crash and his actions, published in a period newspaper article, was close to the actual, official death toll.

Dr. Russel also noted that the great majority of the fatalities died by drowning rather than traumatic injury. It was as he was examining the bodies of the deceased that he discovered that several of his friends and colleagues had died in the wreck, including Dr. Archibald Welch, who was the president of the Connecticut Medical Association. He and Dr. Welch were good friends, had spent a good bit of time in each others company at the convention, and had been seated next to each other the previous evening at the banquet marking the end of the convention.

Finding Dr. Welch among the victims had to have really been a gut-punch. There is very little more traumatic for a first responder (And make no mistake, Dr. Russel was acting as an unwitting first responder here) than finding a friend or relative among the seriously injured or deceased victims of an accident. Unfortunately, I've 'Been There and Done That'. 

Dr. Russel also noted that he attempted to resuscitate several other victims, but was unsuccessful. The little Griswald girl (Who was the daughter of an area minister, and was traveling with her mom) was the only successful resuscitation that day. 

The railroad station was probably a madhouse by the time the fatalities started arriving. Not only were all of the 24 or so injured patients there, all of the uninjured passengers...just shy of 120 strong...were milling around along with, likely, dozens of townspeople. Some of these citizens were there to at least try to help, but an unfortunately large number were that breed that modern first responders have dubbed 'Lookie-Loos'...people whose sole function was to be there and see what was going on, getting in the way while they were at it.

Managing any semblance of organization out of that mess took some serious effort on somebody's part, not the least of whose was likely Dr. Russell, who as noted, instituted a very primitive form of triage, though it was likely no more than keeping the injured, uninjured, and dead separated, and seeing to it that those who needed to go to a hospital were loaded and transported. to one  (Again, probably in New York) on the special train that was all but inevitably dispatched from that city by the railroad. (I'm going to take a more in depth look at the operation at the train station in 'Notes')

While all of this was going on at the scene, the telegraph were humming as news of the wreck was transmitted to the line's headquarters (I believe in New Haven) and then the 'Head Office' sent orders to New York, for the rescue train.  Then, as the Rescue train was steaming north, a second train, with Railroad Officials on board was headed south form New Haven.  (What do you want to bet that the speed restrictions were suspended for those two trains and that bridges were ordered to stay closed until they had passed?)

Some Kudos have to be passed to the railroad officials as well...once they arrived, they swung into action, both in seeing that the victims were taken care of and in getting the line cleared. One source that I read noted that, by 3 PM, the wreckage had been cleared enough to close the bridge and allow trains to pass. One of the trains was all but inevitably a cobbled together replacement for the wrecked Boston Express, sent to Norwalk to allow the uninjured passengers to continue their journey North. (Needless to say, full clean-up of the site likely took several weeks, especially with the technology available to the railroad a in that era. The ill-fated locomotive may...or may not...have been left imbedded in the river bottom. More on that in 'Notes').

The inevitable investigation very likely started as soon as the railroad brass arrived from New Haven, and was probably well under way almost before the first injured passenger reached the hospital. I can just about guarantee that, as soon as the railroad officials stepped off of the train from New Haven, questions were asked as to where the principal players in the accident...Engineer Ed Tucker and bridge tender William Harford...might be found.

They were quickly rounded up (Harford was likely particularly easy to locate as he was probably still on the bridge), and both were immediately asked the 'Big One'...was 'The Ball' up or down? And Ed Tucker immediately admitted to forgetting to even glance out of his cab window looking for it....Ahhh, no.

When that question was asked, a classic case of 'He Said-He Said' immediately ensued, and I'm talking ensued all the way to the coroners jury that was convened to determine the cause of the accident.

William Harford stated that after the Pacific blew for the bridge to be opened, he checked the schedule as required, saw that he had time to open the bridge and drop the ball, and proceeded to do both. He also noted that he lowered the ball...the signal that the bridge was open, and the train needed to stop...at least 15 minutes before the Boston Express plummeted off of the bridge.

Ed Tucker, on the other hand, asserted that he saw the ball hanging high as he approached the Norwalk train station...which, according to him, he passed doing only 15 or so miles per hour, as per regulations. He also stated that he whistled for brakes as he crossed the bridge over 'The road leading to the depot (Train Station), and that seeing the bridge open as he came around that final curve, with the ball hanging above it, was a horrible surprise,...also, obviously his brakeman...or brakemen...hadn't gotten the brakes set, because he was absolutely sure that they could have gotten stopped if they had been...

All well and good... Except that Bill Harford had said that he had, in fact, lowered 'The Ball, and that the train was going far faster than fifteen mph when it suddenly appeared, possibly as much as twice as fast...thirty mph. Of course other witnesses testified, not the last of whom was a hunter named Ferre, who testified that he was out on the river in a small boat, and witnessed the accident from that vantage point. This also gave him a completely unobstructed view of the bridge, and he testified that the ball was down for at least ten minutes before the train appeared. While he was at it, he also stated that the train came at a "strong speed", suggesting that it was moving along at a good bit more than Ed Tucker's claimed 15 mph.

Further cooking our hapless engineer's goose, several other townspeople confirmed Mr. Ferre's observations...the bridge had been open, with the ball down, for at least ten to fifteen minutes before the Boston Express arrived, and when the train did roll onto the bridge, it was absolutely speeding.

Given this testimony, there didn't need to be a whole lot of discussion RE: The cause of the accident. The coroners jury raked Ed Tucker over the coals bigtime, stating that the proximal and primary causes (Yep, plural) of the accident were his failure to reduce speed as required, as well as his absolute failure to observe that the ball had been lowered, signaling that the bridge was open. The honorable members of the jury, in fact, strongly suggested that he hadn't even bothered to look for the ball. On top of that, the panel stated that, in running at that speed after not even bothering to look for the ball, Tucker was guilty of criminal recklessness. 

That's not to say there weren't some dissenting opinions, though...several people testified that as a train neared the bridge, trees and buildings intermittently hid the signal mast, while the ball, rather than being a bright vermillion red as it had been when originally installed, had faded  to a reddish brown, which had a bad habit of blending in with the woods on the east bank of the Norwalk river, making it all but invisible during certain times of the year (Autumn, I'm lookin' at you...This, however, was late Spring, and the ball should have shown up against the bright green of new leaves easily no matter what color it had faded to.) 

The above arguments were basically, moot points.  I can easily picture one of the jury members asking just such a witness '...So tell me sir, how many other trains have run off of the bridge because of the issues you just noted?' (Sound of crickets chirping for several seconds)

 'None sir" 

'Exactly!'

And as a follow-up, our Juror could have sent this one over the plate: 

"So, sir, if Mr. Tucker couldn't see the signal at all, why didn't he stop the train until he could ascertain whether the bridge was safe to cross or not...wouldn't that be the prudent course of action?" (And our chirping crickets make a return appearance.)

Needless to say, the media had a field day with this one...every major paper in the country followed the story for weeks, from the initial reports of the accident to the rescue and recovery efforts to the coroners jury, and right on through the trials...

'Wait', I hear everyone hissing. 'Trials you say??' Oh yeah... you really don't think an engineer is going to recklessly and carelessly run a train off of a draw bridge, killing nearly fifty people in the process of doing so, without the State as well as the Public screaming for blood do you??  Ed Tucker was arrested, indicted, charged, and tried on multiple counts of manslaughter, and the trial was likely covered in lengthy detail.

Neither the State or The Public got their blood, though...at least not from Tucker, who was acquitted on all charges. They got a second chance at legal vengeance, though...Ed Tucker was one of two people arrested and tried on those same charges...

...And that second person wasn't either bridge tender William Harford (Who was found to have done his job properly during the investigation ) or the train's unnamed fireman, who was in a position to stop the accident from happening (By reminding Tucker of the bridge and the road's operating rules) but didn't.

The second person tried for the exact same charges was the train's conductor, Charles Comstock, but neither the State, or the public got their vengeance through his trial either...he was also acquitted on all charges. 

Of course, you have to ask yourself, if the Conductor had been convicted, would it have been fair? While charging Comstock does make sense on one level...a train's conductor is considered to be in charge of the train...on another level or two I wonder why he was even charged in the first place. Being in charge of the train, he was also aware of the line's operating rules, but the fact that he was stationed back in the coaches made it difficult for him to communicate with Tucker and his fireman in the cab of the locomotive. There was no transcript available of the testimony from the trial, but it's more than possible that Comstock figured that Tucker would ultimately slow down. And by the time he realized that Tucker wasn't reducing speed...it was too late. But that's speculation, of course. Whatever his testimony, and that of his witnesses may have been, it convinced the jury to acquit him.

The fact that he was charged bolsters my opinion that Comstock just may have been pulling double duty as a brakeman...maybe the powers that be suspected that he performed that job in a negligent manner..

...But that doesn't fly either. In fact, it further makes me wonder why he was charged at all. Once Ed Tucker finally saw the bridge open and desperately whistled for brakes, the brakeman flat out hustled (Especially if there was only one of them). He or they managed to get enough sets of brakes set to keep the last three cars from going completely off the bridge (The third car, remember, broke in two). If the entire train had gone into the Norwalk River, the death toll could easily have been twice...or more...what it actually was. The brakemen on The Boston Express were, IMHO, unsung heroes. 

So, if Comstock was acting as a brakeman as well, he not only shouldn't have been charged...he actually should have been commended. This, in fact, could also be a big part of the reason he was acquitted.

Mirroring the coverage of that first multi-fatality train wreck 16 years earlier, media coverage of the accident was huge.(And again, newspapers were the only game in town back then. Big difference, BTW, between 'Then' and 'Now'...Back then, the public had to wait from a day to a week to get details about new developments. Today, an incident of this magnitude would be covered, live, 24-7, by any or all of a dozen or so news channels). Papers, both major and minor, covered the accident and investigation closely, with detailed articles appearing daily for weeks. On top of that, major magazines carried even more detailed articles weekly. The investigation, trial, and acquittals were reported on in deep detail. Detailed (And surprisingly accurate) woodcuts illustrating the accident scene accompanied both newspaper and magazine articles. 

The train-riding public weighed in on the accident, from horror about the accident itself, to concern about the safety record of railroads, to anger over Ed Tucker's acquittal. And, as an outraged public tends to do, they very likely demanded changes that would make rail travel...which suddenly seemed dreadfully dangerous...safe again.

The Connecticut State Legislature listened, and acted. A law was passed requiring all trains to come to a complete stop before crossing any and all drawbridges.  And, at least in Connecticut, the traveling public felt safe again. One big problem. This law just rendered one of the prime advantages of rail travel...speed...all but null and void (Again, at least within the borders of Connecticut.)

Lets keep something in mind here...the Boston Express wasn't going but so fast in the first place. Norwalk's about 50 miles east of New York City...the train pulled out of Chambers Street station at 8AM, and the accident happened sometime between 10AM and 10:30AM so the absolute fastest the train was moving was maybe 30MPH, and only in short bursts. It's average speed was closer to 20MPH.

That same 50 or so mile stretch of track crosses several small streams and at least one large, heavily trafficked inlet (Cos Cob Harbor) before it reaches Norwalk. Then, east of Norwalk, the line crosses several more streams before swinging north, leaving Connecticut behind, and heading for Boston. My bet is that, back in the 1850s, many of those bodies of water were crossed on drawbridges, which would have required the train to stop. Even if only half of the crossings were on drawbridges, the complicated and involved procedure required to stop trains in that era would have required engineers to drop their speed by about half, making that trip through The Constitution State only slightly faster (But admittedly, far more comfortable) than a trip by stage coach.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this law didn't stay on the books (Or at least wasn't strictly enforced) but for so long. 

And, in the 'Some Things Haven't Changed That Much In 170 Years' category...the families of the deceased,  and injured as well as the injured themselves, were quick to seek legal council, and sue the crap out of the railroad. Considering that the railroad was found to be completely at fault, the NY & NH couldn't do much but hang on and try to ride out the storm. Spoiler alert...they almost didn't. The courts awarded the plaintiffs $290,000 (Just shy of 10.25 million in 2021 dollars), a sum that came perilously close to bankrupting the railroad.

There was another victim in this accident, BTW...a victim that's not often mentioned...and this victims, isn't a 'Who', but a 'what. An intangible 'What' at that. See, When The Boston Express hurtled off of the Norwalk River Bridge , it not only killed nearly fifty people...it also killed a sense of innocence.

 This was one of the first major loss of life accidents in the U.S. involving land transportation.. Cataclysmic loss of life in transportation disasters was, sadly, not uncommon back in that era...but it was always loss of life at sea. Before the railroads, ships were the only type of transportation capable of carrying hundreds of passengers, and of killing a like number if something went wrong. And, back then, the list of 'Things That Could Go Catastrophically Wrong' at sea was, to put it mildly, lengthy.

On top of that, very few years passed without a ship or two just disappearing without a trace, along with her crew and passengers...the very fate suffered, ironically, by the S.S. Pacific less than two years after the Norwalk accident.

So, the public got used to reading about cataclysmic losses of life in shipwrecks, both at sea and in inland waters. They were appalled by the loss of life, of course, but they weren't surprised by it. For the great majority of the population, articles about hundreds of people dying in shipwreck were just that...news stories that really didn't affect them at all. 

Railroads were different, though. Everyone either rode a train to reach a destination, or had family or friends who rode a train, at least on occasion. And none of them ever died... or at least very few did. Accidents occurred of course, and every once in a while someone died in a train wreck, but generally train wrecks were more or less just inconveniences, with few injuries, and fewer deaths. 

People expected to reach their destination safely, expected their loved ones to arrive refreshed, and in one piece when the train pulled into the station. Cataclysmic rail accidents just didn't happen. The general public literally assumed that a cataclysmic rail disaster was all but impossible and we can thank that 16 year run of astonishingly good luck for that attitude.

So, when Ed Tucker drove the Boston Express through that open drawbridge, he figuratively slapped a naïve and trusting public across the face, letting them in on a sad fact...train wrecks could indeed kill dozens of people at a time, and not only that, they could do so in an instant.

The public perception of rail travel changed a bit after the Norwalk accident...it would have almost had to have. It wouldn't surprise me at all to find that ridership dropped a bit in the months after the accident, and the travelling public was probably just a bit more skeptical of rail travel, at least for a few months...but not enough to visibly slow the growth of the rail network in the U.S. 

There were just under 10,000 miles of track in the U.S. when the accident happened in May of 1853...seven years later, in 1860, that figure had tripled to 30,000 miles. (And it would keep climbing, tripling again, and busting 100,000 miles before the turn of the 20th century, and peaking at just over 254,000 miles in 1916.)

This runaway growth occurred despite the fact that, unfortunately...and inevitably...the Norwalk accident kicked off a trend. Every decade since 1853 has featured several catastrophic train wrecks, all of them killing 25 or more people, as well as several 'lesser' accidents that killed fewer than 25...a fact that permanently branded 1853 as 'The Year The Horrors Began'.

<***>Notes, Links, And Stuff<***>

This ended up being one of the easy ones...sort of.  There was a good bit of information out there about the accident, especially considering the fact that it happened nearly 170 years ago. 

This was one of the very first major loss-of-life train wrecks, the first major bridge disaster, and it involved a train full of doctors (One of whom was the hero of the day) so it was in the news for weeks, with a slew of articles written about it. A good many of those articles were preserved. and were available on-line, among them one featuring a first hand account by Dr. Gurdon Russel himself. 

There were descriptions of the bridge, explanations of the NY & NH regulations vis-à-vis drawbridges and speed restrictions, the actual names of many of the major players, and even a casualty list.

ANNNNND...I still had to do a good bit of speculating here. Make that a lot of speculation here!

First off, there was still a good bit of conflicting information, as always seems to happen with any major disaster. The various sources I found listed the death toll as anywhere from 45 to 60 (48 was the figure that was quoted most frequently, so it was the one I used), the first two cars of the train were variously listed as 'Two baggage cars; a baggage car and a smoking car; a baggage car and a mail car; and a baggage car and two mail cars (This would have made the train one car longer than it actually was). The train's speed was quoted as anywhere form 25 MPH to the oft-noted 50 MPH (The official speed when they went off of the bridge was listed as 30MPH, so, again, that's the one I went with).

Likewise the operation of the bridge...I did some research as to how drawbridges of that era were operated...and found precious little information, so I wrote that the way I think it would have happened. 

 As to what went on immediately after the Boston Express went off of the bridge...Full disclosure, gang...I have absolutely no idea, so that's pretty much all speculation. Oh, I tried to find out who did what when, and Dr. Russel's first hand account helped a bit in that respect.  We know the Pacific's crew launched boats and rescued many of the passengers, and we know for sure that Dr. Russel, with the assistance of several other passengers, pulled the survivors out of both the front half of the third coach and the overturned and partially sunken second coach. We also know that Dr. Russel basically worked his butt off at the scene, and that he did resuscitate one apparently lifeless passenger,...very likely the little Griswald girl.

What we don't know is the details of just how they did any of the above, so, again, I wrote it the way I thought it probably happened.  Did it happen exactly the way I wrote it? Probably not exactly...but I bet I wasn't but so far off! OK, make that I hope I wasn't but so far off!

The aftermath of this one, especially compared to the aftermaths of a few of the incidents I covered in some of the previous several posts (Iroquois Theater Fire and New York Tenements, I'm lookin' at you!!) was pretty cut, dried, and straightforward, and as a result, pretty quick to get written about and done with., so much so in fact that, as I was writing, I actually wondered if I'd forgotten something!

As always, any errors are mine and mine alone, and anyone who has more and better info, feel free to chime in. This, as are all of my posts, is permanently a work in progress, and I have absolutely no qualms about going in and fixing errors or adding updated information.

A huge 'THANKS!!' to all my readers, and as always I hope that I made this one both educational and fun to read!

On to the 'NOTES!!

<***>

Lets take a quick look at the breed of locomotive that was heading up the Boston Express, as well as a good three-quarters of the trains running during the latter half or so of the 19th century.

First, steam locomotives are classified by their wheel arrangement...Leading truck (Front set of wheels, under the steam cylinders)-Driving Wheels-Trailing Truck (Rear set of wheels, under the cab). The prevalent locomotive type during this era was the 4-4-0 (Also known as the American Type), which, as the numbers '4-4-0' indicate, has a four wheel leading truck at the front end, four big driving wheels (Two on either side) beneath the center of the boiler, and no trailing truck beneath the cab. 

A beautifully restored 4-4-0 wood burning locomotive. That big 'bonnet' style smokestack incorporated a screen like spark arrester  that, in theory anyway, kept the locomotive from spewing sparks into the woods and fields and setting brush fires along the right of way. 

This locomotive is of a slightly newer vintage than the one on the head end of The Boston Express, but it follows the same basic design. These locomotives were 25-30 feet long without their tender, weighed in at 20-25 tons or so, and were the workhorses of early American railroading.

The 4-4-0s in use during the early 1850s were actually pretty small compared to locomotives (Even later American Types) of even a couple of decades later. These mid 19th Century locomotives were generally  around 25-30 feet long (Without the tender, which carried fuel and water), and weighed in at around 20-25 tons. They were also almost all wood burners, with the iconic diamond or bonnet shaped smoke stacks worn by all wood burning locomotives. These stacks were designed that way for a reason, and it wasn't aesthetics. There was a screen-like spark arrester built in to the wide portion of the stack that, in theory anyway, kept the locomotive from tossing sparks and burning embers into the woods lining the tracks, thereby leaving woods and brush fires in it's wake. 

These locomotives reached a fairly high state of development early on, and weren't replaced by larger, more powerful locomotives with more and larger driving wheels, and thus more tractive effort and  pulling capacity, until trains got longer, and cars...both passenger and freight...got larger and heavier. during the latter part of the 19th century. (Airbrakes had to be developed before that happened, but that's a story or two for another time!)

Even after being replaced by larger, more powerful locomotives, some American Types stayed in service, on short lines and in secondary service on major railroads, into the 1940s. Around 40 or so of the more than 25,000 4-4-0s that were built survive today, many on static display, with a few, such as the well known (Among rail fans, at least) Eureka #4 still in operation on scenic and excursion railroads.

This, of course, in just a quick overview of the type...for a more detailed look at the legendary 4-4-0 American Type locomotive, click here

<***>

Speaking  of 4-4-0 American types that are still in service, several working reproductions have been built since about the late 1950s, and are in service, heading up trains at various amusement parks and theme parks around the country. The newest one, York #17 was built in...are ya ready for this?...2013!  York # 17 was built for the Northern Central Railroad, a tourist line in York County, Pa, by the Kloke Locomotive Works of Elgin, Illinois. The locomotive is a replica of a Civil War era 4-4-0 built by Rogers Locomotive Works, and was actually built using original blueprints from that company. 

The locomotive is loaded with polished brass, and sports an authentic wood-burning bonnet style smokestack, complete with spark arrester, though she actually burns oil for both practical and economical reasons.

York # 17, of course, has modern airbrakes and couplers, as well as other safety features unheard of and undreamed of in the 1860s, but in operation and appearance, she's an authentic steam locomotive, not to mention being a moving work of art. She's still in service, and the Northern Central's open for excursions, with some Covid restrictions. Definitely worth the trip, just to see her in action, and hear that authentic whistle!

<***>

While we're talking about the locomotive that went in the Norwalk River on that May morning...well that's just it. There are those who believe it's still there. Citizens of Norwalk, have, in fact, wondered for decades if the ill-fated locomotive was still buried in the river's bottom muck. And it could very well be.

Or...maybe not.

While the channel was cleared shortly after the accident, there is no record of the locomotive actually being salvaged from the river. Clearing the wreckage of the passenger coaches would have been both necessary, to clear the channel, and comparatively easy, if both resource and time consuming.  The coaches were of mostly wood construction, and could be easily dismantled and removed from the river. Heck, the first coach, baggage car, and smoking car, were already so badly damaged that they were all but already dismantled.  Removing them would have consisted of pulling pieces out of the channel, and loading them on either flat cars or a barge for removal from the scene.

The tender and steel frames of the coaches would have been a bit more difficult, but doable. The frames of the coaches  would have been in one piece, but they likely only weighed a couple of tons apiece. The tender was all steel and likely in one...very battered...piece, but it was also empty, and would have weighed in at five or so tons. There were transportable derricks at the time that could be mounted on a barge, and could lift five or so tons, but that was about their maximum load capacity. These were manual derricks by the way...steam powered derricks and cranes didn't start appearing until the latter two or so decades of the 19th Century.

Land based cranes capable of lifting more...far more in fact...existed, but these were huge, man-powered beasts, powered by brawny dudes running in what were in effect gigantic hamster wheels known as tread wheels. These rigs were also definitely not portable. They were found at either ports, for cargo handling, or construction sites, where they were built in place, then dismantled and stored when no longer needed. 

We won't even get into one of the two huge gorilla's sitting in the corner of the room...clearing any of the sunken wreckage would have involved diving operations to attach chains or slings to the wreckage. We'll just ignore that one for the moment, though because the capability of lifting a twenty ton locomotive from the bottom of the river may not have even existed in 1853. 

First. lets take a quick look at what would have happened to the locomotive after it pitch-poled spectacularly into the river. The Norwalk River has a mud and silt bottom, and we're talking soft mud and silt. The channel the locomotive dug as it ploughed through the mud would have been several feet deep...but that wouldn't be the end of the steamer's self-initiated burial. It's weight would have continued pushing it down into the soft bottom muck until it was, very likely, all but completely buried.

Not only would this have made it all but unnecessary to recover it, because it wouldn't have been blocking the channel...it would have made it all but impossible. Divers would have had to dig beneath the locomotive to sling it, and the derrick used to lift it would have had to have been capable of not only lifting the locomotive's 20 ton weight, it would have also had to overcome an equal amount...or maybe even more...suction to break it free of the bottom. 

 The technology to do all of the above just may not have existed yet.

 Oh, diving on it wouldn't have been the problem. Diving suits capable of use in far deeper water not only existed, they had been around, and had been used for salvage operations, since the early 18th century...a century and change before the wreck. The divers were connected to an air supply by hoses, and the suits were bulky and difficult to work in, but they most definitely existed, and most importantly, they worked. So the technology to dive on the wreck and attach the crane's chains and slings  wasn't a problem. That whole 'lifting it' thing, however, was.

The big, steam powered wrecking cranes that every railroads once had several of wouldn't be introduced  until the mid 1880s. Steam powered, barge-mounted cranes may have been developed earlier...but they hadn't been developed yet. The big manual 'tread-wheel' cranes weren't portable or capable of being barge mounted. And the smaller manual derricks that could be barge mounted just wouldn't cut it. Trust me, it would have taken a huge crane to both break the locomotive free of it's muddy grave and lift it. So it's a good bet that it stayed on...and under...the bottom at least until one of the two new bridges was built.

Thing is, there was no record of it being removed before either bridge was built. I couldn't find a date on the second bridge, but I'm guessing it was built about the time the NY & NH became the New Haven...around the mid 1860s. No record of the locomotive being removed exists, and removing it may not have been necessary because it's very possible that the new swing span was simply installed on the old abutment. It's probably a good thing it likely wasn't necessary...lifting technology to get the thing out of the river still wasn't there quite yet.

If it was removed, it's a good bet that it happened when the present bridge was built, in 1896. Both lifting and salvage technology had advanced to the point where salvaging what would have likely been a mass of rust by then would have been more than doable. Not easy...it wouldn't be easy today...but very definitely doable. HUGE steam cranes were in service by1896, both railcar mounted and barge mounted, and a barge mounted rig would have been the tool of choice.  Again, though, there was no mention of it being done, and trust me on this, someone would have remembered it. It would have likely been a pretty big local news story, and I have a feeling that the Media would nave been all over it. Photography had become pretty well advanced by 1896, so you can bet that, if that rusted old hulk had been pulled out of the river, a news photographer or two would have recorded the event for visual posterity. 

But again, no such record exists. So that locomotive could still be down there. 

And the second gorilla looks up from it's corner of the room and mugs at us. That channel's been dredged several times over the last century and change and, even more recently, numerous studies have been made in preparation for the construction of the new Walk Bridge (More on that a little further on)...and no sign of the locomotive's ever been found. Not even a rusty bolt.

So it may remain a mystery...or they may dig it up in some of the first clamshells full of muck as the construction of the new bridge and demolition of the old one begins.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

<***>

Almost every source I found while researching this post included the statement  'The train was running at 50 MPH when it ran through the open draw, and the locomotive jumped the sixty foot channel and slammed into the abutment supporting the swing span before falling into the water'. Definitely makes for a very dramatic mental image over morning coffee, and it's been repeated so often that it's become part of the 'legend' of the accident. 

There's one big problem, though. It absolutely couldn't have happened that way. The train absolutely couldn't have been moving that fast, and twenty or so ton locomotives (Or, indeed, twenty ton hunks of steel of any description) do not fly three times their own length without some serious mechanical assistance (Spell that 'ramp', or better yet, 'catapult')

That 50 MPH cruising speed's the easiest one of these two 'Known Facts' to refute. Grand Central Station (Only a couple of miles from Chambers Street, the site if NYC's first rail terminal) is just about 50 miles from Norwalk, according to Google maps,. So, if the train had been running fifty miles per hour, it should have crossed the Norwalk River...safely...at about 9AM, a good hour and a half before the bridge opened for the Pacific. 

Problem is, of course, the accident happened between 10AM and 10:30 AM...two to two and a half hours after The Boston Express pulled out of the Chambers Street station...dropping the train's average speed between New York and Norwalk to between 20 and 25MPH...half or a bit less than half of that claimed 50 MPH...

BUT WAIT!!!! I hear you guys yelling. The train had other stops, so to average even 25 MPH it had to run forty or fifty some of the time...'

And you'd have a point...except this was an express train, with very few stops between New York and Boston, all of them north /east of Norwalk. The Boston Express rolled past every station between New York and Norwalk without even slacking up.

'WHOA...it had to slow for other bridges!!'  You guys continue...and yes, there were a couple of other drawbridges between New York and Norwalk. We know of at least one...over the Harlem River...and there was possibly one over the Byram River...which is also the border between New York and Connecticut. There was almost definitely one over Cos Cobb Harbor as well as, possibly, another over Indian Harbor, just west of Cos Cobb. There also may have been one over Pelham Bay...so that's, maybe, five drawbridges between the train's departure point in New York, and it's wreck site in Norwalk.

According to NY&NH regulations, trains were supposed to slow to between twelve and fifteen mph a mile before reaching any drawbridge. SO, lets say Ed Tucker actually did follow regulations for those five bridges, and slowed the Boston Express to 15 MPH. One mile at fifteen MPH takes four minutes, and you can bet that, as soon as he was on the bridge and saw that it was safe, he opened the throttle back up, and was rolling along at 25-30 mph very shortly thereafter.

Four minutes time five bridges is 20 minutes, and fifty miles-five miles (The mile they were at reduced speed before they reached each bridge) leaves about 45 miles to run in about an hour and a half...thirty miles per hour (Which, BTW is the actual speed listed for the train in the official investigation report on the accident.) 

He may have gotten up to 40 in a couple of short bursts, but my bet is that he was running somewhere between 25 and 30 for most of the trip...and according to the official report, when the train rounded that curve just west of the bridge, and thundered onto the bridge itself, it was making, at most, 30 MPH. Not fifty.

Of course, if he didn't slow for any of the other bridges...and lets be honest here, given Ed Tucker's track record on following regulations, that's not beyond the realm of possibility at all...we're right back to a two to two and a half hour trip at around 25 or so mph. 

At any rate, the Boston Express never even came close to running fifty Miles Per Hour.

*

NOW...how bout that amazing 60 foot jump. Simple...didn't happen. Physics wouldn't allow it to happen (And the recent Mission Impossible VII locomotive jump pretty much proves it. Possibly the best timing for a YouTube video ever, BTW. It was posted...and I ran up on it...the morning I wrote this note.)

While American class locomotives of the early1850s were absolute lightweights compared to locomotives of even two or so decades later, they still weighed in at around 20-25 tons, and they had the aerodynamics of a brick. Or maybe a building. They absolutely weren't  designed to fly, and they, well, didn't. There's this thing called 'Gravity' that, along with a few inviolable laws of Physics, pretty much assures that they wouldn't, won't, and didn't.

When the locomotive heading up the Boston Express went off of the bridge, it would have behaved exactly the same way the locomotive in the M.I.VII  clip did. As soon as the front end of the locomotive got far enough off of the bridge to over-balance it's own center of gravity...probably the instant the forward two driving wheels left the bridge...gravity would grab the front end of the locomotive and start pulling, and it's front end would've tilted down quickly and sharply.

 By the time the rear two drivers had cleared the end of the bridge, the locomotive was well on it's way into the river, it's front end probably tilted downward at a good 30 degree angle or better, and the pointed 'pilot'...often called the 'Cow-catcher' by kids of old.. ahead of the front set of wheels very likely already slashing into the river. The distance from the track to the surface of the river was about twenty feet...roughly the same or maybe a bit less then the length of the locomotive without it's tender...and that's also just about how far the locomotive might have stayed 'airborne'...arcing downward the whole time...before it hit the surface of the river so hard that the river cratered for an instant before erupting in a ginormous splash.

I'm purely speculating here, but I think that the locomotive may have twisted sideways as it went in the river. Then, when the pilot dug into the muddy bottom, momentum carried the back end of the locomotive up and over, 'pitch-poling' it (Flipping it end-over-end...this is also when the tender likely tore loose from the locomotive) so it landed on the river bottom on it's side, facing the direction from which it came, cab twenty or so feet from the abutment supporting the swing span. That twenty or so tons of weight had now turned into pure kinetic energy, better known as momentum, and that twenty tons of momentum still wasn't spent. When the locomotive slammed over on it's side, it was still moving eastward as well, and started sliding, throwing up clouds of mud as it dug a channel though the river bottom.

Did the locomotive actually hit that center abutment? Oh yeah it did...probably pretty hard at that. Remember all that unspent momentum?  Neither that end over end flip, landing in the water, or digging into the bottom mud was enough to overcome all of it, and the locomotive was still sliding, digging it's own grave while it was at it, when it slammed hard into the abutment, likely crushing the cab when it did so. 

Of course, no one, including Bill Harford, actually saw what happened to the locomotive as it went into he river...that giant splash and steam cloud hid it. But Harford definitely felt it when it slammed into the abutment. And, with the locomotive hard against the abutment, he very likely felt each car as it went into the river and slammed into the wreckage. 

So, yeah, when the locomotive went into the river at 30 or so MPH, it was violent, cataclysmic, and visually spectacular in a truly horrific way. But, contrary to popular legend, it absolutely didn't fly 60 feet through the air when it came off of the bridge.

<***>

So, if the locomotive didn't fly through the air when it plummeted off the bridge, just exactly how did that part of the story get started.?

This falls in the category of 'Some Things Haven't Changed All That Much In 170 Years'...today, the more spectacular a story is, the more views it gets online. Same thing happened 170 years ago...just substitute 'Newspaper Sales' for 'Website/YouTube/Instagram views'. Even back then, the more spectacular a story was, the more newspapers it sold. And Bill Harford may have inadvertently both given the media a good, solidly spectacular 'Tag Line' for the article (Fatal Train Jumps 60 feet Before Slamming Into Bridge Abutment!!) and started the 'Flying Locomotive' legend.

What do ya want to bet that, when he told the reporters interviewing him that 'The bridge shook when the train hit it', these same reporters took the ball, ran with it, and made up plays while they were at it. ' In their minds 'The Bridge Shook When The Train Hit It' had to mean that 'The Locomotive Flew Through The Air And  Hit The Bridge'...and that's the way they reported it.

And the 'Flying Locomotive' became an unshakable...but impossible...part of the 'Norwalk Bridge Disaster' story.

<***>

Dr. Gurdon Russel was definitely the hero of the day,...at least in my opinion. After surviving the wreck uninjured, he organized rescue of the passengers in the wrecked half of the third coach, got the evacuation of the rest of the train going, then made his way off of bridge and onto the side of the overturned and partially sunken second coach and organized the rescue of the surviving passengers still trapped inside that coach. 

He then made sure all of those passengers were transported to the railroad depot, which had become what would be known on a modern scene as 'The Medical Sector'.

In the midst of doing all of this, he very possibly saved a young girl's life, then made his way to the railroad depot and took charge of operations there...and from the sounds of things, he may have actually initiated a primitive form of Triage, many decades before 'Triage' was actually a thing.

Ok, it wasn't triage as we know it on emergency scenes and in E.R.s today (Hospital's wouldn't even have emergency rooms for nearly another century) but it's a pretty good bet that he separated the injured and uninjured, very possibly separated the 'Walking Wounded' from those who were more severely injured, then made sure that all of the injured were loaded aboard a special train that was dispatched from New York.

Lets look at Dr. Russel's activities at the railroad station in a tiny bit of detail. The Boston Express had 206 people aboard, and 48 of them were killed, leaving 158 survivors, all of whom ended up at the railroad station. According to a list I found of dead and injured, there were twenty four injuries, leaving 134 uninjured people milling around the Norwalk train station. (OK, 133 if you remove Dr. Russel from the equation)

So, after arriving at the train station, Dr. Russel, with some help, had to corral those 133 people, and move them to one area of the station grounds so he'd have room for the injured (I'm betting the injured were moved inside to wait for the rescue train while the uninjured passengers were moved to the station platform.) While he was at it, he had to separate the uninjured passengers from the dozens of townspeople who were also showing up at the station, many of them there just to gawk.

Once he got that done...and and just getting the townspeople and uninjured passengers separated and corralled would have been a herculean task, trust me on this...treatment of the inured could begin in earnest. Of course, Dr. Russel had plenty of help actually treating the injured...remember, a good number of the Boston Express' passengers were physicians returning from the AMA convention. I can just about guarantee that several if not most of these gentlemen were put to work...in fact they likely dived right in. Of course, unfortunately they had no equipment because all of their medical bags were in the wrecked baggage car, on the bottom of the Norwalk River, but this didn't deter them from providing comfort to the injured, and treating them as best they could.

We also, of course, have to realize that there was a caveat to the treatment of trauma patients (Or indeed, any patients) in the 1850s...much of the treatment and patient care standards that we take for granted today hadn't even been dreamed of in 1853, and this pretty much includes any kind of aggressive treatment of traumatic injury. There just wasn't that much these doctors could do but monitor these patients and keep them as comfortable as possible while arranging for their rapid (Or as rapid as possible) transport to the hospital. And 'arraigning rapid transport to the hospital' meant they had to wait for the rescue train's arrival.

But what of that train?

<***>

In later years, major railroad towns...the ones with yards and locomotive/rolling stock repair facilities... generally kept a couple of locomotives at the ready, with steam up...not that hard to do at all, as yards kept switch engines running 24-7 to shift rail cars around as needed...as well as several coaches and box cars, often already loaded with medical supplies and stretchers and other needed supplies, already coupled together on a siding, ready to roll. On top of that, railroads also kept 'wreck trains' at the ready, with a big, steam powered crane and other supplies, equipment, and apparatus needed to get the tracks cleared and open again. Full crews were kept on call for these trains, if needed, and a rescue train could be rolling in well under an hour.

In the event of a major train wreck with multiple injuries, an on-call crew was called in to work, one of those ready locomotives was backed in and coupled to the ready-to-go rescue train, telegraph signals were sent up-line shunting all traffic between the scene and the yard to sidings, drawbridge tenders were ordered to keep their bridges closed until the rescue train had passed, the rescue train was given the 'highball' order, and it's engineer headed out of the yard, shoving the throttle wide open as soon as he hit the main line.

Then once it had arrived at the accident scene, the injured were loaded aboard, the rescue train headed back to it's home base, or the nearest town with a major hospital, whichever was closest, often backing until it reached a turning wye. Traffic was again shunted to sidings, drawbridges remained closed, and the rescue train had the highest possible priority. Once the rescue train was clear, the wreck train was dispatched to clear the line.

This is how major train wrecks were handled by every railroad until the early years of the 20th Century. It became a highly organized, well oiled operation, and was, in fact, probably the very first organized effort to handle mass casualty incidents of any kind.

None of this was in effect on May 6th, 1853, however, and railroads were still on the very bottom of the learning curve when it came to handling major train wrecks. The one advantage they did have, however, was the telegraph, and you can just about bet that telegraph wires between Norwalk, New York, and New Haven were humming almost before the huge splash thrown up by the plunging locomotive fell back into the river.

The problem was, of course, that once the report of the accident and request for assistance was received in New York, officials had to go into near panic-mode as they ran around searching for resources. We have to remember, there were no phones back then either...this search for a locomotive, and coaches, and crews was very much an 'In Person' search. 

The telegraph could be used to inquire if stations between Norwalk and New York had any of the needed resources, but the most likely place to find a spare locomotive and a coach or two would be the yards or repair facilities in New York itself. The telegraph, again could be and probably was used to request resources from nearby facilities in New York.. Every railroad facility with a telegraph operator heard that initial call for help, and likely replied that they were either readying equipment or personnel to send, or were searching.

Once a locomotive and a couple of coaches were found, and a crew was rounded up, they had to get them on the way. If they were lucky, the locomotive already had steam up...if not, it could take from an hour or so, if the boiler was still warm, to four or more hours if it was dead cold, to get steam up, and get the boiler to operating pressure.

They did have one thing going in their favor...they knew there wasn't any traffic between Norwalk and New York, so once the rescue train was ready to roll, it automatically had the highball signal. Orders to keep all drawbridges closed until the rescue train passed were probably sent to the stations nearest each bridge, then that message likely delivered to the bridge tenders by riders on fast horses. 

As telegraph operators were hammering out that message, the rescue train was pulling out of the station...or more likely the siding where it was 'made up'. The train's engineer had to take it easy as rolled through the various switches and tracks that made up the yard, but I can just about guarantee that he opened the throttle up as soon as he was on the main line. It's also a pretty good bet that he was authorized to ignore the 'Reduce Speed' rule as he approached the other drawbridges on the route. With the engineer's adrenaline pumping and the locomotive pulling only a couple of coaches, the rescue train very likely did touch 40 or maybe even 50 MPH on the run to Norwalk.

Once the train arrived in Norwalk, the injured were loaded aboard the coaches, and a couple of the doctors who were already on scene climbed aboard to continue treatment, such that it was, enroute to New York.

The Norwalk stationmaster likely telegraphed the road's HQ in New York that the train was enroute back to them, the same message was sent to the remaining bridge tenders to keep their bridges closed until the rescue train passed, and the train pulled out of Norwalk, backing towards New York. If there was a turning wye...a 'Y' shaped arrangement of tracks and switches that allowed trains to, in essence, do a three point turn to get turned around...somewhere between Norwalk and New York, they could get the train turned so the locomotive was at it's head end, where it was supposed to be. and make the rest of the run normally. If there wasn't, however, the rescue train would have to back all the way to New York.

As the train was heading back to New York, the railroad officials gathered resources to transport the patients to hospitals...either horse drawn ambulances (Yes, there was, in fact, such a thing) or even just wagons, and with that being the case, it's a good bet that the train's engineer had been directed to bring the train to a freight station rather than the passenger station, as it would be far easier to load the patients onto whatever vehicles were used to transport them there.

Needless to say, response to major accidents and incidents of all kinds has come a long, long way since that May morning in 1853, but you have to hand it to Dr. Russel, his fellow physicians and passengers, as well as the crew of the Pacific, the townspeople of Norwalk, and the officials and personnel of the NY&NH Railroad. They dived right in, grabbed the bull by the horns, so to speak, and handled the incident with what they had available to them, doing a pretty decent job of it while they were at it.

<***>

With the above note in mind, lets look at a quick comparison of Fire/Rescue/EMS response today as compared to 1853.

Ok, Ok, that's actually a really unfair comparison, because, well, there was no fire/rescue response in Norwalk (Or many other places) in 1853. Norwalk wouldn't have a fire department of any kind until 1858...five years after the disaster...and EMS as we know it wouldn't be developed for another century and change.

The only advantage that victims of the Norwalk disaster had going for them at all was the fact that the train was loaded with doctors...and given the technology of the time, that wasn't that much of an advantage, especially considering the fact that all of their medical bags were at the bottom of the Norwalk River.

It's quite possible that a local physician or two may have responded to the scene, and brought some supplies with them, but for the most part, the response was exactly what I detailed in the main body of the post. The crew of the Pacific, the surviving passengers, and the citizens of Norwalk, joined later by railroad officials and the crew of the rescue train, was pretty much it.

I went into considerable detail, speculation though it may have been, about their actions in the main body of this, er, learned tome (Tongue firmly in cheek here) so there's no need to rehash it here. I will say however, without hesitation, that those who did respond to the scene nailed it, especially given what they had to deal with, and what equipment they had to work with.

**

Today things have changed so much that, again, there is really no comparison. First, safety tech. Modern radio communications allows a train crew to know miles in advance whether a drawbridge is open, track circuits light up red signals a mile so before the train reaches the bridge, modern airbrakes can easily bring the train to a stop with-in that mile or so and mechanical derailers, installed several hundred feet short of the bridge, are designed to kick the train off of the track if all else fails. (one thing that hasn't changed...depending on the signal indication, speed limits are still reduced with-in a mile or so of drawbridges). Automatic braking systems have also been developed to prevent trains from plunging off of drawbridges. So the probability of a train ending up in the Norwalk River because the Walk Bridge, or it's soon-to-be replacement is open is somewhere between 'Slim' and 'None'

But, if in the most improbable of circumstances, Tones dropped in Norwalk's five fire stations, and the dispatcher announced 'A train in the river, (North or South) end of The Walk Bridge', Norwalk (And Fairfield County) would be prepared to respond BIG.

Norwalk Engine 3, quartered in a beautiful, classic old station on Van Zant Street, almost within sight of the bridge, would be first due...but they wouldn't respond on Engine 3...not to the bridge, anyway. They would instead respond to Veteran's Park Marina, where they would man either or both of Norwalk's fireboats, either the 24' Harry G Brower (Marine 2) or the newer 42' Robert Bedell (Marine 1). Marine 2's probably a bit faster and more maneuverable, Marine 1 has more working space, and has a large, open after deck that divers can work off of. Their pier is less than 2000 feet from the bridge. Both boats would probably end up on scene. The Washington Street Bridge would probably also be raised, if the Walk Bridge was open, so the boat(s) response would be quick.

Meanwhile, as the fireboat carved a wake out of the marina, and screaming Federal 'Q' sirens and braying airhorns announced the arrival of units on the accident side of the bridge, the on-duty Battalion Chief would be on the radio, calling for more resources, and very likely implementing the local disaster plan that was developed...and is very probably practiced constantly...for situations just like this.

Tones would be going off in a slew of Fairfield County fire stations.

Dive teams would be enroute, additional Medic Units would be dispatched from surrounding communities, additional heavy rescues would be rolling, a big mobile command post would probably be enroute, and crews on scene would already be pulling people out of the water.

Radio channels would be designated for the incident, arriving Chief Officers would be given a 'sector' (Rescue, Marine, Medical, etc) to handle, medical helicopters would be called for, and landing zones established (And additional engines assigned to cover the landing zones)

Hospitals would be notified and would be implementing their own disaster plans, and within ten or so minutes of the first desperate 9-1-1 call, the first patient or two would very likely be enroute to a hospital, followed by many more. The first patients would likely go to Norwalk Hospital, a 366 bed Level II trauma center just over a mile from the Walk Bridge. If they get overwhelmed, Stamford Hospital's about 10 miles west (South) on I-95, and Bridgeport has two major hospitals about 15 miles East (North) on '95.

So yes, the response to a similar incident today would be about as 180 degrees away from the response to the Disaster as you can get. Hopefully, though, we will never ever have to see just how well this plan works, and the only time it's ever implemented is as a scenereo for a disaster drill.

<***>

Even if he hadn't been one of the heroes of  one of the very first major land transportation accidents in U.S. history, Dr. Gurdon Wadsworth Russel would've had had a pretty eventful life.

Dr. Gurdon Russel, in a photo taken in 1897,
44 years after the Norwalk Disaster.

He was 38 years old when he almost rode the the Boston Express' third coach into the Norwalk River, and was also a new dad...his daughter Elizabeth was born in January of 1853. Sadly she wouldn't live to see her third birthday. While this tragedy, without a doubt, devastated him, it didn't slow him down much at all.

Dr. Russel was elected president of the Connecticut State Medical Society in 1871, and was a founding member of the Hartford Medical Society...an organization of which he was a life-long member, serving as it's president from 1889-1893. Early on during his tenure with that crew, he was instrumental in the planning and building of Hartford's first hospital. Once the hospital opened, he served as the president of the Hospital Association, and the chief of the Medical and Surgical staff for many years.

As if he wasn't busy enough, the Aetna Life Insurance Company signed him on as it's medical director in 1850...three years before the Norwalk disaster. He would serve Aetna in that capacity for 52 years, until 1902. During his long tenure at Aetna, he pioneered a field near and dear to all of our hearts...medical insurance underwriting. OH...he also served as the first Vice President of the Life Insurance Medical Directors Association of America, which was organized in 1893

While all of this was going on, he also wrote a several books about the history of the Russel family, and the history of Hartford, where he made his home for his entire life. 

Dr Russel passed away in 1909, at the age of 93. He's buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery, in Hartford.

<***>

One big question I've had about the Norwalk disaster...and specifically about the Boston Express...is just how many brakemen were actually aboard the train. 

There obviously had to be at least one, due to the primitive nature of railroad braking systems (And I user the term 'system' loosely, here) of that era. And this guy, if he was alone, had to do some serious hustling, even in normal braking situations. At least on a passenger train he wasn't exposed to the weather...or at least as exposed to the weather...and he didn't have to balance himself on a narrow, swaying, possibly icy catwalk. Mischievous boys tripping him as he ran through the cars...well that may be another story

A long freight train during that era may have had 30 cars, and these trains almost definitely had two brakemen...one riding the caboose bringing up the rear, and one riding in the locomotive cab with the engineer and fireman. When the engineer whistled for brakes the two brakemen started from the front and rear ends of the train, working towards the middle. Passenger trains, though, may have made do with a single brakeman.

I know, I know...I hinted that the Boston Express had two on board...but the truth is, I really don't know. I do believe that conductor Comstock did double duty as the brakeman/rear brakeman, and the fact that he escaped with relatively minor injuries lends at least a little credibility (IMHO) to that theory...he almost had to have been riding one of those last three coaches when the train went off of the bridge.

The train definitely had one brakeman who was working from the rear of the train towards the front...that's why the last three cars stayed on the bridge, even though one of them did break in two, with one half partially dropping into the water. The brakeman (Or rear brakeman if there were two) locked down the brakes on at least one car. He had to have...once the locomotive uncoupled from the train as it went in the river, those last three cars' momentum was actually spent pretty quickly, though it still took them about half a football field or so to get stopped. Of course, that was kind of the point...once the locomotive was out of the equation, the cars were unpowered, and all the brakes on the one car they got set on had to deal with was dying momentum.

 OH...being at the rear of the train, BTW, gave him an advantage, as I noted in the body of the post.  He had an extra 400 or so feet...the approximate length of the train...to work with, which both gave him more time to set the brakes, and gave those last three coaches more stopping distance/distance to overcome the cars' forward momentum. It was still a near thing...the third coach breaking in two proves that...and I have a feeling that our rear brakeman was desperately spinning that brake wheel even as the first cars followed the locomotive off the bridge. His sigh of relief when the cars finally shuddered to a stop must've been epic.

By the same token, if there was a front brakeman, he was doomed from the the instant the whistle screamed the signal for 'Down Brakes!'. If this guy existed, he probably tried to set the tender's brakes first, and though he may have gotten them set, it really didn't help...as in At All...because the locomotive was still dragging it...and the rest of the train...right to the point that it went off the bridge. Our front brakeman wasn't trying to fight against dying momentum...he was fighting the active kinetic energy provided by the locomotive. He didn't have a chance. The tender, smoking car, baggage car, and first two coaches never lost their forward momentum...or at least very little of it...as they went in the river. Our theoretical front brakeman very likely died when the train went off the bridge....he would have been either on the tender, or the front platform of the baggage car trying to get the brakes set when the train went in the river, and would have literally had almost then entire train on top of him before he could even think about trying to escape.

<***>

As I noted in the main body of this post, the CSX/Amtrak/Metro North tracks passing through Norwalk follow just about the exact same right-of-way through town that the NY & NH tracks were laid on in 1847, complete with a swing bridge over the Norwalk River. The NY & NH became the New York, New Haven, & Hartford...best known simply as the 'New Haven'...which, through decades of mergers and closures and acquisitions, ultimately became part of CSX. Amtrak came into the picture in 1971, and Metro North's commuter trains began crossing the bridge, well, long before the commuter line was known as Metro North, starting in the early part of the 20th Century.

 All, of course, have had to cross that swing bridge...or , at least, one of those swing bridges.

Three bridges have occupied the narrow strip of river that the Boston Express plunged into 167 years ago. The original bridge was replaced by an upgraded, widened, two track wooden span with a steel truss swing span about the time the NY & NH became the New Haven...and rail traffic continued to increase until the New Haven's two track main line was also over taxed. 

The second Norwalk River Railroad Bridge...this one replaced the original bridge a decade or so after the disaster, about the time the NY&NH became the 'New Haven'...try as I might, I couldn't fins an exact date.  The line was widened to two tracks, and the old swing span was replaced with what looks to be an all metal (Iron or steel) truss span.

A

An early pic of the present-day Walk Bridge, taken in 1911, showing it open to allow a steamer to pass through. This bridge was built in 1896, when the New Haven's main line was widened to 4 tracks to accommodate ever increasing rail traffic.

If you look at this pic and think 'Hmmmm...Something's missing' you're absolutely right! This pic was taken shortly before the rail line was electrified and the overhead catenaries that give the bridge it's familiar profile were added.  

Google Street View image of The Walk Bridge as it appears today...view is from the Washington Street Bridge, just east of the Walk Bridge. 

So, in 1896, the New Haven's main line through Connecticut was widened to four tracks and the wooden two track bridge was replaced with a huge, 4-track, all steel swing bridge. This new bridge was officially known as The Norwalk River Railroad Bridge, but that ponderous mouthful of a name was shortened early on by the good citizens of Norwalk to the name it's known by today...The Walk Bridge.

The Walk Bridge, of course, is a swing bridge just like it's predecessor, with one big...and I mean big...difference. The bridge's swing span is far bigger than either the original, or the two track swing span that it replaced.. The Walk Bridge's swing span is just over 200 feet long and 50 feet wide, and is also far, far heavier than either the original, or the two track swing span.

Also, while the original, and I believe the two track swing span, were both turned by steam engines, the Walk Bridge's swing span is turned using big...make that huge...electric motors, and those motors turn equally huge gears...and many of those gears and the accompanying hardware are, well, old...keep that 'Old' thing in mind, gang...it's about to become an issue.

One final upgrade was made in 1911...15 years after the bridge was built. Much of this section of track was electrified that year, with overhead catenary lines providing power for big electric locomotives pulling the trains. This also added another complication to the whole 'swing bridge' concept...those four sets of catenary wires had to be retracted when the bridge opened, then reconnected when it closed.

Today, the bridge still carries 4 tracks across the Norwalk River, with dozens of CSX freights, Amtrak passenger trains, and Metro North commuter trains crossing the bridge daily...this has been going on for decades and decades, and for the most part it's operation was just as smooth as a just Zambonied skating rink...

 

Video of the Walk Bridge opening for a group of sailboats out-bound for Long Island Sound. Several Metro North trains are shown crossing the bridge at the beginning of the video. The bridge machinery worked the way it was supposed to...this time. This was a scheduled opening for a group of boats,  a very common way of handling drawbridge openings the world over, and a procedure that anyone whose commute takes them over a major drawbridge is more than familiar with...checking for a scheduled bridge opening becomes as second nature as checking to make sure you have your wallet. This is a pretty long video, BTW...fifteen minutes...but it's also pretty interesting.

 ..Until it opens for a barge or group of fishing boats and, well sticks open. Remember that whole 'Old Machinery' thing I mentioned just above? These aging mechanicals have broken down fairly regularly in recent years, leading to the bridge sticking open...usually right in the middle of rush hour...more and more frequently over the last decade or so.  And when that happens, it ends up stranding hundreds of commuters and snarling CSX and Amtrak traffic along the entire Northeast Corridor until dispatchers can get trains rerouted onto other lines and get it, well, sort of moving. This snarl/semi-snarl, of course, lasts until technicians and mechanics manage to get the thing fixed.

Oh...and every once in a while, the bridge will change things up, and  stick closed...allowing trains to cross, but blocking the river to marine traffic, a real problem for a couple of businesses that transport products by barge...one time when this happened, back in 2014, the bridge was stuck closed for weeks

If something like that happened once a year, it would be an inconvenience caused by a rare mechanical glitch. When it happens a couple of times...or more...a month, it becomes a problem.

The problem, of course, is that the bridge is a scosh over 120 years old, and while the motors, etc can be replaced and upgraded, a lot of the gearing and the rest of the mechanism, well, can't. And, trust me on this...the citizens of that end of Connecticut, most especially those who rely on Metro North for their daily commute to and from New York are getting real tired of sitting on a non-moving commuter train, and calling either their boss or their spouse, depending on which end of the work day they're stranded on, and saying 'Boss/Honey, the *&&$!! bridge's stuck again!!'

A fix is in, however...or at least in the works. CTDOT...Connecticut Department Of Transportation...began the process of replacing the bridge in 2014, doing studies, and soliciting bids for the design of the bridge. Once a design team was in place meetings were held, committees were formed, and midnight oil was likely burned by the tanker-load.

See, while building the new bridge, they'd have to keep trains rolling on the old bridge, as well as keep river traffic moving. The design that was chosen was a 240' long, dual span vertical lift bridge. The design incorporates a pair of two track lift spans, side by side, that would be lifted together to allow river traffic to pass beneath the bridge.

Artists rendition of what the new Walk Bridge will look like. The new bridge will be a double span vertical lift bridge, with twin, side by side lift spans, each span carrying two tracks. With this design, the bridge won't be out of service completely but one weekend...while the first lift span's installed...during construction,

More importantly, it would be almost impossible for a stuck lift span to close the bridge...if one span went out of service, all traffic would be shifted to the two tracks of the other lift span. 

Construction is slated to start in Fall of 2021.

This design has a couple of advantages, both during construction and after the bridge is opened.

 During construction, the new approaches and fixed bridges for one pair of tracks can be built next to the existing tracks, then the two towers can be built, straddling the existing bridge, allowing the swing span to remain operable. Then the lift spans are built off site.

The first lift span will be floated into place and installed next to the present swing span. While the new lift span's being floated in, the old Walk bridge is dismantled. Once the new span's installed and the old bridge is dismantled...a process that will take place over a long weekend... the new bridge is opened as a two track bridge. 

The second set of approaches and fixed bridge will then be built next to their recently completed twins. Rail traffic won't be affected during this construction, and the first lift span will be operational, so the new lift span can be raised to allow river traffic to pass. 

Once the second set of approaches and bridges are finished, and tied in with their twins structurally...about a year and a half after the first lift span goes in service...the second lift span will be floated in and installed, and the new bridge is in service.

The second big advantage of this design is the fact that a mechanical failure is unlikely to completely close the bridge. There are two lift spans, each with their own separate lift mechanisms, so if one lift span fails, the second is still operable, so rail traffic would always have at least two tracks.

Various impact studies, and other preparations for construction have been going on for several years, and construction is due to start in earnest in Fall of 2021.

And that frustrated phone call to the boss or the spouse will soon be a not-so-fondly remembered thing of the past.

<***> 

Remember the S.S. Pacific? While she and her crew were celebrated by the residents of Norwalk as legitimate heroes...her crew saved several of the Boston Express' passengers from drowning...when her Captain called for 'All Engines Reverse Emergency!!', and ordered her lifeboats into the water, she wasn't long for the world.

I included a quick pocket history of the steamer in the body of the post, but lets review in a line or so...she was one of four sister ships, all big, fast, luxurious trans-Atlantic steamers owned by the Collins line, and built to upstage Collins' arch rival, Cunard. The Pacific proved to be the fastest of the four, winning the Blue Riband, awarded for the fastest cross-Atlantic run, on one of her first trips.

She was fast, reliable, popular, comfortable...and doomed. 

She departed Liverpool for New York on January 23, 1856...less than three years after the Norwalk Bridge Disaster...with a crew of 141, and 45 passengers. She was last seen rounding what's today known as Fort Perch Rock, swinging West towards New York.

She never arrived in New York. This was long before wireless communication was even dreamed of, so it was assumed, at first, that she'd suffered some kind of mechanical breakdown, and was possibly proceeding under sail. After a few more days, when she still didn't show up, ships were sent out to search for her.

OK, again, there was no ship to shore communication of any kind back then, so her owners and the families of crew and passengers had to wait for these rescue ships to return for any news, and the news they returned with wasn't good. They found nothing...not even a floating spar. S.S. Pacific had been added to the list of ships that had disappeared without a trace. Not a single plank was ever found.

Ice had been bad that year, so many people...both officially and unofficially...had suspicions as to what had happened. Confirmation was found, on the west coast of one of the Hebrides Islands, in 1861, five years after she vanished. 

A bottle, sealed with a cork, was found with a tightly rolled up note inside. When the note was removed and read, this is what it said:

On board the Pacific from Liverpool to N.Y. - Ship going down. Confusion on board - icebergs around us on every side. I know I cannot escape. I write the cause of our loss that friends may not live in suspense. The finder will please get it published. W.M. GRAHAM.

A check of the Pacific's passenger list revealed that one of her passengers on that trip was a sea captain by the name of William Graham, who was enroute to New York to take command of another ship. The note was deemed to be legitimate, and, at least, they knew what had happened to her. They just didn't, of course, know where.

That mystery was supposedly solved in 1991, when divers found the sunken bow section of a ship of the same vintage and basic design of Pacific...and they declared her found. 

One problem...this wreck was only about 60 miles west of Liverpool, still in the Irish Sea. In other words, this particular wreck hadn't even cleared the Isle of Mann yet, much less Ireland itself, and wasn't even close to being in the Atlantic.

No explanation was given...or even attempted...of how Captain Graham's bottle had made it around the northern tip of Ireland, and then drifted (Against prevailing currents if I recall correctly) Northwest for 275 miles or so, before finally hitching a ride on a current that would take it to the west coast of one of the Hebrides. We won't even get into 'How Did An Iceberg Make It In to The Irish Sea'.

Needless to say, the wreck wasn't the Pacific, and she remains undiscovered to this day.  My bet is she was several hundred miles west and slightly south of the Hebrides when she suffered the very same fate that Titanic would suffer 57 years later.

Finally, there was a connection between the loss of the Pacific and Dr. Russel...or at least his home town. One of the passengers aboard Pacific when she went down was Bishop Bernard O'Rielly, Bishop of the Diocese of Hartford, who was returning to Hartford from a European trip.

<***> A Quick Look At A Nearly Identical Accident North Of The Border<***>

The St. Hilaire Bridge Disaster

June 29, 1864

Imitation isn't always the sincerest form of flattery. Sometimes it's absolutely unintentional, and sometimes the event being 'imitated' is an incident that absolutely no one in their right mind would actually want to happen twice (Or even once for that matter). 

But, when a Grand Trunk Railroad immigrant train hurtled through an open draw bridge just over eleven years after the Norwalk Bridge disaster, it created one of those very unwanted unintentional imitations. And, sadly, this accident was even deadlier than the Norwalk accident.

We head 'North Of The Border' for this one, into the Canadian province of Quebec, about fifteen miles east of Montreal, to the present day town of Mont St Hilaire. The Richelieu River forms the town's western boundary, and the Canadian National Railroad sweeps in from the northeast, swings almost due north-south as it rounds a left-hand curve just about in the center of town, then sweeps into a long right-hand curve that swings it back east-west just before it crosses the river on a modern 900 or so foot long concrete and steel bridge. 

Like the rail lines crossing the Norwalk River, the Canadian National's tracks follow just about the exact same right of way as one of it's ancestors, in this case the Grand Trunk Railroad. The Grand Trunk's tracks, of course, also crossed the Richelieu. In the 1860s, commercial traffic on the river, in the form of both steamboats and barges, was heavy, so the Grand Trunk crossed on a swing bridge.

The Grand Trunk was also heavily utilized, for both freight and passenger traffic, and also ran frequent special 'immigrant trains', carrying immigrants who caught trains heading for Montreal and other points west after entering the country via ship at the St Lawrence River port of Quebec City.

A satellite view of present day Mont-Saint-Hilaire, known simply as St. Hilaire back when the wreck happened. I've indicated the Canadian National right-of-way as well as the immigrant train's direction of travel. The Canadian National follows the exact same right-of-0way occupied by the Grand Trunk in 1864, and interestingly, just like the Norwalk disaster, the line swept around a long, drawn out 'S' curve just before reaching the bridge. From the looks of things, engineer  William Burnie had even less room to get stopped when he realized the bridge was open than Ed Tucker had in Norwalk eleven years earlier.  This is a moot point, however...indications are that Burnie never even got the chance to whistle for brakes before he was on the bridge.

The Richelieu River Railroad Bridge, now utilized by the Canadian National Railroad, as it appears today.  By the time this bridge was built, commercial traffic on this end of the Richelieu had slowed to nothing, making a drawbridge unnecessary. This bridge is a fixed truss design.

You are looking towards the east in this pic. If a photographer had been in this exact spot on that Oh-Dark-Hundred June morning, the tug and barges would have been northbound on the river...approaching from the right side of the frame...and the immigrant train would have been westbound, crossing the bridge towards the photographer

It was one of these immigrant trains that hurtled off of the bridge on that fateful June night.

Now, the two accidents had a lot in common...both trains, of course, ran through an open swing bridge, both engineers ignored a signal indicating the bridge was open, and both trains came out of a sharp curve just before they got to the bridge...but there were some important differences. 

One of the biggies was the signaling system. While the Norwalk bridge was protected by 'The Ball', the Richelieu River Bridge (actually known as the Beloeil Bridge) had a red light that was shown when the bridge was open. All of the sources I found noted the light was 'A mile from the bridge'...but I have a problem with that,. There were no electric lights yet in 1864, so there was no way to remotely turn on a red light a mile from the bridge.

Now, the swing span on the Beloeil bridge was built very similarly to the Norwalk River Bridge, right down to the tall tower and chains supporting the ends of the span. With that thought in mind, I'm going to do a little more of that speculating I tend to do...I have a feeling that the light was actually hoisted to the top of this tower, where it would be visible for up to a mile away (especially at night) from the cab of approaching trains. This should have given the engineer plenty of time to whistle for brakes, and the brakemen plenty of time to set the brakes and get the train stopped.

And, again, like Norwalk, this system worked fine...until about 1:20 AM on that June morning.

Sometime the day before the accident... the 28th...a ship from Hamburg, Germany made it's way up the St Lawrence River, docked in Quebec City, and disembarked several hundred German and Polish immigrants., These new arrivals, of course, had to be processed through the 1860's equivalent of customs before heading west, so it was probably around 9PM or so before they boarded an immigrant train, bound for Montreal, and other 'Points West'

OK, a quick word about immigrant trains of this era. The 'passenger cars' that these people boarded, well, weren't. Passenger coaches that is.

What they were was converted box cars. Backless wooden benches were installed, and windows were cut into the sides...I have a sneaking suspicion that glass was not installed in these windows. The cars had no end platforms, no end doors, and no way to move from car to car, which meant that the brakemen had to run across the tops of the cars to set the brakes, just as they would have to on a freight train...these immigrant cars were, after all, converted box cars.

So, sometime around 9PM, or a bit before, around 475 passengers boarded the eleven converted box cars that made up the train. The train probably pulled out of the Quebec City depot around 9:30 PM for the 150 or so mile trip, driven by engineer William Burnie, with Conductor Thomas Flynn in charge of the train.

At the train's cruising speed of between 35 and 40 miles per hour, the trip to Montreal should take between between three hours and forty-five minutes and a little over four hours, and they were just about exactly on schedule when the train leaned into the first curve at about a quarter after one...two miles and four minutes or so before they reached the bridge..

Maybe ten or fifteen minutes earlier, a tug, towing five barges blew for the bridge to be opened, and the unnamed bridge tender went through much the same procedure as Bill Harford had eleven years earlier, returning whistle signals, opening the bridge, lighting what was likely a fair sized Fresnel lens-equipped lantern, and hoisting it to the top of the bridge's support tower. And, like Bill Harford, he then sat back and waited for the tug and barges to clear the bridge.

And, also like Bill Harford, the Beloeil bridge's tender heard the immigrant train's chuffing exhaust, obviously at speed, and knew, with growing horror, that there was no way the train could get stopped. Seconds later, he watched, horrified, as the locomotive headlight swept around the second curve, and onto the bridge at a good 35 miles per hour, not even beginning to slack up.

Here the similarities between he two accidents begin to diverge...William Burnie never even had a chance to whistle for brakes

Though Burnie may have finally seen the light and realized the bridge was open...may have, remember, it was 1:20 AM and dark...he never whistled for brakes, and the train never even tried to slow down. Also, in the Norwalk Disaster, the steamer...The S S Pacific...cleared the bridge before the Boston Express plunged off of it. In St Hilliare, however, the barges weren't clear...

The locomotive heading the train (Probably yet another 4-4-0, or maybe a larger 4-6-0) plunged off of the bridge, arced down, slammed down onto the deck of the the one of the barges, skidded off the deck, and and caromed into the river, dragging it's tender along with it. All eleven coaches followed slamming into the deck of the barge, then each other in an unending bedlam of crushing, crunching, splashing sound.

 The cars nearer the head end of the train, along with their occupants, faired the worst as each plunging car crushed them a bit more, until the first several coaches were reduced to little more then kindling, with the more intact last two or three coaches balanced on the pile.

The crew of the tug likely felt the impact, in the form of a violent jerk, and immediately swung into action...like the Pacific in Norwalk, her captain likely sounded an emergency signal, then launched boats (Along with many St Hiliare citizens), and immediately began rescue operations.

One of the first to be rescued was engineer William Burnie, who had ridden the locomotive down, managed to escape the sinking cab as it plunged into the river, and escaped all but uninjured. Neither his fireman, or Conductor Thomas Foley were as lucky...both died in the accident.

A photo taken of the scene the morning after the wreck...you're looking south here, the train would have been westbound, approaching from the left side of the frame. The swing span, now closed, is directly above the wreck One big difference between the St Hilaire and Norwalk accidents is visible in the river below the wrecked cars...Unlike the Pacific in Norwalk, all of the barges didn't make it clear before the immigrant train went off of the bridge and landed on a couple of them. You can see one of the barges in this photo...that's the tilted, light colored object that the cars are resting on top of.

The fact that the barges didn't get clear, and remained mostly afloat after the train landed on it kept the accident from being even deadlier than it was, as it kept a couple of the cars form going in the river...note the more or less intact car leaning against the bridge abutment. The end of another intact car is visible to the right of that car. If the cars had gone in the river, dozens more people would have likely drowned.

A very detailed engraving of the scene, apparently from other side of the bridge...you're looking north here, and the abutment supporting the swing span's to the left of the wreck rather than to the right. Note the same barge that was visible in the photo above also visible below the coach that's being lifted from the river. You can also see that the swing span's construction is very similar to that of the Norwalk bridge, only bigger.

This view is also a good bit earlier in the incident than the photo....the swing span's still open, there are more cars on top of the barge (Assuming the orientation of the cars is accurately represented here), and one of the cars is, apparently being lifted from the river.

As there was a photographer on scene, who got a couple of shots of the scene, this may have been based on a photograph, though I haven't seen a photo from this angle.. Of course, it could well have been based on the artists observations and sketches...there were some seriously talented graphic artists working for publications back then!

The quickly thrown together rescue teams had their work cut out for them. The river was about ten feet deep at the accident site and the crushed, partially capsized barge was sinking, taking the crushed train cars...and their occupants...with it. There were between forty and forty-five people in each car, many or whom were trapped (Or injured and trapped) and rescuers had to use axes to chop their way into the sinking cars, then remove the trapped victims before the cars took them to the bottom of the river.

The occupants of the train's last few cars were more fortunate, as those cars remained relatively intact, but the first three or so cars behind the locomotive were death traps...that's very likely where all of the ninety-nine passengers who died in the accident were riding, along with a majority of the one hundred passengers who were injured.

It's a good bet that many, if not most, of those ninety-nine fatally injured passengers were crushed to death before they could drown as the cars they were riding in were crushed to splinters when the rest of the train crashed down on top of them.

Interestingly enough, most of the cars actually didn't sink. While the barge was severely damaged, partially capsized, and partially sunk,  it never completely sank, and kept the majority of the cars...and the passengers...above the water. This fact saved the great majority of the passengers. While ninety-nine people died and another 100 were injured, around 275 people survived the accident relatively unscathed.

Still, I'm actually low-key amazed that nearly three hundred passengers came through uninjured...this was a brutally violent and destructive accident. 

An investigation was started even as crews removed wreckage, and bereaved families planned funerals. Engineer Bill Burnie was found to be completely at fault...the Grand Trunk apparently also had a policy that required engineers to stop before crossing a drawbridge, no matter what the signal indication was, and he very obviously, ignored that policy, as well as the red 'STOP' signal. 

The investigation also revealed yet another similarity between the Norwalk and St Hiliare disasters...Burnie was apparently newly hired, and this was his first or maybe second time driving a train on this route. He claimed that he didn't know the bridge was there, and that he didn't see the red signal at all. 

I'm kind of skeptical about that whole 'Not knowing the bridge was there' thing, too. While technology has advanced in leaps and bound over the last 156 or so years, there was one thing that was done back then that is still done today, and will still be done in another 156 years. Train crews get a detailed briefing about hazards they might encounter on a given route as well as locations where certain rules and regulations would be in force before they drive a route for the first time.

 One of the hazards Bill Burnie would have been briefed...probably at length...about would have been the draw bridges he needed to be aware of, how their status was signaled, and where he needed to start looking for said signal.

I can come way closer to believing he was drowsy, and ran up on the bridge before he realized it, especially at nearly 1:30 AM. Trust me, I'm a denizen of Midnight shifts myself, and 1:30AM is about the time your body starts realizing that it's supposed to be asleep...if you don't get the proper rest before coming on duty, eyelids get heavy, and your alertness takes a nose-dive. 

And I think that just may be what happened to Bill Burnie that night. At any rate, those evil siblings Carelessness and Recklessness took 99 lives, and to this day this is still the deadliest train wreck in Canadian history.

 <***>LINKS<***>

<***>NORWALK BRIDGE DISASTER<***>

Often-times when you research an incident that happened nearly 17 decades in the past so you can, for example, say,, write a blog post about it, you don't find a whole lot of info to work with. 

Thankfully, this was not one of those times. This was the first railroad bridge disaster, one of the very first major train wrecks of any kind, involved a train load of doctors, and was the major news story of it's day. On top of that, the wreck is very well known and pretty well documented in Norwalk, so finding information about it was actually pretty easy.

There were plenty of links...enough so that this ended up being one of those posts that I could pick and choose a bit when deciding just which articles to use for my research...and a couple of those links were not only good, but outstanding.

As always, I'm posting the best of the bunch:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwalk_rail_accident  The all but inevitable Wikipedia article on the disaster

http://www.gendisasters.com/connecticut/7197/norwalk-ct-train-wreck-may-1853  And the Wiki article's kissin' cousin, the accident's Gen. Disasters page.

https://www.structuremag.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/272002-C-HistoricStructures-Griggs.pdf This one is absolutely awesome on several levels. This particular article, from Structure Magazine, was one of my two luckiest finds. The article discusses both the bridge itself, as well as the disaster in some detail, and better yet, it's a PDF file, so it's downloadable. You need Adobe Reader or a similar app to read it (Or Windows 10, which comes with a built in PDF reader)

https://web.archive.org/web/20100602140617/http://library.uchc.edu/hms/pdf/1853rail_lrg.pdf  Uber- Lucky find Numero Dos...A copy of  a period newspaper article containing Dr Gurdon Russel's first-hand account of the accident. This one is also a downloadable PDF file. These two PDF files almost made any other articles about the disaster unnecessary. Almost.

http://www.interment.net/data/train-wrecks/norwalk-railroad-accident.htm  Article containing a list of the dead and injured. Note that this is not a comp0lete list of the deceased.

https://connecticuthistory.org/misread-signal-leads-to-deadly-south-norwalk-train-wreck-who-knew/ An article from Connecticut History Dot Org about the disaster. Be warned, though...a good bit of the info in this one is in direct conflict with the known facts about the accident.

http://neversinkmuseum.org/articles/the-life-of-a-brakeman/  A very well written, very detailed article about what railroad brakemen had to endure in the pre airbrake era.

https://www.iridetheharlemline.com/2015/01/01/bridges-of-metro-north-the-norwalk-river-bridge-part-1/  One of several articles I found about the trials and tribulations Connecticut Dept. of Transportation officials endure while trying to keep the Walk Bridge both passable and operational. This was the best of the bunch, and includes some awesome pics of the bridge.

https://www.walkbridgect.com/projects/norwalk.aspx  CDOT page about the Walk Bridge replacement project.

https://www.instagram.com/walkbridgect/ The Walk Bridge even has it's own Insta page! 

<***>ST. HILAIRE BRIDGE DISASTER LINKS<***>

This one was all but the polar opposite of the Norwalk Bridge Disaster, info wise. Even though the St Hilaire accident was twice as deadly as the Norwalk disaster, there was comparatively little info online about it.  I still managed to dig up a few articles about it, though...OK, so one was the Wiki page and the other was from Gen, Disasters... 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St-Hilaire_train_disaster  The Inevitable Wiki Page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St-Hilaire_train_disaster  And the General Disasters Page

https://www.ancestry.com/contextux/historicalinsights/st-hilaire-train-disaster/persons/18793993499:1030:35391053  A brief, illustrated summary of the St Hilliare wreck from another genealogy site