Grand Crossing Train Collision. The Frog War That Became The Nations First, Nearly Forgotten, Railroad Disaster

Grand Crossing Train Collision

April 25th, 1853

The Frog War That Became The Nations First, Nearly Forgotten, Railroad Disaster

'The Year The Horrors Began'

Remember that sixteen year long run of astonishingly good luck that I all but said ended with the Norwalk Bridge Disaster? Spoiler alert, gang...I was wrong. That run of good luck actually came to an end two weeks before the Norwalk Bridge Disaster. Sadly, though, the train wreck that actually ended it has just about fallen completely off the radar, largely because the more spectacular, deadlier, and more media-friendly Norwalk disaster overshadowed it.

 Just about everyone who has even a minor interest in railroads and railroad history (And a surprisingly large number of people who don't have any such interest) have heard of the Norwalk Bridge Disaster, but most of these same people have either forgotten about the earlier wreck or, even more likely, never knew about it in the first place. 

Lets see if we can fix that, at least a little.

The Norwalk Bridge Disaster was the first major bridge disaster in the U.S.. The thing is, many people (Including a few pretty serious rail fans) think it was the very first major rail disaster of any kind, and, well, it wasn't. Another not quite as deadly train wreck beat it to the punch by just under two weeks. This other disaster 'only' killed 18 people,...a death toll that was still triple that of any previous single wreck, and only five fewer than the total number of rail fatalities that had occurred over the past 16 years. 

So, how did a train wreck that was, for two weeks, the deadliest train wreck in U.S. history, get overshadowed and all but forgotten? 

Simple...the Media, newspaper sales, and the age old difference between Rich and Poor.

The Norwalk Bridge Disaster involved a prestigious express train full of doctors that plummeted off of an open drawbridge, killing 48 people. Seven of the 48 fatalities were MDs. 

This first wreck, which occurred just south of Chicago's 1853 city limits, in then very rural Cook County, involved a collision between a passenger train and a train loaded with immigrants in the middle of a marsh on the barren, rural outskirts of a major city. 

Though tragic, it just wasn't all that sensational. There were no celebrities present, no daring rescues, no crazy visuals, nothing at all that really grabbed the media and hung on. Well, except for those 18 deaths.

Those 18 fatalities still made it the deadliest train wreck, and indeed, the deadliest land transportation accident of any kind, in U.S. history, so the Media jumped right in and ran with it. The crash was covered nationwide, headlining the front pages of major and minor newspapers the day after the crash. The investigation of the wreck likely also received pretty wide-spread coverage, and it appeared that the story had gained a good bit of traction despite it's lack of media friendly elements...

Then, just under two weeks later, Ed Tucker drove the Boston Express through an open drawbridge. Suddenly, that first accident apparently ceased to exist, at least as far as the Media was concerned. They dropped it like the oft-discussed hot rock, and figuratively (And, for those reporters living close enough to Norwalk to do so, literally) flocked to Norwalk.

The Norwalk crash had everything The Media...and, whether we like to admit it or not, The Public... craves.  A sensational accident scene, heroic rescues, the tragic death of the wealthy, He said-He Said controversy, a long, drawn out investigation, and even a picturesque setting. 

This same public craved information about the Norwalk disaster, snapping up newspapers and magazines featuring articles about it as soon as they hit the news stands, so the Media gave them what they wanted (And what, incidentally, generated the most sales and, therefore, profit). They quit covering the wreck near Chicago, and went full court press on the Norwalk disaster.

A sound business practice of course, and one that's adhered to and followed religiously to this very day. One that also resulted in everyone pretty much forgetting about the Chicago accident as they followed the much more sensational Norwalk disaster. It wasn't long before the Chicago train wreck...which would come to be known locally as The Grand Crossing Collision...pretty much dropped off of the radar. 

It really shouldn't have, though...there was plenty of intrigue, controversy, and dirty-dealings surrounding The Grand Crossing Collision for everyone. Thing is, most of the shenanigans took place well before the accident ever happened. 

So, lets take a look at the actual first major loss of life train wreck in the U.S.

I've already made it pretty clear where we're heading for this one...Chicago, or actually just south of the Chicago-Cook County line, in then very rural Cook County. By mid 1853 there were just shy of ten thousand miles of rail line in the U.S., and Chicago was already setting itself up to become one of the nation's major rail hubs. 

That ten thousand miles of rail line was not evenly distributed throughout the land...most of those miles were on the East Coast or in the upper Midwest. The Illinois Central Railroad had been chartered and had pushed rail lines all the way from the southern tip of Illinois to the northwestern corner of the state, with a branch line extending eastward towards Chicago.

The I.C. was the longest railroad in the world at the time, but it didn't connect in any way what so ever with any of the eastern rail lines...a situation that several of those eastern railroads, as well as the I.C. itself, very much wanted to remedy. And while they were remedying that problem, the I.C figured they would extend that eastward-pushing branch line all the away to The Windy City.

News flash...

Shenanigans may have been involved with this expansion, and those shenanigans just may have played a part in causing the accident. (Shenanigans??? In Chicago?!?!? Say it ain't so!!!!!).

The events leading up to the collision actually began with a 'Frog War'...

Wait a minute, Rob!!!' I hear you guys yell. 'What do battling amphibians have to do with train wrecks???'

Not that kind of frog, gang. 'Frog' in this instance is railroad terminology referring to the grooved metal castings that are used when two railroad tracks cross each other. These castings allow the flanged wheels on a train going through the crossing on one track to cross the intersecting track. (While we're at it, when two railroad tracks cross at grade, the crossing is called a diamond crossing, named for the configuration of the rails at the crossing.)

And when the management of one railroad wanted to cross the right of way of a competing railroad, and was denied permission to do so, the resulting hostilities that often occurred were referred to as 'Frog Wars'.

These Frog Wars often resulted in frayed tempers, which regularly escalated into battles between construction crews of one road, and groups of large and willing individuals from the other road who were sent to stop them. While injuries to those individuals weren't uncommon, these Frog Wars usually didn't result in death or injury to passengers. 

Usually didn't. That, sadly, was about to change...

A grade crossing of two rail lines...the slotted castings where the rails cross are known as 'Frogs', and it was these devices that 'Frog Wars' were named after. These crossings are also known as 'Diamond Crossings'

While crossings such as this were fairly common in the early years of railroading, the great majority of them have been eliminated. There are still a few out there, most being main lines crossing industrial spurs or light rail lines. There are still a very few examples of two major rail lines crossing each other, however, but the probability of an accident similar to the Grand Crossing Collision happening at one of them today are infinitesimally small. Explicit, detailed rules and regulations and modern technology, such as automatic block signaling, derailers, and switch interlocks, make the diamond crossings that still exist hundreds of times safer than the one featured in this post.

So, anyway, The events leading up to the collision actually began with a 'Frog War'  between a quartet of competing railroads...The Chicago and Rock Island, the Illinois Central, the Michigan Central, and the Michigan Southern railroads,...and it was actually kicked off when the Chicago and Rock Island (Better known simply as The Rock Island) grabbed the right of way that the I.C. wanted for the final leg of it's route from Cairo Illinois To Chicago.

  

While the Illinois Central was the world's longest railroad in the early 1850s, stretching for the entire 500 or so miles from Cairo, at the extreme south end of the state, to Galena, in the extreme Northwest corner, it hadn't been extended into Chicago...yet. There was also a 300 mile long mile branch line (Itself longer than any of the nation's other railroads) stretching almost all the way from Centralia, Il, 125 miles north of Cairo, to Chicago. Note I said almost. The line hadn't yet been constructed all of the way into Chicago, instead ending somewhere around Kankakee. 

The IC brass had picked the preferred route from Kankakee to Chicago though. This route would have swung west of Lake Calumet, then gone just about due north to the Chicago River, taking the I.C.'s trains directly into the heart of Chicago.

Annnd, that's where they ran into a problem...the Rock Island had already bought up 'Considerable Acreage' along that very route, and not only that, they already had crews clearing right of way, and laying track. Time for the I.C. to drop back and punt...for now.

Meanwhile, we had two eastern railroads vying to be the first such lines into Chicago. The Michigan Central, pushing westward from Detroit, and their arch rivals, the Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana, usually known simply as the 'Michigan Southern', coming in from Toledo, Ohio...but then they ran into a problem. Illinois wouldn't grant them (Or any out of state railroad) a charter to build new track within the state...they'd have to buy trackage rights from an existing railroad. 

Not that big a problem, though...there were already two rail roads a-building towards The Windy city, so the Michigan Central bought trackage rights from the Illinois Central, while the Michigan Southern allied themselves with The Rock Island...which would be the first of the two home-state lines to reach Chicago. That being the case, of course, The Michigan Southern was the first eastern line into Chicago, with the first M.S. train chugging into The Windy City on Feb 20, 1852.

The Illinois Central still planned to run their main line west of Lake Calumet, but instead of continuing due north into Chicago, they planned to swing to the east after passing the lake, then swing north, paralleling Michigan Ave and the shore line of Lake Michigan, entering Chicago that way. One problem, though, and it was a biggie. To make that eastward jog before heading north, hugging the lake Michigan shoreline, and heading into The Windy City, their new right of way had to cross the Rock Island-Michigan Southern right of way just south of the Chicago city line. And, as the two eastern rail roads were bitter rivals, the Rock Island absolutely refused to allow the I.C. to cross their right of way. In any shape, form or fashion.

The I.C. wasn't planning to take 'No' for an answer, however, and their management sent I.C. Chief Engineer Roswell B Mason into the fray, with orders to get their rail line across the Rock Island's rail line using whatever methods seemed workable. Or, likely, words to that effect. 

Very shortly after receiving these orders, Mason had a plan devised, and crews working. The way I understand it, track was laid to within a few hundred feet of the Rock Island's track, on either side of  the R.I. right of way, with the Illinois Central crews just waiting for a chance to lay track. Or build a bridge. Or do something to get their track across the Rock Island-Michigan Southern tracks. 

And the R.I. decided that this was not going to happen, and they even had a specific 'This' in mind that they needed to guard against. For some reason that I can't quite get my head around, the Rock Island brass were convinced that the Illinois Central was going to throw a bridge up and across their tracks.

Though the Rock Island's management got the exact method the I.C. planned on using wrong, they still had a valid concern. Though the area in question is deeply within the city of Chicago today (And, in fact, already was when the turn of the 20th Century came around), in the early 1850s it was in an isolated, very rural portion of Cook County. On top of that, the R.I.'s track ran through a good size marsh just south of the city line, cutting it off from civilization even further. An experienced crew could, under cover of darkness in that isolated location, easily get track laid up to the Rock Island's tracks and get a crossing installed while they were at it, without anyone seeing or hearing them. (Note that I said 'Get A Crossing Installed'...not 'Build A Bridge'.)

The Rock Island brass was well aware of this, and were fearful of almost this very thing taking place, except for that little thing about thinking the I.C. construction crew could build a bridge overnight. So they hired a guard and posted him at the point where they figured the I.C. would most likely build what they were absolutely convinced was going to be an overpass, with explicit orders to stop any and all unauthorized construction that might be taking place. 

 Keep in mind here that said guard would be all by himself, and would have absolutely no way to call for back-up.  This would make for a pretty one sided confrontation if and when the I.C construction crew should show up...

....They, of course, did indeed show up, and the resulting confrontation was even more one sided and over with even more quickly than you might think.  The I.C, simply sent a crew in to kidnap the guard and deposit him somewhere he couldn't do anything to prevent them from building a crossing. Oh...they didn't build a bridge. Building a bridge is not exactly a quick, simple or inexpensive proposition, and Mason had rejected that alternative early in the ball game.  

What he and his crew did do was install a 'Diamond Crossing', as a level crossing of two rail lines is known, at the same time extending the new track to the crossing. By midmorning the next day, the way I understand it, the first Illinois Central train was rumbling through the crossing, heading in to Chicago. That couple of hundred yards of new track was probably a rough ride the first week or so...there's no way the road crew could have ballasted and aligned it properly in the few hours it took them to lay it...but it was capable of supporting a likely slow-moving train. Construction crews would come in later and make the necessary improvements.

.

The Rock Island/Michigan Central Brass probably weren't too happy about the new crossing, but it seems they couldn't...or at least didn't...do too much about it, either.

So, all of a sudden, we had two railroad main lines crossing at grade as they entered a major city. OH...did I mention that the engineers on each railroad assumed that they had the right of way, and that the trains on the other railroad would stop for them?

This likely created more than a few problems before the crossing had been in place for even few weeks.

A general...and unwritten...rule giving trains inbound to Chicago the right of way over outbound trains, was ultimately established, but it wasn't official, wasn't part of any of the four roads' rules and regulations, and, as we'll soon see, was often ignored.

There was no signaling system, no written rule of right of way, and neither railroad had any actual hard and fast regulations governing the crossing.  Just pairs of trains that had no way at all to stop quickly in an emergency hurtling towards each other...I mean what could possibly go wrong?

It's actually more than a little surprising that an accident didn't happen within the first few days of the crossing's very much clandestine construction. In fact, given the lack of rules, lack of safety technology, and the attitudes of the train crews, I'm pretty sure that a few accidents probably did occur in the weeks and months after the crossing's completion. Somehow, though, they went nearly a year before a major accident occurred. But when it did occur, it was a biggie. And while it was at it, it was also the train wreck that actually did end that sixteen year run of good luck I've spoken of so often.

And that brings us to April 25th, 1853.

By early1853 both the Rock Island and the Illinois Central, as well as The Michigan Central and Michigan Southern were well-entrenched and successful, with several trains a day arriving and departing from The Windy City. 

It wasn't at all unusual for east bound passengers on a westbound Rock Island train to switch trains at a depot a few miles east of Chicago's train station, boarding an eastbound Michigan Southern train there so they could continue their journey. That, in fact, is exactly what was supposed to happen at about 9:15 PM or so on that long ago Monday night, when a Michigan Southern train, helmed by engineer Ed Davis rolled to a stop at the station platform. The Rock Island train was supposed to be waiting for them...but it wasn't. Not only was it not there, it wouldn't be there for about another half hour...the first of many small and not so small fails that, when strung together, would cause the night's disaster.

While the Michigan Southern train and it's passengers cooled their collective wheels and heels just outside of Chicago, a Michigan Central train was inbound to Chicago on the Illinois Central tracks, nearing the end of it's journey, and taking the concept of 'Running Late' to a new level. The train, with engineer Thomas Rackham at the throttle, was running seven hours late. 

That wasn't the only problem Rackham was facing that night.

Several hours earlier, Rackham noticed that his locomotive's headlight wasn't casting it's warm glow across the station platform as he eased into the depot at the then small town of Michigan City, about 50 miles southeast of Chicago. So, once the train rolled to a stop, he climbed down onto the station platform, walked to the front of the big 4-4-0 American class locomotive that was heading up the train, and looked up at the big, boxy headlight mounted on the top front of the boiler, just ahead of the smokestack. 

The lens was dark (And I have a sneaking suspicion, broken. I'll get to why in a bit). Rackham breathed a sigh of frustration, told his fireman what was going on, and went in search of the foreman of the Michigan Central locomotive shop, located in Michigan City.  

Now, headlights in 1853 weren't exactly high tech devices. Electric headlights wouldn't appear for nearly thirty years, and wouldn't come into regular use for a half century or more.  Even kerosene-fueled headlights wouldn't be introduced for about a decade or so, so most locomotive headlights in the early 1850s burned whale oil. The set-up was much like a big kerosene lantern, with a wick drawing the whale oil up into the burning chamber, where the flame was backed by a big, highly polished reflector. There was a glass lens in front of the flame, and on some headlights I have a feeling this may have been a Fresnel lens, which gathered and magnified the light further.

The main function of these lights, BTW, was not to allow the engineer to see ahead of him, though that was one of it's benefits. These lights could be seen for a couple of miles across flat, unobstructed terrain, and their main function was to warn people who might be on the tracks/at a grade crossing/what have you that a train was coming. They also served to warn the railroads' engineers that another train might be coming towards them...remember, the great majority of rail lines were single track back in that era.

But the light on Rackham's locomotive was doing none of the above. The shop foreman, a guy named Jurret, climbed up on the front of the locomotive, peered into the defective light, climbed back down...and told Rackham that he couldn't do anything with the light right then. (Mechanics telling you things you don't want to hear is not a new thing by a long shot!)

Again, there wasn't but so much that could go wrong with the things, so I'm thinking the lens may have gotten broken somehow...but whatever the problem, Rackham decided to continue without the head light. It was a fairly bright night, and the head light didn't provide that much added illumination. And he was running, well, extremely late. Heck, beyond late.

An unfortunately poor photograph of a Michigan Central 4-4-0 American Class locomotive from 1854, slightly newer than the one that was heading up the immigrant train, but likely still very similar. Note the size of the headlight and the fact that it appears to have a chimney on it because, well, it does. These headlights burned oil, and worked very similarly to a kerosene lantern...oil in a tank in the lower portion of the housing worked it's way up a wick into the burner chamber, where the flame was backed by a highly polished reflector, and focused using what was probably a Fresnel type lens.

 The headlight on Rackham's locomotive was out, and I have  a sneaking suspicion that the headlight's lens was broken. This was very much a contributing factor in the cause of the collision.

Another interesting note about this particular locomotive...the connecting rods from the cylinders to the drivers apparently work on the front driver's axle, which is probably set up like a crankshaft, rather than directly on the drive wheels. The four drivers themselves (Two to a side) are connected to each other by a separate short connecting rod.

So Rackham reboarded his locomotive, whistled for brakes to be released, and when he was advised that all brakes were off he yanked on the whistle lanyard twice, then eased the throttle open. Spitting puff-balls of smoke into the night sky, the train pulled out of Michigan City.

Rackham's train was a freight train, and all of the cars were freight cars...but the last three or four of them weren't carrying freight. All of these last few cars were box cars converted to immigrant cars with the addition of an entrance/exit door on each end and several rows of benches for the passengers. I'm not even sure the cars had windows in them, and there was definitely no way for the occupants to move from one car to another.

I'm also not sure if the immigrant cars were part of the train's original consist, or if they were added to the train somewhere along the way, but I do know who the passengers were...German Immigrants, headed for Chicago with dreams of a new life. There were about eighty of them divided among the cars, so maybe twenty or thirty people in each car.

This was the cheapest train fare available to them, and all of them were just glad they'd managed to book a spot on one of those hard wooden benches, with their personal belongings, in bags and suitcases, piled on the floor around them. To them, uncomfortable as the ride was, it was a pretty awesome deal.

*

Ed Davis pulled his locomotive's whistle lanyard twice to signal 'Moving Forward' and eased his throttle forward a good two, maybe even three hours after Tom Rackham did the same in Michigan City.  Michigan City's only fifty or so miles from Chicago, but because Rackham's Michigan Central freight train was averaging only about fifteen miles per hour that fifty mile run in to Chicago would have taken just shy of three hours. By the time the Michigan Southern train pulled out of the depot, the Michigan Central train was nearing the end of it's run to Chicago...and was only, at the most, about a mile and a half from the infamously clandestine diamond crossing.

Two miles east of the Rock Island depot and only ten minutes or so into it's trip, Ed Davis' Michigan Southern train was also approaching the crossing. The diamond crossing, as I noted earlier, had been thrown together in the middle of a marshy bog in a desolate little corner of Cook County. As the two trains hurtled towards each other that marsh was pumping a translucent haze of ground fog into the early spring evening...not enough to hamper visibility, but just enough to make the scene, as they approached the crossing, downright eerie. 

Even with the ground fog in the vicinity of the crossing, both engineers should have had an unobstructed view for at least a couple of miles in all directions. Engineers on these two lines were bound to have had the mantra 'Check For Cross Traffic' drilled into their heads relentlessly, and all...or at least most...did just that, checking for the tell-tale column of smoke from an oncoming locomotive by day, and the glow of the locomotive' headlight at night. Even though the Michigan Southern train was still a mile or so away from the crossing, Davis and his fireman both had an unobstructed view for at least twice that in all directions, and an oncoming headlight would...or at least should...have been a brilliant pinprick of light piercing the night's darkness, like a low-flying (And slow-moving) shooting star. 

So, in keeping with that mantra, Ed Davis peered out of the picture window on his side of the cab, as his fireman did the same over on the left side of the footplate. Neither saw anything, Davis kept the train at it's cruising speed of about 25 MPH as they rolled towards the crossing...now less than a mile away...but there was something he had no way of knowing. Tom Rackham's Michigan Central freight/immigrant train had reached that same crossing first, and it didn't have a working headlight to warn of it's approach.

Though the Michigan Central train was Westbound, approaching Chicago from the east, when it made the connection with the Illinois Central tracks, it swung north, so it was approaching the crossing itself from the south. Meanwhile, the Michigan Southern train was approaching the crossing from the west, so it was approaching from Rackham's fireman's side...the left side...of the cab. I'm not sure which of them actually noticed Davis' headlight first, but I'd lay bets it was Rackham's fireman. He spotted it, said something like 'Tom...headlight comin!'. Rackham looked across the cab, out of the cab's left side picture window, and saw the Michigan Southern train's headlight hanging above the intersecting track like a bright, displaced...and moving...moon.

Rackham now knew two things...he was fast approaching the diamond crossing, and so was another train. He squinted at the oncoming headlight, guestimating distance and speed, and decided that the distant train was at least a mile and a half away, and that he had plenty of time to clear the crossing.

While Rackham was guestimating speeds and distances, he was also assuming two things. (And we've all heard the old saying about what assuming does to you and me...). As he gazed at Davis' oncoming headlight, he assumed that he had the right of way, and that the other train would stop...and actually, according to that unwritten rule, as he was inbound he did have the right of way. There was one big problem, though. In order for Davis to give him the right of way, he had to know he was there. And order for that to happen, he had to be able to see his train. Which brings us to Rackham's second assumption...he assumed that Davis could see his train, despite the fact that he had no working headlight. 

Rackham's train was rumbling along at somewhere between 12 and 15 miles per hour when it plunged into the thin, misty layer of ground fog generated by the marsh. That layer of fog may have been the reason Rackham eased the throttle back, letting the train's speed drift downward as he neared the 'frog' where the two tracks crossed.

He couldn't see the crossing...remember he had no headlight, plus the ground fog obscured it...but he could feel and hear it as the locomotive's wheels rolled through the frog's flange slots and guardrails, a quick, distinctive little down-up jerk, accompanied by a click-clack-clack-click-clack as the big drive wheels rolled through the frog. and bumped along the guard rails. 

Rackham glanced across the cab, out of his fireman's window as he felt the locomotive roll through the crossing, and for just an instant, the oncoming headlight, blurred by the mist, was aimed right at him...but it was still way off. 'I've got a good four or five minutes' he thought to himself, as his train's speed bled off, until the twenty-four freight cars were barely moving as fast as a man can walk...about 4 miles per hour. He'd overestimated that distance/time ratio by over a mile, and a good three minutes.

The area around Grand Crossing has changed just about 180 degrees in the past 168 or so years,...from a single track diamond crossing in the middle of a marsh miles from civilization to the grade-separated crossing of several major rail lines in the heart of Southside Chicago...that it would be all but useless to try to diagram it on a Satellite image as I usually do. Instead, this time I decided to make an attempt at artwork, and draw a diagram. I also placed a satellite view of the area in the same frame. 

The Michigan Central combo freight/immigrant train, with Thomas Rackham at the throttle and running seven hours late, was on the Illinois Central tracks (Midframe on the map, running from top to bottom), northbound into the city, running without a headlight. The Michigan Southern train, helmed by engineer Ed Davis on the Rock Island tracks (Running from upper left to lower right, diagonally across the map) was eastbound, approaching the crossing at the same time as the immigrant train. Due to the Immigrant train's lack of a headlight, Davis couldn't see the Michigan Central train approaching.

Rackham, however, did see the M.S. train's headlight, but elected to enter the crossing anyway after misjudging both the M.S. train's speed and distance. To make matters worse, after entering the crossing, Rackham slowed to about walking speed...about 4 MPH.

Davis realized that a train was fouling the crossing when Rackham's locomotive threw sparks...seconds later he saw the slow-moving train in the glow from his headlight. He whistled for brakes, but his brakemen barely had time to start spinning the brake wheels before they broadsided one of the immigrant cars, destroying it and wrecking at least one other immigrant car. The Michigan Southern locomotive derailed, and at least three of the Michigan Southern cars...a baggage car and two coaches...derailed and hurtled into the marsh. Eighteen people...all from the immigrant train...died and several others were injured.

*

Ed Davis watched little tufts of ground fog, luminous in the back-wash from the his locomotive's headlight streaking past the cab, letting him know he was approaching the marsh, and therefore, the crossing. He may have backed off of the throttle a notch or so, but even so, they were still moving at between 20 and 25 mph when the unseen Michigan Central locomotive tossed some sparks, despite the screen in it's diamond shaped smoke stack.

Davis' didn't have a single clue anything was amiss until he heard his fireman, looking out of the cab's left-side window and spotting  the sparks, say something like 'Where'd they come from'??  When Davis leaned across the cab to peer out of the left side picture window, and saw a bright orange constellation of displaced, fiery little stars, spreading out and drifting away ahead and to his left, his blood ran cold...there was only one thing that could cause those sparks....

...And then sudden a curse, and a shouted 'Ed!!!!' from his fireman, who was now peering through the cab's small left side front window all but confirmed his fears...Davis grabbed the whistle lanyard and tugged it, blasting the signal for 'Down Brakes!!" even as he turned to gaze through his own front window, looking down the side of the boiler and ahead to see freight cars creeping through the circle of light from his head light, 350, maybe 400 feet...about 10-15 seconds... ahead of them.

As I noted in my post about the Norwalk Bridge Disaster, safety tech...and particularly, brakes...was sorely lacking in 1853 (And for years afterward). Trains had no central braking system, so when the engineer whistled for brakes, the trains' brakemen had to scramble to the roofs of freight cars, or run through passenger cars to spin brake wheels on the ends of the cars, applying the brakes on each car separately. 

This was a maddeningly uncomfortable and dangerous task in normal circumstances, and an all but heartbreakingly hopeless task in an emergency. The Michigan Southern brakeman scrambled when Davis whistled for brakes, but they were at the most, fifteen seconds away from the crossing...and the Michigan Central train.  He barely had time to get his hands on the first car's brake wheel, much less spin it to tighten down the brakes.

In the cab, Davis could see the end of the train...not clearly, but he could tell where the train stopped, and the emptiness of the open prairie started, and that vague line of transition was creeping towards the crossing agonizingly slow. For just a second...more wishful thinking than anything else...he thought that the M.C. train would clear the crossing before they reached it. And in almost that same instant, he realized, with growing horror, that it wouldn't.

Still, he tried desperately to avoid the inevitable, possibly even trying to reverse the locomotive...but even if he did try, there just wasn't enough time for it to be effective. Steam engines have to be completely stopped before they can be reversed (If you've ever seen the movie 'Titanic', you've seen this, when the Titanic's engines are reversed just before she hits the iceberg. Though her engines were hundreds of time bigger than a steam locomotive's cylinders, the procedure for reversing them is very similar in concept). If he did try to reverse, the locomotive's big drivers may have been stopped and sliding, and may have even started spinning in reverse, but this had little effect on the train's speed. The locomotive was still being shoved forward not only by it's own momentum, but also by that of the train it was heading up, so it was still moving at between 20 and 25 MPH when it broadsided the second or third immigrant car, and the impact was absolutely cataclysmic...

If you tossed a ceramic coffee mug up in the air, then hit it as hard as you could with a baseball bat, you'd get pretty much the exact same effect...the wooden immigrant car all but exploded, all but ceasing to exist in a cloud of wood fragments, personal belongings, and bodies. The car's twenty or so occupants were violently ejected, the impact throwing them ahead and to the sides of the onrushing Michigan Southern locomotive, several of them inevitably landing on the track ahead of it. 

The immigrant train's passengers had absolutely no warning, other then hearing the Michigan Southern train's whistle as Davis whistled for brakes, and maybe a fleeting glimpse of it's headlight, before their world literally exploded around them. One second they were snoozing, or talking quietly, or maybe gathering their possessions in anticipation of their much delayed arrival in Chicago, the next second...if they weren't killed outright in the collision... they were tumbling head over heals through the air, then landing hard in the marsh beside the tracks, or far worse, on the track, to suddenly be brutally mauled by the onrushing, locomotive. Eighteen of them would die.

This same impact likely yanked the cars directly ahead and behind the one that got hit violently to the right and off of the track, likely depositing them into the marsh, very probably ripping them apart, or at least tearing the ends off of them as it did so. Most of their occupants also suddenly found themselves tumbling into the dark, muddy water of the marsh, as their ride suddenly came apart around them...one second rocking to the gentle rhythm of the train's motion, the next violently tumbling and splashing into dark, nasty mud, many of them pin-balling off of pieces of the two shattered cars while they were at it. 

The car behind  the struck car also angled off the track, but momentum kept it kept coming, so before it careened into the marsh, it first bounced off of the M.S. locomotive's tender, then slammed into the front end of the M.S. baggage car, shoving it to the left and off of the track.

Davis and his fireman were probably jolted and flung forward when they slammed into the immigrant car as the impact scrubbed some of their speed off, then the front of the locomotive started bouncing and shuddering....the car's iron under-frame, rudimentary as it was, had likely jammed itself beneath the locomotive's forward truck even as it was rolled into a mass of unrecognizably twisted metal. Those four wheels were now bouncing along the ties, the immigrant car's mangled frame screaming against the rails, tossing tossing sparks aside as it was pushed along ahead of the locomotive, running over and mangling any occupants of the car who'd landed on the track. 

Even with it's drivers spinning desperately in reverse, it's front truck off the rails, and the immigrant car's frame jammed beneath it's front end, momentum carried the locomotive through the crossing and at least a couple of hundred feet beyond, shuddering as it's derailed front truck bounced along the ties, steam whistling from the burst seams of the boiler's crushed front end leaving a cumulous cloud of steam in it's wake.

Behind it the baggage car, shoved off of the rails by the last immigrant car, probably uncoupled from the tender as it hurtled off of the track, dragging the first two coaches off the track as well, and threw a wall of muddy water and shattered wood ahead of it as it belly-flopped into the marsh, and slammed hard into the immigrant car that had been ahead of the one hit by the locomotive. This collision stopped it's forward motion, and the passenger car behind it partially telescoped the baggage car as it, too, angled off of the rails, tilting sideways and tearing through the baggage car's end and sidewall, crushing it's own end platform and several feet of it's length before it, too, shuddered to a stop.

The next passenger coach just banged hard into the first coach's crazily tilted end platform, crushing it and smashing the other end of the car, even as it ricocheted off, slewed crazily, and slammed over onto it's side, throwing it's own curtain of muddy water aside as it did so.

The rest of the train would have followed those cars off of the track, except that the coupling between the second and third coaches probably tore loose. Those cars, still intact, jolted to a rough, head-jerking stop, staying on the track, the first intact coach possibly rolling partway through the crossing before it stopped..

Conductor Herbert 'Pop' Whiting was in that first passenger car, possibly standing in the aisle talking to a couple of the passengers, when he suddenly hurtled off of his feet, slamming first into into one of the seats, then to the floor as the car suddenly jerked hard to the left and started, literally, coming apart around him.. Whiting knew they were in the process of derailing, that they had hit something, but for several very loud, very violent seconds all he could do was, literally, hang on for the ride as the car bounced, then slammed down amid the crunch of shattering wood, a soggy splash of muddy water, and the yells and screams of the passengers as they were catapulted from their seats, some of them bouncing off of him in the process.

And then it was over. The rough nightmare ride had only lasted a few seconds, though those seconds seemed to last hours. On top of that, they were now enveloped in pitch black darkness, the only light provided by the stars, weak and shadowy, barely intruding through the windows and gaps in the shattered side walls. 

The car was lit by oil lamps, but by sheer luck either all of them were out, or they had been hurled into the muddy water, preventing an even worse tragedy. The same had happened to the lamps in the shattered immigrant cars, and the same guardian angel apparently kept them from lighting up as well. One of the elements of nearly every early train wreck would be fire, ignited either by the lamps or stoves...they had at least dodged that bullet.

But now he needed light. Whiting could hear moaning all around him, but he couldn't see. He somehow made his way off of the train and the first thing he saw was the overturned second coach...uninjured passengers from the last several cars were swarming over the tilted sides, their lanterns looking like fireflies flitting around the scene. They were already helping the overturned car's occupants climb through the windows and out of the tilted vestibule door on the undamaged end. All seemed relatively uninjured.

 Screams and moans were coming from the first coach, as well as from the wreckage of the immigrant cars,...if he was going to help these other passengers, Whiting knew he needed to be able to see what he was doing. He went in search of a lantern of his own, making his way to the intact cars and probably grabbing a lantern from one of them, He lit it, then quickly made his way back to the wrecked cars, using the light from the lantern to look around the shattered wreck of the first passenger car, wondering as he did how he...or, in fact, anybody...survived the crash. 

Ed Davis had made his way back from the wrecked locomotive by then...ironically, very likely also holding a lantern...and likely ran up on Pop Whiting as he returned to the wrecked cars. Davis first asked Whiting if he was OK, and when Pop, despite his own injuries, answered that he was, Davis said something like 'It's bad Pop...other side of the train's a massacre...'

'We gotta take this one thing at a time...what about our passengers?' He said as he swung the lantern around, letting it's feeble glow sort of light up the scene.  Among the first things they saw was Norwegian passenger J.N. Flesh, who was hanging upside down outside of the left side of the shattered first coach. His foot was entangled in the wrecked car, and he was probably hanging on to the car's frame to keep himself out of the water. Whiting and Davis made their way to him, quickly disentangled his foot, then helped him up. By some luck, Flesh's injuries weren't serious (I'm wondering if he got tangled in the wreckage trying to get out of the car).  

Almost as soon as he finished helping Flesh, Whiting heard two more nearby voices, calling him for help, and swung the light around, searching. It flickered off of the surface of the water, then across two mud-spattered faces. Passengers George Miner and Allen Richmond...both Ohio residents, and both injured far worse than Flesh had been...were in the water, hard by the tracks.  Whiting, probably with the help of Davis and his fireman, pulled the two men out of the water, and laid them on the low embankment supporting the track.

Whiting knew he could do absolutely nothing for them, and then he heard more plaintive moaning and crying. He started walking towards the partially derailed locomotive, pushing aside clumps of grass and splashing through knee deep water as he worked his way around the wreckage of the baggage car, Davis and his fireman following in his wake.  He could see the shadowy form of the tender, itself also tilted crazily to the left from it's collision with the last emigrant car, and he probably hadn't made it halfway to the locomotive before he all but stumbled over either the first body, or the first horribly injured emigrant. 

He and Davis ran up on more as he made his way towards, then around the front end of the locomotive.  Between the two of them, in only five or so minutes, they ran up on over a dozen horribly injured passengers from the emigrant car, and two things quickly became obvious...they were completely overwhelmed, and they needed to get help. Like yesterday.

Whittling started hiking back towards the depot that the M.S. train had just left less than a half hour ago, possibly walking through the undamaged cars to get around the train rather than walking through the marsh, then climbing down and using the lantern to see where he was going, and most importantly, stepping as he walked down the middle of the track, stepping on the ties as they provided the most stable surface, picking his way along at what had to have been a maddeningly slow pace.

If the accident had occurred during the day, and he could have seen where he was going, Pop Whiting could have jogged, and made better time. However, it was night, and a moonless night at that, so he had to pick his way along taking care not to roll his ankle on the ballast gravel, or miss his footing and take a tumble. Injuring himself in a fall would be catastrophic, not only for him, but for the injured passengers at the accident scene.

The depot was about 2 1/2 miles from the accident scene, maybe a forty-five minute walk at a normal walking pace, thirty minutes at an easy jog...but as I noted, it was night, and Whiting was having to take care with his footing. It could have been 90 minutes or so before Pop Whiting made it to the depot.

While bursting through the door to announce the disaster would be an awesome visual, I have a feeling that, injured and just finishing up a 2 1/2 mile hike, it was more like a limping trudge as he pushed the door open, found the station agent, and told him something to the effect of ' Ed Davis just hit an immigrant train...we've got bodies all over the place'.

This was the absolute first anyone had heard of the crash, and people started scrambling...but it wasn't much they could actually do. Details get pretty vague here. The sources I found stated that they returned to the scene with a locomotive, but as to where that locomotive came from and what they did when they got there...?

I think that they probably flagged down the next east bound train, backed it onto a passing siding, uncoupled the locomotive, and headed for the scene...they may not have even taken any cars with them as several of the M.S. passenger cars didn't derail.  Meanwhile someone was sent down track to flag any other oncoming trains so they wouldn't run up on the wreck (The same was done at the scene, probably before Whiting even began his hike, with brakemen heading further east on the Rock Island tracks, and in both directions on the Illinois Central tracks to flag traffic. Each stopped train would then send someone down track behind the train to do the same so another train wouldn't slam into the either the wreck or one of the stopped trains, making a horrible situation even more catastrophic.

If the railroads had telegraph service by then, the Rock Island station agent could have telegraphed the next station west, and had them stop trains, but they absolutely had to get traffic stopped.

With that task taken care of, the quickly thrown together rescue train headed for the scene, probably not moving too fast, because they needed to get stopped themselves before piling into the last car of Ed Davis' train.

Back at the scene, after his locomotive had been suddenly and violently jerked backwards several feet like some huge fish tugging on a giant fly-fisherman's lure, Rackham, his fireman, and the rest of his crew had made their way back to the wrecked cars. His heart had risen to his throat, then sank when the locomotive was jerked to a stop...he knew exactly what had happened, One of the very first things he ran up when he reached the wrecked cars was a young girl, in her teens, holding an obviously dying boy, his head in her lap as she sobbed 'Mein brudder, mein brudder...' A few feet away, a young German mother was holding her dead infant, sobbing and wailing. 

Rackham found Davis, and they quickly went to work. The Immigrant cars were piles of shattered junk, and those piles of junk were hiding who knows how many bodies, and there were moans and sobs on all sides of them. They had to step around several bodies...all of them mangled to some extent...and then one of the passengers from the express train called 'Hey, I've got three kids here!!!!

Davis and Rackham sloshed through muddy water to where a man was lifting the body of one child...a boy of about 10...from the water. Davis took him, and carried him to the embankment, near his locomotive, where the headlight was still illuminating the track. He gently laid the boy on the track, then made his way back, passing Rackham, who had a girl of 7 or 8 in his arms, her long, blond hair streaming mud, her face dark...mud or bruise?...and got back to the spot where the kids had been lying just in time to hear the passenger who'd called to them exclaim 'Oh my dear Lord...' in a hushed sob as he lifted a tiny form from the water...another little boy, this one only about three years old.

'We've got to get these people some help...' Rackham may have said to be told by Ed Davis that his conductor was, even then, hiking back to the Rock Island depot.

That's gonna take a while...' Rackham may have replied, then both engineers may have gotten the same thought almost simultaneously.

'What kind of shape's your engine in?'  Davis asked, to have Rackham reply.  '...I'm good to go...'

'...And you're even already aimed for Chicago...'

Nothing more needed to be said. Rackham and his fireman took off towards their locomotive at a dead run...or as near a dead run as the dark night and unsure footing would allow, Rackham possibly...even probably...telling his fireman to uncouple the rest of the train as they pounded up the track.  Rackham mounted the cab's footplate while the fireman slipped between the tender and the first freight car, yanked the pin out of the old-style link and pin coupling, and tossed it to the ground, where it hit with a bouncing clank. 

The fireman was running along the left side of the tender almost before the pin stopped bouncing and rolling...he mounted the ladder on his side of the cab, shouting 'GO! at Rackham before he was all the way on the cab footplate. As soon as he was in the cab, he yanked the firebox door open and started heaving more wood on the fire.  

Rackham shoved the throttle forward, and the locomotive, relieved of the weight if the train, jumped ahead, accelerating rapidly as it spat puffballs of smoke skyward, making it to Chicago's Illinois Central depot in under half an hour. 

Rackham quickly hunted down the stationmaster and advised him what had happened, and that unnamed individual found a couple of men who were good runners, aimed them towards the homes of two doctors he knew (I'm assuming here, BTW) and had them fetch them.

 While they were accomplishing that, our stationmaster got a locomotive and a passenger car (I'm betting they used the just arrived locomotive from the freight train, already sitting there with steam up), couple them together (They likely had to back back to the scene) and waited. 

It took a while for the messengers to find the two Doctors...Drs. Palmer and Clark by name...but once they finally arrived at the station these two gentlemen, having already been told what was up, quickly boarded the passenger car, bringing whatever equipment they had along, and took seats as Rackham pulled the reversing lever, shoved the throttle forward and started backing towards the wreck site. 

The passengers and train crew at the scene, meanwhile, didn't just stand around doing nothing after Rackham left for Chicago. The most severely injured were moved to the intact passenger cars, where they would be at least a little bit more comfortable  While that was happening, others grabbed scraps of wooden wreckage (There was a lot of it around), piled it on the tracks well away from the wrecked cars, and used the oil lamps to start a pair of bonfires, both for light and warmth. As an added benefit, the fires also marked the scene for Rackham and Pop Whiting's return.

The two doctors arrived first, around midnight...considering the technology of that era and the fact that the wreck occurred at about 10PM, not all that bad a response time. Drs. Porter and Clark were quickly taken to the MS passenger cars, where they began doing what they could for the severely injured.

OK, I know what you're thinking...the injured were then moved to the rescue train, and transported to Chicago, where they were moved to a hospital...but that's not what happened, at least not yet. Instead, while the two Doctors were treating the injured, the uninjured 1st class passengers from the Michigan Southern train were loaded onto the just arrived passenger car, and taken into the city.

Ultimately the injured passengers...and the two doctors...were pulled into Chicago as well. Remember, Pop Whiting and the Rock Island station master returned to the scene with a locomotive, and though it doesn't actually say this anywhere, my bet's they coupled that locomotive to the intact M.S. cars...already loaded with the injured...and backed to the station, then maybe even into Chicago. Once in the city, the injured were, assumedly, transported by wagon to a hospital, or possibly private homes that were quickly converted to makeshift hospitals, which was something that wasn't at all unusual during that era.

But it was still hours before the injured made it to a hospital, and there are absolutely no details as to that part of the operation. Whatever was done, eighteen people were dead...all from the immigrant train...and at least sixty were injured.

A Coroner's Jury was empaneled the very next day, and, after listening to testimony from several parties (And I can't help but think, shaking their heads and making under-their-breath exclamations of disgust), they deliberated for two days, then posted a verdict that dropped the hammer on just about everyone involved. 

Both Davis and Rackham were found guilty of Gross Carelessness and Neglect...Davis for not stopping and giving the inbound Michigan Central Train the right of way, and Rackham for running without a headlight and, knowing that the Michigan Southern train's engineer couldn't see him, not stopping and allowing that train to pass.

Davis, in fact, used that very defense...how the heck could he give the Michigan Central train the right of way if he couldn't see the thing?!? The Jury apparently did not find this to be a mitigating circumstance. 

The jury wasn't finished with Rackham just yet...they also faulted him for not maintaining speed. If he was going to proceed through the crossing, he should have kept his speed up so he could clear the crossing as quickly as possible. Had he done so, proceeding through the crossing at his normal speed of 12-15 MPH rather than slowing to 4MPH, his train just might have cleared the crossing before the Michigan Southern train reached it.

While they were at it, the Coroners Jury also found the conductors of both trains guilty of the same charge, mainly because conductors are considered to be in charge of the train. (The 'Captain Of The Ship Is Responsible' theory). They also let go on the shop foreman in Michigan City as well, slamming him for not repairing the headlight, and declaring him unfit for his position.

While no official record still exists of what...if any...consequences anyone faced, I have a feeling that a couple of people at least found themselves unemployed. It's also a good bet that, as the old saying goes, 'Meetings were held, committees were formed, and memos (And policies) were generated.

And the diamond crossing that was the cause of this whole mess? The sensible thing to do would have been replace it with a bridge, and who knows, that may have even been discussed...but it didn't happen, at least not for half a century or so.

Once the wreckage was cleared, and the tracks repaired (You damn well know the accident tore the tracks up) the infamous diamond crossing stayed in service. Oh, actual written policies as to who had the right of way (Inbound trains) were created, then expanded upon, requiring all trains to stop before preceding through the crossing. The marsh was also drained, dirt-filled, and graded, allowing the small township of Hyde Park Township, with-in whose boundaries the crossing was located, to grow. 

 The area developed rapidly, spawning a thriving community.  These new written policies helped that community grow...remember, they required all trains to stop before preceding through the crossing. So businesses catering to the train crews were built and opened, then a railroad depot was built, and the community...as well as the crossing...continued to grow. The city of Chicago took notice, and annexed Hyde Park Township, along with a good bit of that corner of Cook County, in 1889.

The crossing grew with the two railroads (Rock Island and Illinois Central), and by 1901, The Michigan Southern and Michigan Central had built their own lines, and several other rail lines...including commuter lines...had been built, and all of them seemed to converge in that one little corner of southside Chicago. The Illinois Central had grown to six tracks, crossed, at grade, by the two track Michigan Southern (Which would become part of the huge New York Central System) and the three track Pittsburg, Fort Wayne, and Chicago (Which would ultimately become part of the Pennsylvania Railroad). Thirty separate and distinct diamond crossings with-in yards of each other, crossed by hundreds of trains a day.

BUT Wait...There's more!  There were also a couple of commuter rail lines/street car lines that had to cross all of the tracks, also at grade, adding another hundred or more trains per day to the mix, as well as upping the total number of diamond crossings to around 60 or so. 

To show how heavy traffic over the crossing was, during the 21 day period between Nov 30, 1908 and Dec 21, 1908, 12,279 trains...6,616 passenger trains and 5,663 freight trains...passed through the crossing. That's 584 trains per day. Twenty-four trains per hour, or about one train every two minutes.

At least the crossings were protected by automatic block signals by that time...or at least the main lines were. That didn't happen until the early 1890s (About the time of the Colombian Exhibition) and the commuter lines/trolley lines were, from what I read, never protected by block signals.

Again, it's a miracle that there weren't more catastrophic accidents at the crossing.

Grand Crossing in it's heyday. The tracks running from the lower left corner of the frame to mid frame are the Illinois Central 's tracks, crossing the Pennsylvania R.R's tracks in the foreground, and the Michigan Southern tracks in the background.  Looking at the crossing's lay-out, it's a wonder there weren't far more deaths than there were. Trains being required to stop before preceding through the crossing helped in that respect, at least in it's earlier days, but as the crossing became busier, that requirement was dropped, and reduced speed/flagmen were used. It wasn't protected by block signals until the early '90s

And, even with the written policies, there were still accidents...and deaths. None...miraculously...were as serious as the 1853 collision, and many involved pedestrians or vehicles getting hit by trains at street grade crossings near the 'Grand Crossing' rather than two trains colliding, but accidents were claiming around twenty or so lives annually at the turn of the 20th century, and had been doing so for at least two decades.

Discussions concerning eliminate the crossing had been going on since the early 1890s if not before, and a promise to eliminate the crossing at Grand Crossing as well as numerous street grade crossings 'Within five years' were made a couple of times during that same decade. Unfortunately, the only thing that actually had been accomplished during those multiple half-decade spans of time were discussions and inspection tours of the district by various high-ranking officials. Ironically. it was a profoundly tragic accident during one of these inspection tours that kicked things into gear...sort of.

.

Of all the street grade crossings in the vicinity of Grand Crossing, 76th street was likely the most infamous, both because it was so close to the crossing that it had to cross all of the tracks, and because it was used daily by dozens of school kids going to and from school. Sadly, a couple of those kids would loose their lives at that crossing annually, a fact that was brought to a head in 1902.

That was the year that a special train carrying railroad officials, city officials, and members of the press on an inspection tour of the Grand Crossing District struck and killed a fifteen year old girl on her way to school at 76th street. When, shortly after hearing the whistle screaming a warning, they felt the slow moving train jerk to an unscheduled stop, all of the above piled off to see why it had stopped.  They found the girl's mutilated body trapped beneath the rear set of wheels on the tender, a look of horrified surprise on her face, her books still in her hand. She had apparently been walking across the tracks at 76th street, distracted by teen-girl thoughts, and didn't see the train until the last instant before it hit her. 

The engineer saw her a second or so before the train hit her, laid down on the whistle, and and yanked the brakes into emergency...but it was too late. Even at 10 or so MPH a locomotive pulling a couple of passenger coaches takes 100 or so feet to stop. 

Needless to say, the sight of that young girl beneath the train's wheels helped push a resolution to fix the crossing (Even though that accident had nothing to do with the diamond crossing itself) through city council, and the railroads pledged to have an overpass built to replace the giant multiple-diamond crossing, along with overpasses at various street crossings, with-in five years, at a cost of 1.5 million dollars...just shy of 50 Million in 2021 dollars. 

Chicago City Council's actions went further than a mere resolution...a city ordinance requiring both the grade separation of the huge multi-crossing at Grand Crossing and the elimination of street grade crossings in the district was passed. Quickly, I might add, with little argument against.  The ordinance required the work to be completed with-in five years, later extended to six years. This young girls death, witnessed by railroad and city officials, as well as the Press, helped energize the effort to push this ordinance through.

The Illinois Central started elevating it's tracks above street level, first building temporary wooden trestles to get the tracks over the streets, then replacing the trestles with cast concrete bridges ands earth fill, with the work completed by the end of 1909...this eliminated several road grade crossings. At the same time, the Michigan Southern and Pennsylvania railroads also took similar action in eliminating several road grade crossings in the Grand Crossing district. Sadly, the infamous crossing at 76th street was not among them, as it was hard by the main diamond crossing. (I'm going to take a look at that part of the project in 'Notes')  It would have to wait until the huge Grand Crossing itself was grade-separated.

So...-just how was that project coming along?

 Surprising absolutely no one, when that five year time-frame expired in 1907, absolutely nothing had been done...not a shovel full of dirt had been turned...on the major grade separation at Grand Crossing itself. Completion of that portion of the project was still projected to be five years down the road, and trains were still hitting people, cars, and occasionally each other, and as a result, the crossing was still claiming lives.

The reasons for the delay would be pretty familiar, even today, There were disagreements on which line was actually going to elevate it's tracks, and just where the money to do all of this would come from. 

There wasn't really another defining moment, or at least one I could find. Everything just finally came together sometime in 1911, and one of the biggest public infrastructure projects ever undertaken in Chicago up to that time was finally under way.

The Michigan Southern tracks, as well as the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne, and Chicago tracks were elevated to cross the Illinois Central tracks on a bridge, while twenty-seven street grade crossings on all of the lines...including the Illinois Central...were eliminated, with the streets going beneath the tracks

The Rock Island/MS (By then, New York Central)/Pennsylvania rail lines were rerouted and elevated at Grand Crossing and placed on a temporary wooden trestle while more modern (And permanent) concrete and steel plate girder bridges were built. The lines, of course, then had to be shifted to the permanent bridges. While they were at it, the 75th Street, infamous 76th Street, South Chicago Ave, and Woodward Ave road grade crossings were eliminated. Frustrations likely abounded for citizens, railroad workers, and officials alike for a couple of years...but the end result was worth the effort.

Grand crossing shortly after the grade separation project was completed. The Pennsylvania's and Michigan Southern's tracks crossed the Illinois Central tracks on the bridge. The bridge pictured was actually a temporary trestle, which would be replaced by a more modern bridge with-in three years.

Also note 76th Street, labeled right midframe, going beneath the Michigan Southern/Pennsylvania tracks as well as the Illinois Central tracks. While the MS/Pennsy tracks crossed the street on a conventional bridge, 76th Street was actually lowered to get it under the I.C. tracks, while the I.C was also raised several feet and placed on earth fill, crossing 76th Street on a bridge. 75th Street was also handled the same way on the other side of the main crossing,.

A Pennsylvania R.R passenger train crosses the Illinois Central tracks at Grand Crossing, shortly after the grade separation  project was completed. This is actually a temporary trestle...it was replaced by a more modern plate girder bridge by 1915.

The crossing as it appears today, with the Chicago Skyway (I-90) paralleling the former Rock Island/New York Central/Pennsylvania/ Michigan Southern...all now either CSX or Norfolk Southern...tracks as they cross the former Illinois Central, now Canadian National, tracks.

The giant multiple diamond that gave the community it's name was finally gone, but the name Grand Crossing lived on. That particular neighborhood, now inside the Chicago City Limits by ten miles in all directions, is, to this day, still known as Grand Crossing. Grand crossing, in fact, is the name of two overlapping neighborhoods. Grand Crossing itself occupies an area of about 2 square miles, bordered by E. 67th Street to the north, East 87th Street, The Illinois Central tracks, and East 83rd Street to the south, 1600 East to the east, and South Cottage Grove Ave to the West, with the still extant, and very active elevated crossing just about smack dab in the center of the area, near East 76th Street and The Chicago Skyway (I-90)

A map showing the two Grand Crossings...Grand Crossing and Greater Grand Crossing. The shaded area indicates the area where the two neighborhoods overlap.

A map of Chicago and environs there-of, showing the location of  the actual railroad crossing at Grand Crossing within the city. Now within the City of Chicago by miles in all directions, the crossing was in a marshy, isolated corner of Cook County a couple of miles south of the city limits in 1853

Then you have Greater Grand Crossing, generally to the West of Grand Crossing, with a good sized hunk of it's area...from South Cottage Grove Ave to the former Illinois Central, now Canadian Northern tracks...overlapping Grand Crossing for several square blocks bordered roughly by the Illinois Central tracks to the east, South Cottage Gove Ave to the West, E 67th Street to the North, and E 79th Street to the south. Both Grand Crossings are densely populated, active, and bustling working class neighborhood, loaded with families and kids, multi-cultural restaurants, hundreds of successful small businesses, 14 schools, one big park (Grand crossing Park), and a very definite sense of community. The famed crossing that lent it's name to the area is still the centerpiece of the neighborhood, with the elevated tracks now on a more modern, plate girder and concrete span.

The 2021 versions of both the neighborhood and the crossing are whole worlds away from their 1853 form, and I cant help but wonder if any of the neighborhood's 33,000 or so residents know of the crossing's deadly history...then I realize that they most likely don't. Deadly as the wreck was, it's just a small bookmark in the history of a city that's had more than it's share of both disaster and shenanigans over the past couple of hundred years. 

Even among disasters, the Grand Crossing Collision kind of got pushed back into the wings, so to speak, and it's hard earned claim...unhappy though it may be...to being the nation's very first rail disaster got usurped by the Norwalk disaster only two weeks later.  

Not many people have heard of  this one. Hopefully, even if only one other person learns about it, this post will help change that.

<***>NOTES, AND LINKS, AND STUFF<***>

Finally...for the first time in a couple of years...one that didn't take me most of a year to write!!

This one kind of came in out of left field. Remember, at the beginning of this post, when I wrote that lot's of people...even some serious rail fans and history buffs...weren't aware of this one? I was one of them. Actually I'd heard vague mention of an immigrant train getting broadsided sometime before the Civil War, but I didn't know the timing, location, or, indeed, any of the other details about the accident. Until after I'd already posted the Norwalk Bridge disaster, while I was researching something else entirely.

This really put me in a quandary, because I had already posted that the Norwalk disaster was, well, the first major train wreck. Then when I started researching the Grand Crossing crash, I realized that (A) it was actually the nation's first major train wreck, (B) it preceded the much better known Norwalk disaster by only two weeks, and (C) that the Media all but abandoning coverage of the Grand Crossing accident in favor of the Norwalk disaster was very likely the reason...or at least a big part of the reason...why the latter accident was all but forgotten. So I decided I had to fix my error as quickly as possible, and shed some light on the Grand Crossing accident while I was at it.

I was lucky in one respect, though...while the ol' Google-machine didn't reveal many sources of info about the accident, the ones it did give me were good sources, chock full of little details, such as Pop Whiting's hike for help, and the clandestine crossing installation that, ultimately, caused the accident in the first place (Really,...that couldn't have happened that way anywhere but Chicago!)

Of course (And I've very much gotten used to this, especially in incidents that occurred 175 years ago...heck, it adds a challenge), a lot of details weren't included. We have no way of knowing exactly what went on in the immediate aftermath of the collision. Oh, those articles gave me some of the details, some pretty important ones at that, but we have no way of knowing what actual reactions and conversations took place, so, as always, I had to write those parts as I thought they might have happened.

I hope I got close...or at least made it believable, and, as always, I hope I made it readable and educational while I was at it. Also, any errors in this thing are mine and mine alone, 

On to the notes!

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It's unfortunate that the Grand Crossing collision has fallen off of the radar on several levels, and the biggie, of course, is the collision's 18 victims, who've been all but forgotten. There isn't even a list of the victims' names, much less any kind of  a memorial to honor them, anywhere...not even one of those State historical markers you find along the highway (Trust me, I searched). A plaque dedicated to the victims did once exist, affixed to the wall of a railroad building near the crossing, until sometime in the middle of the 20th Century. Unfortunately, it was lost when when the building was torn down. 

Likely the only memorials of any kind that still exist are the tomb stones at their graves, now likely long faded to unreadability, if they ever existed at all.

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Apparently, being the architect of the 'frog war' that ultimately lead to the wreck didn't hurt Roswell Mason's political career any in the least. Fifteen years after the disaster, Mason ran for Mayor of Chicago on the Citizen's Party ticket, and won, serving in that office from 1869-1871.

His stint as The Windy City's mayor wasn't what you'd call uneventful, either...it was during his tenure as Mayor that The Great Chicago Fire occurred, and he became notable for placing the city under Martial Law during the fire.

He was remembered fondly enough for the City to name an elementary school after him, (Roswell Mason Elementary School, 4217 W. 18th Street) and also had an entire town...the tiny town of  Mason, Illinois, 225 miles south of Chicago and 319 souls strong...was named in his honor. Interestingly, Mason, founded in 1860, was named for the I.C. chief engineer well before his stint as Mayor. The Illinois Central (Now Canadian National) runs right through the center of town, and was likely the town's lifeblood in the mid 19th Century, so I can't help but think that his affiliation with the railroad had a bit to do with the naming of the town.

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Mason wasn't the only person associated with Grand Crossing's early years to have a town named after him.  The town of Whiting, Indiana, two miles or so southeast of the Chicago line, and eight miles southeast of Grand Crossing, was named for Pop Whiting. The town was founded in 1871, incorporated in 1895, and has a present day population of just shy of 4800 people.

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Frog wars were actually pretty common back during the last quarter or so of the 19th Century, as this list

shows, and interestingly, the Grand Crossing frog war is the first one that occurred. (And, again the only one that ultimately resulted in a major disaster).

These disputes were actually kind of inevitable during that era...railroads were expanding exponentially, laying thousands of miles of new track per year, and it stands to reason that two (And in one case, three) roads would want to occupy the exact same place at the exact same time. A dozen or so of these disputes led to actual frog wars.

It's actually kind of amazing that this type of dispute didn't happen more often in the early days of railroading than it did, because rail lines cross each other on a regular basis. By the end of the first decade of the 20th Century, when one railroad needed to cross the right of way of another, rather than staging a long, drawn out 'Frog War', the two roads would let their legal departments and management teams hash out the details. 

By that time (And well before, in fact) almost all new railroad construction that required one rail line to cross another utilized a bridge to do so rather than at-grade diamond crossings.

There was a good multiple example of this right in my adopted home town of Chester, Va, which was once served by no fewer than four railroads...the Atlantic Coast Line, The Seaboard, a narrow gauge line named the Tidewater and Western, and the electric interurban line that ran between South Richmond and Petersburg. For about a decade and a half, all four lines were in operation at the same time.

The Seaboard tracks crossed both the interurban tracks and the ACL tracks about 3/4 of a mile north of Chester, and the ACL tracks were crossed by the interurban tracks and the Tidewater and Western tracks just about smack dab in the middle of town. All of these crossings were on bridges, all of which are now long gone. Only the ACL tracks...now part of CSX...remain, though several of the bridge abutments still stand.

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Several street grade crossings were eliminated at about the same time the diamond crossing was grade-separated, and most of them were done in the conventional way...the rail line was elevated to cross the street on an overpass. Several of the crossings, however, had to be handled differently, 75th Street and 76th Street in particular, due to their proximity to the diamond. Both streets crossed all of the tracks. The Illinois Central crossings of the streets were eliminated first, in a pretty unconventional manner...the streets were lowered. The IC tracks couldn't be raised but so much because of the soon-to-be-started grade separation, so the streets were dug out and depressed a good 10 feet or so, while the I.C. tracks were raised three or four feet on earth fill, crossing  the streets on a bridge.  The I.C. crossing at South Chicago Ave was handled similarly. The IC/CN bridges over these streets are extremely low clearance.

The MS/NYC/PRR tracks were raised and crossed 75th and 76th streets on conventional bridges when the diamond crossing was grade separated.

75th Street, approaching the Canadian National...formerly Illinois Central...bridge in Grand Crossing. It's very easy to see how the street was lowered here. 76th Street was handled identically, though it's not quite as easy to see the grade leading to the bridge there. Clearance above the roadway is 13'7".

<***>

Grand Crossing, in it's latter days, was one of the largest, busiest, and most dangerous multiple diamond crossings in the U.S., if not the world, but it wasn't the only multiple track diamond crossing in U.S. by far. Many have been eliminated, either by grade separation, or abandoning lines, but a few sill exist, and one of them is in Chicago, just a few miles northwest of Grand Crossing.

This one is in Brighton Park and had the distinction of being one of the last such diamond crossing in the U.S. controlled by manual semaphore signals. The manual signals, controlled by big levers in a wooden watchman's shack, were in operation until 2007, and harked back to the steam era. 

The crossing, with Canadian National (Formally Illinois Central) tracks crossing the Norfolk Southern, is still active, and features ten separate diamond crossings. It's located near South Archer Ave and South Western Ave. The semaphores and the signalman's shack are now long gone...the crossing's now controlled by automatic interlocking and more modern signaling. The semaphores were removed and sent to a museum, and the shack was also supposed to go to a museum, but burned before it could be moved.

Illinois Central #6050 pulls a freight across the CSX and Norfolk Southern tracks at Brighton Park Crossing during the Summer of 1996. This was the last manually controlled diamond crossing in the U.S., and remained so until 2007. The manually controlled semaphore signals were operated from the small frame cabin on the left side of the frame. BIG manual levers inside the cabin pushed/pulled rods that ran through pipes to the semaphore masts. From what I read, it took a bit of muscle to operate them.

All trains were required to stop before preceding, and occasionally at night, a train crew would have to make the trek over to the cabin to wake the operator up so he could clear them to precede through the crossing. This all came to an end in July 2007, when new automated signals were installed, and the crossings themselves were rebuilt. Ultimately, the crossing is going to be replaced with a bridge (Canadian National, crossing the CSX/NS tracks) but that project is in the talking but unfunded stage as I type this. 

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Another multiple diamond crossing that still exists, in a far simpler form than when it was originally built, is located in Memphis Tennessee, just south of Memphis' Central Rail Station, and immediately south of the I.C. bridge over Carolina Ave, between S. Main Street and Florida Ave.. Ironically, one of the railroads that utilizes this crossing is the Illinois Central.

In it's Heyday, the I.C. main line was four tracks, and it crossed six tracks operated by various rail lines operating into Memphis. (Four tracks crossing six....hmmmm...sound familiar?) This made Memphis' multiple crossing pretty much the same size as Grand Crossing, but, apparently, this particular crossing never produced either the controversy or the carnage that Grand Crossing did.

I have my theories on why. Memphis' crossing was developed well after Grand Crossing was, there was probably much more cooperation between rail lines in the crossing's early years, policies and procedures were likely in place as soon as the crossing was completed and evolved with the crossing, traffic control technology had evolved greatly by the time the Memphis crossing was fully developed, and I have a feeling that a good bit of plain long ol' good luck was also in play.

That crossing still exists, but has far fewer tracks these days, with the I.C.'s single line crossing four tracks. 

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None of the rail lines that once crossed each other at Grand Crossing exist any more, at least not under their original name...here's a real quick coin-pocket summery of the rise and fall of all four lines. I've included links to detailed histories of all four lines in 'Links'

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The Illinois Central lasted the longest...the line was chartered in 1836, though construction didn't start until 1850. The line merged with the Gulf, Mobile, and Ohio Railroad in 1972 to become the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad, only to sell off that portion of it's route in 1988, and once again become simply the Illinois Central. 

Then, in 1998 the struggling railroad was purchased by the Canadian National Railroad, and the name 'Illinois Central' was dropped, though some former Illinois Central locomotives retained their I.C. paint schemes.

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The Rock Island Railroad ( Officially the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific ) was incorporated in 1847, and the first rail was laid in 1851, with the first train running in October 1852. The line was hugely successful until the mid-20th Century, when it began a slow, steady decline. After several failed merger attempts, and a major strike, the Rock Island ceased operations in 1980, with much of it's former trackage being bought by The Union Pacific Railroad.

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The Michigan Central Railroad began operations in 1831 as the Detroit and St Joseph Railroad, a venture that was less than successful. The Line was bailed out by the state of Michigan in 1837, and renamed The central Railroad of Michigan, shortened all but inevitably to 'Michigan Central.

The Michigan Central was also a very successful railroad during the latter end of the 19th Century, became an independent subsidiary of the humongous New York Central system in 1878, and was merged completely into the New York Central system in 1916, though the 'Michigan Central' name didn't completely disappear until the 1950s.

Most of the former NYC/MS trackage that is still active today is owned by CSX. including the line at Grand Crossing.

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The Michigan Southern Railroad also combined with the New York Central system, and therefore also became part of CSX...and CSX found itself with redundant trackage...I believe the former MS/NYC/CSX track at Grand crossing was pulled up, so not only has the Michigan Southern disappeared from Grand Crossing, the former MS track is gone as well.

<***>LINKS<***>

I sort of figured that, research wise, I'd be behind the eight-ball bigtime on this one right from the git-go. I mean, the crash occurred almost 170 years ago, isn't all that well known, and it doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. 

Happily, I ended up being pleasantly surprised. While there aren't many articles of any kind out there about the crash, the few I did find were high quality, well written articles that were chock full of good information. Better yet, a couple of them were located in blogs that were loaded with other interesting articles and pages, the kind that you can lay on the munchies and loose yourself in for a few hours on a rainy or wintry day.

So, I'm going to do something that's a rarity for this section of my posts...post all of the links I found. I'm also going to include links to a few articles about the history of the four railroads involved in the Frog War and the crash.

So without further ado...on to the links!

https://tinyurl.com/da7puhp9     Article about the Frog War that ultimately caused the collision, from the awesome blog 'Forgotten Railways, Roads, and Places'. A concise and interesting article that includes the text of a period newspaper article about the collision. 

 The blog itself is also pretty awesome, choc full of articles about forgotten, abandoned right of ways...you can definitely loose yourself very pleasantly for an afternoon or two reading it.

https://chicagology.com/grandjunction/   This is probably the best article of the bunch, from the truly awesome blog 'Chicagolgy'. The article includes excerpt from numerous newspaper and magazine articles about both the crash and the grade separation project, going  into great detail about the accident and deep detail about the grade separation plan that ultimately eliminated both the huge multi-track crossing at Grand Crossing as well as road grade crossings in the area.

This blog itself is  beyond awesome and a must for anyone who's a fan of the Windy City's tumultuous history. You can loose yourself for days in this one!

https://industrialscenery.blogspot.com/2014/10/railroad-crossing-war.html   An interesting article from the blog 'Industrial History' that goes into some detail about both the Frog War and the grade separation project. This blog contains loads of articles about Chicago's railroad infrastructure. The linked article about Brighton Park crossing also came from this blog

https://www.wrhistoricalsociety.com/pop-whiting-railroad-accident A good human interest story always adds to any post. Here's the story of Pop Whiting's role in the Grand Crossing Collision, from an article on the Whiting-Robertsdale Historical Society's website and blog. This article goes into a good bit of detail about the collision, and Pop Whiting's role in the aftermath. 

The Four Original Railroads

 

https://www.american-rails.com/illinois.html   A nice little site featuring a concise history of the Illinois Central, plus a boat-load of interesting facts about the line and it's operations and famous trains. Includes timetables and locomotive rosters. American Rails is an awesome site in general, chock full of interesting facts and history of classic American railroads. A must for the railfan.

https://www.american-rails.com/crip.html  History of the Rock Island Line from the same site. Just as good as the I.C> page. Also features the lyrics of the classic folk song 'Rock Island Line, as well as  a list of artists who covered it (There were many).

http://www.michiganrailroads.com/railroads-in-history/464-m/3841-michigan-central-railroad  'Michigan Railroad's page for the Michigan Central. Awesome page and site! (But no page about the Michigan Southern.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Shore_and_Michigan_Southern_Railway   Michigan Southern's Wiki Page. Best I could do for the M.S.