Ashtabula River Railroad Disaster - Bridge Collapse and Fire

Bridge Collapse and Fire

The Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway Train No. 5, The Pacific Express, left Erie, Pennsylvania, on the afternoon of December 29, 1876 in deep snow. Two locomotives, "Socrates" and "Columbia", were hauling 11 railcars, including two express cars, two baggage cars, one smoking car, two passenger cars, three sleeping cars and a caboose, that carried 159 passengers. At about 7:30 pm the train was crossing over the Ashtabula River about 1,000 feet (300 m) from the railroad station at Ashtabula, Ohio when the bridge gave way beneath it. The lead locomotive made it across the bridge, while the second locomotive and the rest of the train the train plunged 76 feet (23 m) into the water. Some cars landed in an upright position. The wooden cars were set alight by the heating stoves and lamps and soon small, localized fires became an inferno.

Of 159 passengers and crew on board that night, 92 were killed or died later from injuries, and included the gospel singer and hymn-writer Philip Bliss and his wife. Forty-eight of the fatalities were unrecognizable or consumed in the flames. Sixty-four people were injured.