Ashtabula River Railroad Disaster - Investigations

Investigations

The following day an investigative coroner's jury, made up of six men, were appointed. Their investigation was to take 68 days.

The Ashtabula bridge designer, Amasa Stone, was the President of the Lake Shore Michigan Southern Railway – Cleveland and Erie Division from 1856 to 1867. taking a well-established wooden bridge pattern (the Howe Truss) and adapting it as the pattern for an all iron bridge. Built in 1865 to span 165 feet (50 m), the engineer employed to draft and construct it resigned after saying the braces were too small. The Railroad's Engineer in Charge, Charles Collins, saw it as an 'experiment', leaving matters to the president. The coroner's jury report strongly criticized the design of bridge as the failure of one part led to its collapse. Bridge members, instead of being fastened, rested on each other. The report also noted an inspection by a competent bridge engineer during the eleven years the railroad had used the bridge would have spotted these defects. The jury also criticized the way the trains had been heated and censured the Ashtabula Chief Fireman for failing to attempt to put out the fire.

The State Legislature of Ohio appointed engineers to look at the use of iron for the bridge, then a new material, and they concluded that the material had no inherent defect. Days after testifying to the State Legislature Committee, Collins was found dead in his bedroom of a gunshot wound to the head. Having tendered his resignation to the Board of Directors the previous Monday, and been refused, Collins was believed to have committed suicide out of grief and feeling partially responsible for the tragic accident. However, a police report at the time suggested the wound had not been self-inflicted, and documents discovered in 2001 and an examination of Collins' skull suggest that he had indeed been murdered.

Amasa Stone committed suicide seven years later after experiencing financial difficulties with some foundries he had interests in, suffering from severe ulcers that kept him from sleeping and scorn from the public over the disaster.

Some recent authors have attributed the accident to fatigue of the cast iron lug pieces which were used to anchor the wrought iron bars of the truss together. Many were poorly made, and needed shims of metal inserted to hold the bars in place.