The wreck of the Lake Shore Limited took place on the Gulf Curve at Little Falls, NY. I was just over five months old, so have no recollection of it, other than the publicity that it got for our little town. The train entered the curve at about 59 mph, well over the 45 speed limit for the curve. There was a road foreman in the cab, and no one actually knows who or what took place, but apparently the throttle was closed allowing slack to run in and throw J-1e Hudson across a couple of rails into a rock wall. The fireman was killed, and the engineer was pinned in the cab, and died after a few hours of trying to extricate him. 31 passengers were killed and the main line was blocked big time. Terrible wreck, April 19, 1940.
That was terrible. It's puzzling that 59 mph could have caused such a disaster because the curve looks long and smooth. Of course that could be an illusion caused by the camera. Jim, you posted a thread describing the curve realignment after the wreck, so obviously it was considered too tight beforehand.
I am pretty sure he was banned from any more cab rides, but he survived and lived to be over 100. A railfan friend from Albany, NY sent me his obituary and it was probably less than 10 years ago.
Hank, I think I posted this in the curve realignment thread, but I will put it up again. Aerial view of both the old curve and the new alignment. That old one was pretty sharp considering that NYC passenger trains on the Mohawk Division were traveling very fast to make their schedules. You can see from the photo that Roger posted how those heavyweight cars got ripped apart in the wreck, no wonder so many died.
Jim, thanks. The tightness of the old curve is quite severe when seen from the air, not evident in Roger's photo. It's easy to see why the LSL lost it, even at only 59 mph.
Had they not closed the throttle causing the slack to run in, maybe it could have made it around the curve. Then maybe not.
Ken, yes, a great deal of superelevation. Somewhere among all the research stuff I did for this, I have the actual numbers and those for the curve radius as well. And Russell, among the conclusions in the wreck report is the fact that if power was left on, the train most likely would have made it around the curve just fine.
