Nostalgia & History > One Heck of a Milwaukee Road Wreck Picture

This photograph is from the Minnesota Historical Society's Online Collection:

Freight train coming from Chicago sideswiped a freight train pulling out on the main line, Milwaukee Railroad, Red Wing [Minn.].
Creation Photographer: Bull, Russell, Minneapolis Tribune
Dates Content: 1945
ID Number HE6.5 p7


Enjoy,
Mary Bernard

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Looks like a train sped into a yard and really caused a mess. Any details?

Ohhhh! That is SO gross.

There appears to be a westbound L-3 2-8-2 in the foreground, and an L-2 2-8-2 in the back. But. there's the cab of another locomotive beside the L-3's tender. Where's the rest of THAT engine?

-John

LarryDoyle Wrote:
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> Ohhhh! That is SO gross.
>
> There appears to be a westbound L-3 2-8-2 in the
> foreground, and an L-2 2-8-2 in the back. But.
> there's the cab of another locomotive beside the
> L-3's tender. Where's the rest of THAT engine?
>
> -John

I think what you see is a portion of the L-3's tender peeled back and not another locomotive's cab. Definitely a mess but it looks like the crews should have been okay.

Absolutely, that is no locomotive cab. Tender opened up by cars ramming from behind.

On further study, I agree it's not a cab. But, I don't think it's part of a tender, either. I now think it's part of the roof of the reefer behind the tender, and what looked at first to me as a cab window is an ice hatch.

-John

I wonder if the livestock cars were empties ....

Will MacKenzie
Dundas, ON

LarryDoyle Wrote:
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> Ohhhh! That is SO gross.

I think the gross part would be cleaning up those stock cars if they had any stock in them.
On the other hand, at the apparent temperature, they could just wait half a day and take it out frozen.

As best I can tell blowing up the image, the back half the tender is bent off to the right in the picture against the side of a box car, and the thing to the left is the end of a reefer (I think) with side ice hatches.

http://specialcollection.dotlibrary.dot.gov/Document?db=DOT-RAILROAD&query=(select+2873) I am pretty sure this is the ICC Wreck report

lwilton Wrote:
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> As best I can tell blowing up the image, the back
> half the tender is bent off to the right in the
> picture against the side of a box car, and the
> thing to the left is the end of a reefer (I think)
> with side ice hatches.


That is what I see also, Loren.


V

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