Eastern Railroad Discussion > Penn Central, OV-8 drawbridge collision- Cleveland, Oh

Does anyone have the skinny on the ugly PC wreck of train "OV-8" that occured at the drawbridge in Cleveland near the Flats around 1974? I saw a photo in an old "Trains" magazine of a clean EMD frame (i.e. no cab, trucks, carbody, prime mover, etc.) hanging out over the water and the remains of two locomtives telescoped into the counter-weight.

What happened? Obviously someone failed to stop, but more details would be interesting.

Thanks,

Eric

I visited the site the day of the accident. official cause given was that the crew fell asleep. some railroaders to this day blame signal failure. Both units were scrapped at the accident scene. JCB

I thought I had read about a radio comment "You can highball right along, OV-8", by the bridge op. Trains had a follow up to the photo, but it was later on.

Have an ex PC, Conrail guy working for me with pictures and says it was signal failure. the signal man was fired. ( He worked at Colinwood) Still is buddy\'s with current operator.

If it\'s the same incident, I have the Trains magazine that had the followup piece. In that account, the bridge tender told the crew to "Highball right along", and then realized that he had a vessel waiting to pass under the bridge. He raised the bridge, and the train slammed into the counterweight. The frame was cleaned off, and shot into the river, narrowly missing the ship, which was just clearing the bridge. The article mentioned that the crew may have given more credence to the operator\'s instructions on the radio, than they did to any signals. I\'ll try and look this up tonight to confirm if it is the same accident.

I remember this wreck happening very well and the story, as I recall it, was that the crew, who had gotten on the train in Bellefontaine, OH, was an old head engineer and a brand new fireman, whose father, and I\'m stretching here, was a PC trainmaster. The engineer, as the story goes, was known for taking chances, but plenty of those old guys did it on a daily basis, and when the operator at the bridge told him to "highball", that was all he needed to hear.

The other thing that I recall about this is that the head brakeman wasn\'t on the train. For some reason, he didn\'t show up on time in Bellefontaine and the crew went without him and thought they would cover for him. The story has it that PC fired him for being absent from duty, a small price to pay.