Steam & Excursion > When A Steamer Exploded, It Was Big News

This is in reference to LoggerHogger's earlier post from this morning: CLICK HERE

Southern Pacific Cab Forward #4199 exploded on May third, 1941.  The next day, the story hit the papers.

1. The front page of the Santa Cruz Sentinal from May 4, 1941

2. The spread appearing in the Oakland Tribune, May 4, 1941

3. This photo appeared in the San Francisco Examiner, also on May fourth.

More to come...

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

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These three clippings show the reporting on May fourth, 1941.  The first two are from the San Francisco Examiner, while the third is from the Santa Cruz Sentinal.

More to come...

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

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These three images are clippings from the front page of the Santa Cruz Sentinal.  The third is a closeup look at the demolished crown sheet, seen in the distance in the photo posted by LoggerHogger.

In this era of information archived online, it's amazaing what can be found fairly quickly.  These images were archived at Newspapers.com.

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

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In 1947 a T&P 2-10-4 # 616 blew up west of Odessa Tx sending the boiler several hundred feet. It was in a lot of Tx newspapers with a picture of the running gear only resting on the rails which had been pushed down several inches.

tomstp Wrote:
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> In 1947 a T&P 2-10-4 # 616 blew up west of Odessa
> Tx sending the boiler several hundred feet. It was
> in a lot of Tx newspapers with a picture of the
> running gear only resting on the rails which had
> been pushed down several inches.

Found it.  Ran a search for "1947 Texas & Pacific boiler explosion" and came up with multiple hits.  I save an entire page as a JPEG, crop it to order and lighten it as needed.

This page from the Odessa American published the next day was the only one I found that had photos.  Most papers ran the same Associated Press article, and the AP story ran as far away as Allentown, Pennsylvania.

The explosion happened on November 23, 1947.

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/18 12:38 by MaryMcPherson.

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Mary,

Thanks for finding and posting the news articles.  This really adds to the story.

Martin

The very same day that California papers were reporting the explosion of Southern Pacific #4199, the Clarion Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi, had this on its front page.  That's a Lima 2-8-4 that stubbed its toe.

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

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I remember the picture was in the Abilene Reporter News which was the paper we got in our home town of Eastland.  

This is a picture of the same   T&P engine # 616 as it was rolled out of the Marshall Tx shop in March 1948 only  9 months after the explosion.  It was a greatly changed engine receiving a  delta trailing truck (instead of Lima trailing truck),  high speed booster, all roller bearings, boxpok drivers, new cast frame and cylinders. It was a high speed good riding engine but  F-7's flooded the roster and  by Aug 1951 it was retired  hardly justifying such a rebuild.  Acutally the head steam man at the  T&P had  said with all the improvements made it could do anything a diesel could do in pressing the program forward.  However, it proved to  equal only to two F-7's and the T&P was running 3,4, and 5 unit F7's. And, diesels would make a Ft Worth - El Paso run for a thousand dollars less per train.  That alone sealed all steams fate.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/18 18:02 by tomstp.

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Any photos of the 4199 after the rebuild?  Hard to imagine that this could be put back together, but they did amazing things in those shops.

Steve

Interesting stuff!
Up here in Dutch Flat (Donner Pass) we lost our depot when a cab forward blew up in front of it. 
The depot was never rebuild.
SR

4199 was indeed rebuilt after this accident. I have been gathering newspaper articles and photos for several years with the intent to write an article for the SPH&TS Trainline magazine. I have a photo of the 4199 two days before the incident in Los Angeles, and a photo of it after it was rebuilt that I will include in the article.

Dave
 

Just curious, obviously these were all boiler explosions due to the superheated water instantly flashing
to steam upon any breech in the boiler. Was this almost always caused by inattention to
the water level, or was metal fatigue / staybolt failure sometimes a proven cause?
George Andrassy
 

Auburnrail Wrote:
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> Just curious, obviously these were all boiler
> explosions due to the superheated water instantly
> flashing
> to steam upon any breech in the boiler. Was this
> almost always caused by inattention to
> the water level, or was metal fatigue / staybolt
> failure sometimes a proven cause?
> George Andrassy
>  

Failure of the metal was a common cause in the days before metalurgy was better understood; particularly in the 19th Century.  Once the science progressed and regulation advanced with it such explosions became infrequent.

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions