Nostalgia & History > Milwaukee Head on At Lyons, Ia 1951

Here is a photo of head on collision between Milwaukee Road train #165 and Train #86 on January 18, 1951 at Lyons, IA(north of Clinton). The L2B, with Johnny Lexsa as the engineer, was on #165, while the diesels with Harry "Groucho" Keller at the throttle, were on #86. Fortunately no one was killed. 165 was going in the hole to meet 86, and were trying to get in before 86 got there. Normally it was the case for 86 to run late, but not this day.

Credit retired Milwaukee engineer R.A.Petersen, who fired for both men, and believe it or not, got bumped off the firemans job working with Keller a few days before the accident.

MILW86A

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Now there's a snoot full of iron.

How weird, my uncle took me to see this wreck when I was 7 years old. He took several pictures which I had until a house fire in 1992. Very lucky there were no deaths. A few years ago 2 men were killed in Clinton and they were in a "safety cab" and they were going at restricted speed.

I knew both of them guys that got killed at Clinton back in 1999. It happened about a month after I quit the IMRL. Their names were Carl Finzel (engineer) and Arnie Roth (Asst. Engineer) They were departing Clinton on a UP stack train that was running between Clinton and Kansas City over the IMRL and they rear ended the BNSF Clinton local just behind the UP yard office at Clinton by the Sethness plant. I had the priveledge to work with both of them quit often up in Dubuque as they were both ex Milwaukee Dubuque Division employees. Both had nearly 40 years experiance and were not that far retirement. Both were very good railroaders. Very unfortionate that had to happen.