Nostalgia & History > mFile: GN wreck: where, when?

Looking for help on this one .....

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I checked some ICC accident reports. I found a report where train 27 and 28 were wrecked. It is ICC 3458 Accident Report. It happen at Fort Belknap, MT-April 4, 1952. These two trains handled a lot of mail and express. However, this photo can not be from that derailment. You can see freight cars had been derailed. I would think that this photo would be dated between 1960 to 1966. I think the mail trains had been renumbered to 33 and 34 during this era.

I think that looking around the country side, this has to be in Minnesota. It sure isn't Montana. The auto's and semi's have the appearance of 1960-1966.

I found that it is strange that there is no accident report listed during the time period 1960-1966.

You can tell there is a lot of passenger head-end equipment on this passenger train.

Any one living up in eastern North Dakota or Minnesota remembers this wreck?

I wish that I could give you better light for this wreck, Vince.

Gary A. Rich
Aurora, CO

My guess it is probably this one, westbound Western Star at Wayzata, MN (just west of Minneapolis).

http://gnarchive.com/incidents/1964_wayzata_mn/wayzata.html

It's definitely Wayzata.


DATE: May 2, 1964
RAILROAD: Great Northern
LOCATION: Wayzata, Minn.
KIND OF ACCIDENT: Derailment and collision
TRAINS INVOLVED: Freight, Passenger
TRAIN NUMBERS: Extra 3023 East [Freight] 27 [Passenger, The Western Star]
LOCOMOTIVE NUMBERS: Diesel-electric units [Extra 3032] 3023, 3003, 3011, 723 Diesel-electric units [No. 27] 355A, 363B, 353B, 358A, 357C
CONSISTS: 135 cars, caboose [Extra 3032] 26 cars [No. 27]
SPEEDS: Standing [Extra 3032] 65 m.p.h. [No. 27]
OPERATION: Signal indications
TRACKS: Double; 2'04' curve; 0.43 percent descending grade westward
WEATHER: Cloudy
TIME: 9:50 a.m.
CASUALTIES: 65 injured
CAUSE: Broken coupler, and derailed car obstructing adjacent main track in front of an approaching train

If you look at the newspaper aerial photo, it's taken from the vantage point of the upper left corner of the photo.
http://www.gnarchive.com/incidents/1964_wayzata_mn/wayzata.html

thanks to all of you for the info ... one more moved out of the mFiles

yes you can see the little pond in the news photo with the cars in it. Good detective work.

As a side note, I was a very young lad living in nearby Hopkins at the time of this accident, and I remember my dad loading the family in the car to have a look. All I recall is seeing the passenger cars all askew from across a swamp. Must have made a big impression on me! I was glad to find the info and share on my web site.

I continue to be amazed at this site, where there almost always is somebody on here who, either knows the answer to the question, or knows how to find it.

the semi trucks in the photo are off loading the usps mail and express from the railcars. there was mail strewn all over the place around the accident site when it first happened. may 2nd, 1964 was a saturday and the police had the area secured pretty quickly, because a friend of mine parents loaded up the kids from shakopee and took off for wayzata up 101 and got turned around by the police somewhere in minnetonka. on sunday may 3rd, same friend's future wife, who was 16 at the time, and her sister borrowed a hand cart that was sitting on the tracks about a mile west of the accident and pumped their way eastward to the accident site and found that no one was there, police or railroad people. they looked around for a bit and then pumped the hand cart back to where they had found it.

dave, out.

Great memories for me too.
I was living in Hopkins as well like JonJon... And got loaded up in the family car to go see the wreck.
They built little league fields next to these tracks and I was always yelled at by the coach when distracted by the GN trains going past.

Thomas G.