A century, a decade, a year and almost a month ago, the big news in Houston County was a train wreck between Spring Grove and Caledonia. One newspaper noted how Spring Grove station agent Mr. Beerman was “somewhat surprised” to see only the engine of No. 425 arrive on Tuesday evening, January 11, 1910. Conductor Merwin explained that he had left both cars and the passengers in the snow alongside – but no longer actually on – the tracks four miles back and five and a half miles from Caledonia.
The 6 p.m. departure from Caledonia had been about a half-hour late. One newspaper said the train was “running at a fast rate,” trying to make up for lost time when rounding a curve east of the high bridge, the forward car left the tracks and dragged off the rear coach as well. Fortunately, both cars toppled over onto the west embankment instead of a surely more disastrous descent down a steeper sidehill to the east.
Another newspaper said the train was slowly going uphill, some 50 rods northeast of the trail bridge when Engineer Schnaufer experienced the “jerking of the train” and looked back to see both the passenger and mail coaches off the tracks.
The passenger coach, having descended about eight or 10 feet down the embankment, was lying on its side. The mail car was mostly upright. The engine was uncoupled to continue on to Spring Grove, where Secton Skaaden and a crew of men quickly coupled two boxcars onto the engine for a hasty return to rescue the passengers.
One account mentioned 35 or more passengers; the other publication specified 45 passengers awaited while hovering around a fire they had started on the track at the rear of the wreck.
Mrs. George Taber of Mabel had been thrown across the coach and over another woman to end up partially out of a window, feet first. She was quickly pulled back in. One paper said Mrs. Taber was seriously injured, while the other stated she was bruised. Mrs. Lyman of Caledonia was reported to have been bruised but not seriously injured.
The Spring Grove newspaper reported that “outside of a good jolting,” the passengers had survived what could have resulted in considerable loss of life.
That publication noted, “the ladies on board were highly complimented for their coolness, and the crew certainly deserve a note of thanks for the prompt and careful manner in which they handled the passengers.”
The Caledonia newspaper opined “how the occupants, with one exception, escaped so fortunately without injuries is one of those miraculous and happy features sometimes found in railroad wrecks.”
By the next evening, a wrecking crew had cleared the track for travel.
Spreading of the rails was the cause of the wreck. This was especially possible on a curve, when the wheels repeatedly exert an outward, lateral gauge-spreading force.
Two years previous in 1909 six miles west of Houston, a longer passenger train had left the track and plummeted downhill into the solidly-frozen Root River. That wreck also occurred near a curve, and the passengers also had escaped without serious injury.
Seven years later in January of 1916, this same sharp curve just west of Money Creek Station again played a part in a collision between a stalled freight train and a passenger train, both traveling east. The air released from a broken air hose had settled the brakes of the freight.
There was not enough time to send a flagman to warn the passenger train. And coming around the sharp curve, the engineer did not see the disabled freight until he was too close to stop. The Houston newspaper noted, “The caboose of the freight was knocked into kindling wood, the engine and tender of the passenger train and one freight car turning over into a ditch.”
There was no longer anyone in the caboose of the freight, and the engineer and fireman in the passenger jumped out in time to save their lives. Passengers were thrown from their seats with only a few slight injuries. But the engineer, Sidney Maine of La Crosse, was seriously injured and was rushed to La Crosse on a special train.
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