The year 1907 was just not a very good year for railroads and their passengers.
During three terrible months Southern California saw a shocking toll of railroad accidents and passenger deaths, and the Inland Empire wasn’t spared the destruction.
March, April and May 1907 were “red with frightful disasters,” noted the Los Angeles Express on May 23. Ten rail accidents resulted in the deaths of 75 passengers and employees as well as more than 250 injured.
In those days, railroads were the main source of prosperity to the region, delivering our agricultural bounty to the East while also bringing investors, tourists and future residents to our cities.
But long before computers were available to keep track of the positions of trains throughout the area, every trip in those days had the potential for disaster.
Such was the case north of Colton on the afternoon of March 1, 1907, when Santa Fe Train No. 55 full of tourists slammed into a stopped Los Angeles and Salt Lake freight train at 50 mph.
The crash was caused by the carelessness of the crew of the Salt Lake train, which left the switch open after its train moved to a siding to allow the Santa Fe to pass. Instead, the passenger train roared into the siding at full speed.
The engine and oil car couldn’t make the sharp turn and flew off the track while the passenger cars continued forward and were splintered in the collision with the freight train. Rescuers appeared quickly, “spurred by the cries of the injured, imprisoned in the pile of wreckage,” said the Sun newspapers on March 2.
The amazing thing was there was only a single death, A. Nasaga of San Bernardino, with about 45 injured. He died instantly, speared by an avalanche of sharp wooden fragments from the splintered train car. The injured went to a hospital in Colton, the county hospital or were taken to the Santa Fe’s hospital in Los Angeles.
An immediate investigation of the crash didn’t take long because the Salt Lake conductor and crew readily admitted failing to close the switch, causing the cataclysm.
And as low was the toll of the March 1 wreck, the carnage of another crash only a few miles away was horrific.
The March 28 crash of the Southern Pacific’s Sunset Express, from New Orleans to Los Angeles, caused 25 deaths with another 50 passengers and crew injured. And the cause, again, was a switch left open by the crew at Colton allowing the SP train to enter the yards at full speed.
The train engine left the track just after crossing the Santa Ana River bridge. Remarkably the cars behind the engine continued forward, just avoiding a fall into the river before falling apart. The last car left the tracks and remarkably stayed upright, coming to rest in an alfalfa field with only a few passenger injuries.
Among the dead were 18 residents of Italy, all heading for San Francisco to get work or to immigrate to the U.S. They were riding in three old wooden cars, not the more durable Pullmans, and died when their cars disintegrated, reported the San Bernardino Evening Index, on March 29.
The only woman to die was Giacomo Sorachi, traveling with her two young sons, 5 and 10, who survived. The Italian consul in Los Angeles rushed to the scene and assisted in dealing with the dead and injured from Italy.
What led to the disaster was the fact the SP train was more than eight hours behind schedule. L.A. Alvord, foreman of the Colton switching crew, was aware the train was late but believed it had long passed through the yard when the switch was left open.
Alvord and switchman J.G. Gruesenmeyer were arrested and charged with manslaughter, though without intent to harm. Engineer Carles H. Warmington was similarly charged because the train entered the yards at such a high rate of speed. He died of his injuries on April 9.
However, on April 30, the district attorney said there was not enough evidence to prosecute Alvord and Gruesenmeyer, and the charges were dropped.
Two years later, the Southern Pacific agreed to pay $2,000 to the families of each of the Italians who died in the Colton wreck. Interestingly, the wife of an SP employee who also died in the crash was awarded $8,000 after she sued the railroad in 1910.
And just to add to the carnage in the local rail yards later in 1907, two members of the Santa Fe’s switching crew died due to another accident near where the March 1 crash occurred.
On Nov. 7, J.C. McGregor and J.J. Stauffer were riding on the running board in front of an engine. They were knocked off the engine when the train turned over after hitting some poorly repaired track, crashing the men below it.
Joe Blackstock writes on Inland Empire history. He can be reached at joe.blackstock@gmail.com or Twitter @JoeBlackstock. Check out some of our columns of the past at Inland Empire Stories on Facebook at www.facebook.com/IEHistory.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)