I was looking through some of the old family photos and came across this photo. Can anyone confirm what the locals think? They think it might be https://tylerpaper.com/news/local/friday-is-th-anniversary-of-fatal-cotton-belt-passenger-train/article_184baf76-2936-5556-99c5-b0def6e317e1.html related.
Someone would have to explain very carefully to me why a Frisco ten-wheeler would have been involved in a Cotton Belt accident.
There is no accident report in the DOT accident investigation database for a SSW incident on March 31, 1917.
https://dotlibrary.specialcollection.net/Contents This side requires a free registration.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACDThere is no accident report in the DOT accident investigation database for a SSW incident on March 31, 1917.
Balt, I can't get the DOT library to come up correctly here. Is there an accident report for SLSF on (or near) that date? (Look for the 4-6-0 power in the results...)
This is a mystery that may require you to contact the SSW Historical Society.
Pine, Texas is on the SSW only and, like BALT, there is not ICC accident report for the SSW in 1917. The picture is not big enough to tell much about the accident except that it was a passenger train wreck of that era.
Ed Burns
Retired Clerk Class 1 from Northtown (Minneapolis).
NP EddieThe picture is not big enough to tell much about the accident except that it was a passenger train wreck of that era.
It's big enough to show (and permit identification of) the Frisco locomotive, though. Any actual involvement of the photograph with "Pine, Texas" would first have to account for the fact of what appears in it.
Tony Wilson of the Tyler Tap Chapter CBRHS did a presentation about the Pine, Texas wreck at our 12th Cotton Belt Symposium at Texas A&M University-Commerce. The presentation was done on the 100th Anniversary year of the Pine Wreck. If I remember correctly a Cotton Belt Ten Wheeler of the G-0 class led the train. That would be one of the 650s. There weren't any Frisco engines involved.
See http://faculty.tamuc.edu/jdavis/railroad/symposium/symposium/CBRRS2017.htm
Ed in Kentucky
Cotton Belt Chapter
CBRHS
SSW9389If I remember correctly a Cotton Belt Ten Wheeler of the G-0 class led the train. That would be one of the 650s. There weren't any Frisco engines involved.
So, unless someone can substantiate how a Frisco plate with 736 wound up on a Cotton Belt G-0, the OP's picture can't be the Pine, Texas wreck.
Now we have to find out what the picture actually refers to...
Tony plowed through quite a bit of newspaper accounts of the wreck. He reported that Cotton Belt G-0 #662 led the train that wrecked at Pine.
There is a John Winfield painting of Cotton Belt #662 passing the Pittsburg, Texas depot with a passenger train. If I remember correctly Tony Wilson commissioned Mr. Winfield to do the painting. An internet search should bring up the painting to view.
SSW9389There is a John Winfield painting of Cotton Belt #662 passing the Pittsburg, Texas depot with a passenger train.
It's called "Charlie Dunn's Last Ride" (Dunn was the fireman).
I can't find the image in a search, but I bet Vince and Mike can...
Here you go.
https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/tylerpaper.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/8/0c/80c3e9bc-f911-5e78-bdda-894be3d74822/59ef5638790b4.image.jpg
After doing research in the DOT Data Base, I cannot find any SLSF accidents between 1914 and 1920 involving a passenger train with that number. Looking at the dress of the citizens in that pictures, I believe that the accident was between 1900 and 1913.
Also there may be a confusion between one (a long time ago) mistaking the St. Louis Southwestern RR and the SLSF.
My advise is the contact the SLSF Historical Society for futher information. As noted in prior posts, the SSW Railroad was not the railroad involved in the accident.
So the general census came up with: it's probably NOT the passanger train wreck? John "Press" Quillin was alive between 1881 and 1965. Since he's on the end there, 1900-1913 seems to be resonable.
Name141So the general consensus came up with: it's probably NOT the passenger train wreck?
What is absolutely certain is that the locomotive visible in the picture is not a Cotton Belt engine. It is a specific Frisco engine, of a specific and identified class.
The wreck pictured must, therefore, either have involved a Frisco engine on the head of a train, or a collision with a Frisco engine.
Absent some explanation of how this locomotive might have gotten to Pine, Texas, it is highly unlikely the picture shows a wreck there.
Absent some explanation of how a Frisco locomotive got onto the Cotton Belt, it is highly unlikely the picture shows a Cotton Belt wreck ... at any time period.
The timeframe is that between the time that a 4-6-0 with slanted piston valves would be built and used in passenger service and the time different power came to be used for that service. Won't be before 1905, which is when the engine was built in Schenectady; I can't find any evidence it was built with different valves and converted to piston valves later to give a starting date. It served as late as WWII, which is much later than the appearance of the photo itself dates.
Well there you go ! Lowell Arkansas
Everyone say " thank you NDG"
I've looked around with limited resources and found nothing (there was apparently a wreck there with a tourist train circa 2014!)
The details of clothing and the antiquity of the wreck-train engine point to a date well before WWI for this accident, perhaps not long after the introduction of engine 736 to service. It is possible that some other image in the Arkansas state archives will have more information; I suspect from the two images we have that the event was well-photographed.
Overmod I've looked around with limited resources and found nothing (there was apparently a wreck there with a tourist train circa 2014!) The details of clothing and the antiquity of the wreck-train engine point to a date well before WWI for this accident, perhaps not long after the introduction of engine 736 to service. It is possible that some other image in the Arkansas state archives will have more information; I suspect from the two images we have that the event was well-photographed.
That would be accurate in the timeline of them still being in Arkansas to have been photographed there vs coming to Pittsburg, Texas.
It has been found by a Jim Tackett of Arksansa. "This is from the book, Trails, Rails and Ribbons of Highway which gives the date." It's from 1897. https://ibb.co/28z6TV2
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