The Great One.

This is it. The great disaster. Trains and bridges. Often a bad mix. Thank God they don't take elevators. This wreck is actually called The Great Train Wreck of 1856 (like there were more, less worthy wrecks in 1856). It was also called "The Camp Hill Disaster" and the "The Picnic Train Tragedy".

The wreck occured between Camp Hill and Fort Washington, Pennsylvania on July 17th. Two trains were on the same track heading towards each other. The math just won't work here. The first train, the "Picnic Special" was a North Pennsylvania Railroad special. It was filled with children on a day excursion to a Sunday School picnic among the estimated 1500 (!) passengers. It was running late. The engine, Shakamaxon, was a bit weezy and lost pressure frequently, slowing it down more.

They were on their way to Shaeff's Woods, near Wissahickon station. Okay, now the other train, the Aramingo, was also at this station waiting on a siding for them to pass. Two things now happened that sealed the deal. First, the conductor didn't signal it's late arrival, and second, the waiting train's engineer assumed the oncoming train was on schedule, not a special for the day outing. The trains would usually wait 15 extra minutes before heading onto the main track. But because the picnic traing was on no time schedule, the 15 minutes was meaningless.

So the picnicers, now straining to make up time and going as fast as they could, were heading straight at the Aramingo. They collided at 6:18am. Both boilers exploded on impact, shaking windows for miles. Cars derailed, and fire spread quickly, as was common then with the wooden passenger cars and burning coal.

In all about 60 people perished and 100 were injured. Exact numbers were hard to establish as some bodies simply dissappeared in the intense fire.