The Wreck of the Lake Shore & Michigan Railroad's New York Express Buffalo Bound, at Angola, New York, in 1867, commonly known as the "Angola Horror" was an example of how fairly high technology (a steam locomotive pulling a train of cars) combined with some old world habits (cars heated with wood stoves and separate overcrowded"immigrant" cars) that resulted in a shit storm of truly horrendous magnitude. I generally take a good amount of time to poke fun at stupidity, shortsightedness and just plain weird, like cast iron bridges or 38 inch bore cannons, but this is just a sad sad tale.
On the fateful day the New York Express was running way late and had been trying to make up for time. Running hard and avoiding any unnecessary stops it was flying (for then anyways) as it came upon Angola, New York. Ahead was a small creek, the Big Sister over which there was a trestle bridge with a 160 foot span. Just short of Angola the train flew over a frog (that's railway talk for the exact spot two rails cross, for all you land lubbers) and the last wheel on the last truck of the whole train jumped the track when it hit the frog.
The rear car derailed right away and as the train dragged this over the ties as it approached the bridge. The next car in line from the rear derailed and hell then, just broke loose too. The high speed, which made the train almost unstoppable and the crowded cars each with 2 untethered wood stoves was truly awful. Almost fifty lives were lost.
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