I am looking for information on a troop train wreck in WWII which is not the well reported like the one in Tennessee? That one involved as I understand it troops headed too training/combat in Europe.

The one I am looking for involved (mostly?) U.S. Army Air Force personnel rotated home from Europe after serving their tours and/or having been wounded or both. My father was a Staff Sargent assigned to Internal Security/Counterintelligence during the war and did investigations of industrial accidents to make sure they were accidents and not sabotage, security background checks, and generally whatever the Army wanted investigated. My sister has advised me that my father remarked that his unit did capture a couple of saboteurs and a couple of spies.

A troop passenger train derailed and the train was composed of older wood/composite passenger cars and steel Pullmans. The enlisted were in the wood cars (which had been outlawed but brought back during the war) and the officers were the the Pullmans. When the train detailed the steel Pullmans telescoped the wood cars killing a lot of the enlisted who were riding in them (the officers survived in the Pullmans). My father said that is was one of the hardest things he ever saw was the all bodies with the scars of their war wounds visible and to think that they made it home to be killed in a train wreck. The wreck was caused by a broken rail (my father during the early years of the Depression worked on a B & O section crew - his father was a B & O station manager).

As my father worked out of the Columbus, Ohio, office and would have worked mostly in the Midwest, that wreck probably happened in the Midwest but wartime censorship may have buried any/most reporting. Probably in 1944 or 1945, as the bombing campaign didn't really get going until late 1943, and crew would not have been being rotated in any great numbers until 1944 or 1945.

Wish I knew more but my father was very reticent about what he did and saw during the war. I assume that being in counterintelligence he was read the riot act before being discharged and ordered not to talk about it. During the war the local gossip in his home town was that he was a draft dodger as he came and went in civilian clothes at odd times and no discernable schedule.

Any help would be appreciated.

One suggestion is to check the DOT online database to see if they have a scanned copy of an ICC report.

DOT Online Database: http://dotlibrary.specialcollection.net.atmrc.net/Home

You can search by railroad, date, year, location, or word in the text. Select to use the advance search feature.

It is surprising what accidents that the ICC investigated and reported. But, it appears that not every incident was investigated and reported upon.

But then, this was wartime.

I think there was a bad one on the Missouri Pacific. Have to look in the DOT files.

This?

https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/new ... 114007086/

Was it on the Milwaukee Road outside of Warden, WA in 1943?

ICC report and photos of this one here:

http://www.bigbendrailroadhistory.com/2 ... wreck.html

The problem here is that the info is way too vague. There were actually several nasty troop train derailments during WW2.

There were indeed a lot, many unpublicized unless they happened where people couldn’t miss seeing them:

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22troo ... ent=safari

GenDisaster has a poor search engine and limited stock, but “troop train wreck” and a rough estimate of when may get you what you’re looking for: http://gendisasters.com/year/1944

Newspapers.com and newspaper archives.com may both turn up the wreck you’re looking for. Also, if your father mentioned any names of the deceased, Find a Grave or Family Search are both free services that can be helpful.

Most of them probably caused by those Allied Full Cushion trucks no doubt.

"Most of them probably caused by those Allied Full Cushion trucks no doubt."

The problems with the Allied trucks didn't show up until the 1950s, after 10-12 years of service on them. The internal swing hangers would wear, and were difficult to inspect for that wear.

Review the old ICC accident reports for the 30s and 40s, and there are way too many incidents of broken rails, blown meets on single track, short flagging, ignoring flag protection, "riding the yellow", and excessive speed. Keep in mind that there was no post-accident toxicological testing, and very little control-cooled rail, in those days.

Howard P.

This could be it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rail_accidents_(1930%E2%80%931949)#CITEREFSemmens1994



- Doug Debs

It fits, it says "The first to the third cars, inclusive, and the tenth to the fourteenth cars, inclusive, were of steel-underframe construction, and the remainder were of all-steel construction." which I believe means some of the cars were wood. http://dotlibrary.specialcollection.net.atmrc.net/Document?db=DOT-RAILROAD&query=(select+0+(byhits+(general+(anyof+%602827)))) Edit: Link works now.

That fits except for his statement that the cause was a broken rail. With his office at Columbus, that would have been within his general area of responsibility. The telescoping of the cars would seem to fit very well.

Thank you.

The steel underframe cars were mostly on the mail and express train that was stopped. Looks like one SUF car was in the middle of the first section of #95, but according to the report, the passenger fatalities occurred in the third car, a steel Pullman.

Otherwise, this accident fits the overall description.

Howard P.

Newspaper articles with more info:

https://www.rarenewspapers.com/view/654691?imagelist=1

https://newspapers.library.in.gov/?a=d&d=TDB19440915-01.1.1&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-------

[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/4180873/dixie-flyer-crash-nth/][/url]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/372644236057

https://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/story/news/local/door-co/2019/09/27/traveling-back-soldier-survives-war-on-only-die-tragic-accident/3777205002/

http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~webermd1/family/460th_bg_macr_&_accident_summaries.pdf
460th Bomb Group
MACR & Non-MACR Accident Summaries