12/29/1876 - ASHTABULA, OHIO

[shlustig]

This was the date of the famed Ashtabula Bridge Disaster on the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern.

As #5 Pacific Express with 2 locomotives and 11 cars was traversing the bridge, the span fractured and collapsed. Only the lead engine and tender made it across.
The wood cars were equipped with coal stoves for heat, and the stoves burst on impact after the 65' drop to the river bed. Estimated deaths were 92 with at least 64 passengers injured.

There is a monument and communal grave in the Chestnut Grove Cemetery for which the LS&MS and NYC supposedly paid the maintenance fee.

[urr304]

There is an ongoing film project that has taken six or seven years so far. Latest portions filmed dealt with the actions [or inactions] of the Ashtabula Fire Department. At least they are being more even handed on that, Ashtabula City personnel and plain citizens did good and some did very bad.

I do not know how the film will come out, I do sense that Amasa Stone will be highlighted as a villian which is still going on 145 years later.

Yes, engineering mistakes were made, but there were a lot in those days and even into our day. The bridge did not just get built then failed shortly after; it was in service for 11 years during which time traffic and weights increased greatly. The Tacoma Narrows bridge built by professionals was done in 1940 [iirc] and collapsed less than 2 months later in a windstorm [granted not a slight breeze because same storm system continued east and sank several vessels on the Great Lakes].

[kitchin]

The Tacoma Narrows bridge built by professionals was done in 1940 [iirc] and collapsed less than 2 months later in a windstorm [granted not a slight breeze because same storm system continued east and sank several vessels on the Great Lakes].

Galloping Gertie was already known to gallop during construction. The wind was 42mph when it collapsed in 1940, killing only a cocker spaniel named Tubby left in a car. A bridge engineer tried to save Tubby, but the dog bit him. Wikipedia claims the cause was not resonance, as I and millions of others learned in school, but aeroelastic flutter.