Joe - next time you give a sitation like Cohen....could you please include the page number?

Noted and corrected, ya fussy so-and-so [grin] -Joe O-

New York Times, November 30, 1925 page 4 (as noted in footnote #1 by Cohen p.246.)

Freight Train Dashes Down Horseshoe Curve
And Piles Up in Altoona, Killing Two Men

Special to the New York Times

ALTOONA, Pa., Nov. 29 - Two men
were killed, a third was injured and
forty-five freight cars, with their con-
tents, werewrecked today when a mer-
chandise express train of the Pennsyl-
vania Railroad got beyond control of
the crew on the Horseshoe Curve and
dashed down the mountainside into this
city, jumping the track at Bridge
Street and crashing into another freight
train running in the opposite direction.

The dead are F.C. Scheline, aged
46, engineer, of Sharpsburg, and H.F.
Taubler, aged 27, fireman, of Aspinwall,
and G.M. Pincusty, aged 24, brakeman,
of Pittsburgh, was injured.

The VL-4, made up of fifty-eight cars,
was running east of Track A. At Kit-
tanning Point, topmost spot on the
Horseshoe Curve, noted for its scenic
grandeur, the train was flagged. After
a short stop it proceeded east again.
As the train got into motion it was
discovered that something had gone
wrong with the engine's machinery and
the engineer was unable to control it.

From Kittanning Point to the city the
railroad tracks follow a sharp descent
most of the five miles. As the train
started down this slope, picking up
momentum with each passing second,
the engineer tried in vain to check it.
Operation of the brakes produced no
result whatever. Both Scheline and
Taubler stuck to their cab as the loco-
motive, with the impetus of fifty-eight
loaded freight cars behind it, dashed
faster and faster down the mountain-
side.

As the runaway train thundered
through the railroad yards in Altoona
persons standing on the station plat-
form sought places of safety.

At Bridge Street the train encoun-
tered a series of switches. Here the
engine left the rails and the cars began
to pile up in a shapeless mass. The
engine, after jumping the track, snapped
clear of the cars behind it, ran along
the roadbed, crashed through a fence
and then fell over on its side.

Freight train No. 260, west bound,
was passing that point on a mear-by
track. Its engineer tried to gwet his
train beyond the danger zone, but was
unsuccessful His train was struck by
the zigzagging cars of the runaway and
twelve cars of his train were thrown
From the rails, most of them being
broken up, along with thirty-three cars
of the eastbound train.

http://www.grimshaworigin.org/NYtimesArticles.htm

-

-

-

Freight Train Wreck at 17th Street Bridge, Altoona, PA, November 30, 1925

wreck_at_17th_St_1927.jpg (77540 bytes)

The wreck occurred when an eastbound freight train "lost its air" descending the East Slope and ran away, derailing and striking the old Seventeenth Street Bridge moving it 32 inches off its foundation. The bridge had to be rebuilt before it could be used for vehicular traffic again.

http://www.trainweb.org/horseshoecurve-nrhs/conrail.htm

PHOTOGRAPH -
http://www.trainweb.org/horseshoecurve-nrhs/Photos/Burket/wreck_at_17th_St_1927.jpg

http://www.trainweb.org/horseshoecurve-nrhs/Guide-p2.htm#17st

-

-

-

�THE FREIGHT WRECK AT ALTOONA/THE WRECK OF THE 1262�

Many folksongs focus on train wrecks. One November 29, 1925, the wreck of theeastbound freight train, VL-4, led to one such ballad. After leaving the Kittanning Point Station at the Horseshoe Curve, the 1262 started down a grade. When the train was 3.3 miles from Altoona, the brakes failed, causing a derailment. The engineer and fireman were killed; most of the cars were demolished. Another folksong, � The New Market Wreck� also came about in this way.

The Railroad Comes to Pettis County Curriculum Guide Unit Four "Quality of Life" Hobo Signs - Railroad Songs Copyright � 2003. Sedalia Area Chamber of Commerce.Page 77

www.sedaliakatydepot.com

-

-

-

The Newlanders - audio, photo and text with liner notes.

The Altoona Freight Wreck
http://labornotes.org/node/1019/print

-

-

-

Sincerely,
Gargoyle