1937 Plymouth two-door
Posted on 11/26/2021 1:17:17 PM PST by Fester Chugabrew
[Defiance, Ohio] Sixty hours of work today had nearly cleared the Baltimore & Ohio and the Wabash tracks at the junction in the west yards here of debris from 26 cars smashed and piled up in a $300,000 freight train wreck, caused by a stalled automobile worth $300.
C.T. Williams, B&O division superintendent, said at noon today that the main east bound track would be back in service by 4 o’clock this afternoon but that some time will elapse before the west bound main track, requiring materials from railroad shops, is restored.
Three railroad cranes, the city’s power shovel, and an army of men--including railroad employees assembled from a wide area and prisoners of war from Camp Defiance--were employed in the continuous night-and-day clean-up struggle, starting soon after the pile up at 1:30 a.m. Saturday.
A scene unparalleled in Defiance annals and shocking even to veteran railroad men drew thousands of spectators to the yards west of Deatrick Street throughout the Easter weekend.
Crash Throws Switch
Mr. Williams, of Garrett, set the $300,000 damage estimate and explained how the wreck occurred.
He said John L. Dreves, 22, 1039 Perry Street, stalled his 1937 Plymouth two-door on the Linden street grade crossing during a rainstorm.
Eastbound freight No. 96 knocked the stalled car against a switch control lever, thus opening the switch. As a result, the fast freight of 46 cars and locomotives split onto two tracks.
Engine Nearly Hits Tower
This caused the locomotive to topple on its side, landing within two feet of the railroad telegrapher’s tower, where C.J. Shelbley of Napoleon was on duty. Twenty-six cars piled up in a great heap of splintered and twisted wreckage.
Both main lines of B. and O. and the Wabash tracks were piled with rubble. Trackage was torn up for some distance between Linden and Deatrick streets. Linden is the second street west of Deatrick, and crosses the Baltimore and Ohio tracks near the Defiance Automatic Screw Co.
At 1:20 p.m. Saturday—10 minutes less than 12 hours after the wreck—the first train was able to get through on a temporary track laid around the wreckage. This was west bound passenger train No. 15.
All Escape Injury
This temporary line, which was formed by relaying a part of the Wabash rails, ran around the wreckage to south of the main B&O lines. It was used to keep passenger and freight trains moving while wreck crews from Garrett, Willard, and Lima removed wreckage Saturday and Sunday.
Before the temporary line was laid, heavy wartime traffic w as detoured to other railroads.
Dreves, who had left his stalled car, and the freight train crew, escaped injury. Train crewmen included Engineer C.O. Recktanwald, Fireman J.R. Russell and conductor Guy Thompson, all of Garrett, and Brakeman Robert Leiter, Kendallville, Ind.
Recktanwald, Russell, and Leiter rode the careening locomotive until it toppled and then scrambled to safety as steam valves let loose.
Eight Carloads of Meat
All 26 freight cars which piled up were loaded mostly with food. Superintendent Williams said there were eight carloads of meat, five of beer, two of whiskey, five of miscellaneous freight, two of shelled corn, and one each of apples, lettuce and carrots.
Cars Piled High
The cars piled up directly behind the upset locomotive, that had been in service only six MONTHS. So compact was some of the wreckage that it was difficult to pick out one car from another. Some piled one upon the other until the highest reached telegraph wires strung on poles along the right of way.
Rails Pierce Cars
The terrific impact ripped up rails, one of which pierced all the way through two cars. One box car smashed through the [continued from Page One] middle of a refrigerator car which had turned cross wise.
Dreves gave a statement to state highway patrolmen. He said he was driving his car north on Linden street, the first crossing beyond Deatrick street, during the rainstorm. He said the wheels of his machine slipped off the narrow crossing and dropped between the rails where the car stalled.
Unable to get the car off the tracks, Dreves said he went to the tower to telephone a wrecker and later to the Defiance Automatic Screw Co. plant. Before a wrecker could be obtained, the train had struck the car and piled up.
Richard Feeney, driving Ray’s auto wrecker in response to a call, said he was in Perry street about three blocks from the scene when he heard the noise of the wreck. He got to the toppled locomotive in time to see Engineer Recktanwald, Fireman Russell and Brakeman Leiter crawl from the cab. Conductor Thompson was coming up the tracks from the caboose.
The lever of the switch, just east of the Linden street crossing, was broken off. The automobile, valued at a little more than $300, was demolished.
Salvage Some of Cargo
As soon as traffic was restored over the emergency track Saturday, the wreck crews started pulling the debris apart, getting some of the less-damaged cars back on their wheel trucks and out of the way. One crane worked from the east and two from the west.
Claim agents of the railroad arranged for salvage of as much of the food as possible. Prisoners of War from Camp Defiance came on the job after midnight Sunday and carried canned milk and beer in large metal drums to the Maher Coal and Ice Co. yards, where they were picked up by trucks.
After more of the debris had been pulled away, the prisoners retuned Sunday afternoon to carry large quantities of lettuce, carrots, and other produce to be loaded into trucks.
City Equipment Used
Amos Marihugh, operating the Defiance power shovel, made available for the emergency, won admiration from railroad men and the host of spectators for his fast and efficient work. Splintered sections of cars, and large quantities of meat, canned milk, and other cargo damaged beyond salvage were picked up by Marihugh’s shovel and dropped into waiting trucks.
Railroad men Sunday made a picturesque procession as they carried huge piles of hog fat yet to be rendered, large quantities of liver, summer sausage, dried beef, other processed meats, across the tracks to waiting trucks. Throughout the crowd, there was audible anguish, and people shy on red points saw great quantities of meat torn and mashed and sometimes ground into cinders.
Railroad police came from Garrett, Deshler and Willard, with four other railroad officers being sent in from Chicago later. City police and state patrolmen handled traffic in the area and also helped keep the tracks clear of spectators.
Streets for blocks around packed with hundreds of automobiles and thousands of spectators viewed the wreckage.
Supt. Williams thanked the city of Defiance for putting the service department power shovel on the job to help remove wreckage. “We greatly appreciate the city’s co-operation,” he said.
E.R. Massie of Chicago and C.F. Parks of Akron, both of the B. and O. claims department, today continued salvage of the merchandise. Don Ice and Gerald Martin were taking car of the reshipping of the shelled corn through General Mills here.
The Defiance Commission Co. purchased the carloads of carrots and head lettuce. The Goldenetz Grocery purchased some of the canned milk. Mr. Parks said no doubt much of the meat would spoil but said efforts were still underway to reship what could be salvaged.
The beer, in bottles and kegs, and the whiskey created a problem. Contacts were being made to procure permission to move it, claims agents said. Much of the bottled beer was shattered in the crash and much more was being destroyed today as the big cranes scooped it out of the way.
A source of entertainment for the spectators was the look of astonishment on the faces of all travelers at south windows of the slow-moving passenger trains that traversed the temporary bypass. They showed bewilderment at seeing such a big crowd on hand to watch the train go through. And when spectators violently waved for them to look the other way at the wreckage, most of the passengers would mistake the gestures for a salute, and wave back just as violently.
Occasionally someone on the other side of the car apparently would exclaim about the wreckage, and then all faces would disappear from the south windows as the travelers jumped across the aisle for a fleeting glimpse of the pile-up.
Spent some hours this morning transcribing this old news article from my Dad's hometown of Defiance, Ohio. One reason is that our stash of family photos had a few images of this wreck without any annotation. Last year a historian from Defiance was able to enlighten me with further details about the wreck.
What I find interesting about this news article is that it goes into considerable depth. We don't often find this kind of reporting today. Not only is it informative, but entertaining in a way.
In the course of focus on this article I undertook to study the location of the wreck using Google Earth. Also the former home of the individual whose stalled car caused the wreck. Searched out an image of a 1937 Plymouth two-door as well, just to get a better idea of what happened.
How fun would it be to seek out members of the family of John L. Dreves, the train crew, the wreck cleaning crew, and others in order to get a more robust understanding.
The article is from April 2, 1947. The wreck occurred the previous Saturday morning, March 31, at 1:30. That year it was Easter weekend.
I have 8 photos or so showing the wreck, and a photo of the locomotive in its glory days. Only used a few of them if you care to see the "blog."
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this little slice of local history in a small town. I also hope those who commented on the original post will return, because their comments were interesting, as it always is with Freepers. If I had any skills in cinematography I'd make something of this slice of history just for fun.
Freight train versus car.
Who won? 🤡
Wow! Can you imagine the movie that could be done with this story? Use a bit of poetic license and add in a murder, a romance, a lonely child, and a puppy and it has all the components of a great one!
Thank you for sharing. I found it enlightening and distressing as well.
Jowhorenalism students begin semi-literate and if they follow leftist guidelines remain so.
Also, I learned to drive in 1972 in that exact model Plymouth with my brother (who owned the car) in the passenger seat for most of the ride. Had a 3-speed column shifter and clutch. Boy what fun. But it was a blast. Especially when he let me drive solo after my third time out.
Never had such a thrill again until I soloed in gliders, then SE light planes (then high-powered aerobatics) decades later.
Thanks for the memories.
April 2, 1945 | Unknown
Which is it? 45 or 47?
Use of the POWs suggests '45, which raises the question as to why a 22 year old guy was joyriding around town playing chicken with trains instead of defending the country.
Didn’t Joe Biden tell the story just the other day? How he was riding on the train when it happened and he saved the engineer a brakeman an little girl and a puppy?
Back when we had great journalists there was no such thing as journalism school. You became a reporter out of high school, back when high schools used to teach or maybe studied some racist subject in College like English literature or [non-woke] history or something.
Oops. 1945 for sure.
I bet C.J. Shelbly told his kids and grandkids about the time a locomotive landed within feet of his digs.
Now that you mention it, yeah. What was he doing tooling around town in 1945? That’s just another angle to the story waiting to be researched and written. If we had the means to find this guy, I bet he could write a good 1500 words about what happened that night. He was less than 1/2 mile from home, and his direction of travel at 1:30 a.m. was *away* from home. A rainy night.
Sixty hours of work today. They must have changed how time works since I lived there.
Thank you for posting this fascinating report. There is nothing like it nowadays.
They worked two and a half times as fast in those days. My dad said so.
Ha! When I posted this last night another FReeper noted the same, as did I when transcribing the article. I thought, “ Is that man hours?” If only the author/editor had the wherewithal to insert the words “as of!”
By all accounts, both lost.
B&O Railroad. They must have named it after the square on the Monopoly board.
Oooh, I hope Jaw Tooth gets some good footage from here.
Oh good grief, I guess this happened long before his time.. Sorry
Any pictures of the lower corner of his windshield? Wonder if he had an A, B, or C ration sticker for that car. Or maybe he had connections for an “X”? Can’d drive far on 3 gallons a week. On the other hand, the elites gave themselves unlimited gasoline with their “X” stickers.
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