Something about train wrecks has always drawn people to them.  Perhaps it’s the incongruous disorder suddenly brought  to something normally so neat and orderly as a train of railroad cars.  Here officials, workers, and curious onlookers alike  pose atop the shattered remains of O&W Milk Trains Nos. 11 and 12.  Note the old fashioned 40-quart tin milk cans in the left foreground.

Called Home To Glory

       THE DISASTER AT CHILOWAY SWITCH

by Ronald J. Stanulevich  

"Passing two trains in opposite directions on a single track is a trail that is too often made, but never succeeds.

--Anonymous --  

     Single-track railroading in the days before automatic signal systems was a dangerous business.  The potential for a deadly head-on collision was always present, and such "cornfield meets" were an all too common occurrence.  August 3rd, 2002 marks the 100th anniversary of the New York, Ontario & Western Railway's infamous Milk Train Disaster at Chiloway Switch, one of the deadliest,  and certainly one of the most puzzling,collisions in the long and colorful history of the line. 

     The following tale of that 1902 milk train accident was pieced together from published accounts -- especially Helmer's definitive book, O. & W.   Poetic license aside, the essential facts presented are intended to be accurate.  All railroading details have been made as authentic  as  possible.  The  surrounding  narrative  is  spun  for  dramatic effect, using the sort of overheated prose familiar to fans of period dime novels and railroad action potboilers.  

     It is appropriate that this story be dedicated to the memories of the people involved in, and affected by, the Chiloway tragedy.  Nothing written here is intended to be in any way disrespectful of the faithful trainmen who served, or who gave up their lives, working aboard O&W Milk Trains No. 11 and No 12.  

     At the turn of the previous century, milk traffic on the New York, Ontario & Western Railway had been building steadily since the end of the New York and Oswego Midland days twenty years earlier.  The pace had accelerated throughout the 1890s, helped along by the O&W's growing fleet of ice-refrigerated insulated milk cars equipped with passenger trucks and the newest Westinghouse automatic air brakes.   

     Such modern efficiencies permitted faster running.  They enabled the O&W to boast more milk carried into New York City than any other single railroad at the start of the 20th century.  By the summer of 1902, three daily milk trains in both directions were needed to handle the business.  Each train regularly required multiple sections.   

     Unfortunately, while the railway's milk and passenger car fleets were uniformly equipped with the latest in automatic brake equipment, the same could not be said for all of its freight cars.  The lack of air brakes on some O&W freight cars, even as late as the beginning of the 1900s, was a major contributing factor to the infamous fatal head-on collision of O&W Milk Trains No. 11 and No. 12.  

     On August 3rd of 1902, the second section of southbound O&W Milk Train No. 12 had a number of  freight cars unexpectedly added to its consist at Walton, New York.  The crew of such a high-priority milk train might normally have refused the addition of the lowly freight cars, but a long stretch of rainy summer weather had backed things up badly on the O&W's Delhi branch.  One look at the crowded classification tracks at Walton and it was clear to the men of Train No. 12 that if something wasn't done and done fast, the yard there would soon be packed in solid with cars and operations would grind to a halt.   

     The yardmaster at Walton was using anything that rolled through the junction to clear the jumble of waiting freight cars out of his classification tracks.  No. 12's engine, Class T Mogul 2-6-0 #143, could easily handle a few more cars.  It was quickly decided that six of the excess freight cars backing up the Walton yard would be added to Train No. 12 just behind the locomotive -- including one boxcar not yet equipped with the new Westinghouse automatic air brakes.  

 

This photo shows O&W camelback locomotive #143 as she appeared in happier times, posing for her builder's photograph at Cooke Locomotive Works in 1901.  The builder's photo was a special occasion that called  for fancy paint, complete with white outlining applied to the rims of the driving wheels.  Difficult to maintain in regular service, in later years such paint schemes were often applied temporarily with grease paint, to one side of the engine only just for the photo, and would be removed after taking the official portrait. Carefully lit and taken against a blank canvas background, this view shows the Fireman's side of the locomotive, so the side rods are shown positioned up, rather than down as was more often done for official builder's photographs.

     Old-fashioned hand brakes were still considered just fine for slow-moving, freight-only trains, but everyone knew it was a dangerous practice to add cars lacking the newer air brakes to the faster milk and passenger trains – particularly at the head-end.  O&W Operating Department Rule #278 specifically required the crew to ensure that airbrakes were connected throughout the entire length of the train.  Standard procedure in such cases was to temporarily hang a simple pass-through air line under cars lacking permanent air brakes, to connect the air supply from the locomotive to the air brake equipped cars behind.  

     It would have been easy enough to do so in this instance, too.  But the harried crew of Train No. 12, already running late and pressing to make up lost time on their hectic milk train schedule, elected to skip waiting the few extra minutes it would have taken for a straight air pipe to be hung under the offending boxcar.  

     If that decision raised a questioning eyebrow or two among the more experienced members of the Walton yard crew, they knew enough about the personalities of prickly locomotive engineers and train conductors to keep their misgivings to themselves.  

     Those freight cars that did have air brakes were quickly herded together at the front of the train.  The brakeless boxcar was placed in between the brake equipped cars and the first head-end car of the milk train.  Unfortunately, the absence of a train line air pipe under that one car near the front of the train rendered all of the air brakes on the following baggage and milk cars useless.  That left the crew of No. 12 with just five air-brake equipped freight cars, coupled together directly behind the locomotive, with which to stop their train. 

     Worse, even those few brake-equipped cars were under the control of Engineer Andrew "Andy" O'Neal only.  The brake valve of Conductor Ducolon, who was working back in the combination car, was left unconnected  as Train No. 12 whistled out of Walton for its regular meet at Chiloway Switch with it northbound counterpart, Milk Train No. 11. Seemingly unconnected events were coming together to conspire against the lives of the men of Trains No. 11 and 12.  The stage was being set for a tragedy.  

     In an eerie coincidence, Train No. 11 was being pulled that day by locomotive #143's sister engine, Class T #144.

     All was seemingly routine until the two trains approached their scheduled meeting place.  For reasons that could never be conclusively determined, Engineer Andy O'Neal made no move to stop or even slow Train No. 12 as he approached the side track at Chiloway.  Back in the combine car, Conductor Ducolon immediately noted the unslackened speed as the train was passing through the planned meeting place.  Alarmed at this serious breach of his train's standing orders, he "pulled the air" on O'Neal in an effort to stop the speeding train, only to find that his polished brass conductor's brake valve had no effect.  The horrified Ducolon stared forward at the weatherbeaten end of the ancient boxcar ahead of him, and recalled too late the hurried decision to leave Walton with his air brake control not connected to the train.  

     Whether Fireman Robert Reese aboard locomotive #143 noticed the missed scheduled meet will also forever remain a mystery.  Perhaps he did and tried to shout a warning through the engine's "speaking tube" to Engineer O'Neal on the other side of the boiler1. If so, his calls went unanswered and unheeded.  Or perhaps he was up in the tender pushing down culm anthracite coal, or working in his half-shelter, "firing from the kitchen," and so failed to note his train's speed and location.   

 

Sister to Mogul #143, O&W Engine #144 had her builder's photo taken too, but at the Dickson Locomotive Works  where she was made.  Like her sister, Engine #144 also wears the fancy white pinstripe paint scheme, but poses  here showing the Engineer's side of the engine, with her side rods in the more usual down position.  Although  supposedly built to the same specifications, note the many minor differences between Engine #144 here and  her sister Engine #143 above  – a consequence of two different builders interpreting the same set of specs.

     Whatever the reason, both massive trains were traveling towards one another at (or maybe just a shade above) the timetable speed limit of 40 miles per hour as they approached the siding at Chiloway.   

     Meanwhile, Engineer Ben St. John at the controls of Engine #144 and approaching Chiloway from the south, prepared to slow Train No. 11 to 20 mph in preparation for taking the siding. He was no doubt trusting that Engineer O'Neal, an experienced O&W runner who had worked alongside St. John's late father (who had also been an O&W Engineer) and who was piloting the #143 that day, was still north of Chiloway and doing the same.   

     A mere half-mile from the safety of Chiloway siding, St. John looked out the open front cab door of his Mother Hubbard2 engine.  He was astonished to see Train No. 12 already well south of Chiloway and still pounding the mainline under full steam, bearing down on him at high speed!  

     Instinctively taking the measure of the distance left between the two trains, their respective weights, and their relative closing rate, St. John felt his heart seem to skip a few beats.  The combined closing speed of the two trains was more than sixty miles per hour.  Long experience as a O&W runner told him that it was already far too late to stop either train.   

     In that terrible moment, he knew that barring outright divine intervention, there was going to be a collision and it was going to be a very bad one.  He fought down the natural urgent impulse to immediately abandon his train.  As the engineer in charge, he was entrusted with the safety of others.  His solemn duty was to stay at his post until the last possible second; even if he succeeded only in slowing down his train, he could at least lessen the force of the impending crash and so perhaps save some precious human lives.  

     Instantly, the horrified St. John slammed closed his steam throttle and shoved the handle of his train's brake valve all the way back through the on-lap and service settings,  into the emergency stop position.  Huge showers of bright yellow sparks blossomed from beneath the train as the air brakes came on hard, the shoes locking up tight against the faces of the wheels.  The whole train shuddered and squealed in protest as though it were alive.  For one hopeful instant his engine seemed to slow rapidly, but then the coupler slack ran in throughout the train and the full weight of the loaded cars following behind bunched up against the locomotive, shoving it relentlessly forward once again.  

     St. John applied his locomotive's independent brake, but that had little additional effect other than to turn the steel rims of the engine's driving wheels a glowing, cherry red.  In desperation, he heaved the reverse lever all the way back through its quadrant into the last notch3 and locked open the sanding valves, but the tremendous momentum of the massive train kept it skidding forward over the polished steel rails.   

     St. John had now done all that he could to mitigate the approaching disaster.  His own train at least was finally slowing down, but he was out of time, out of options, and rapidly running out of track not yet occupied by the onrushing train  No. 12.  There was not even a moment left in which to blow the engine's whistle as final, mournful warning to the other members of his crew.  Like Andy O'Neal's crew on the #143, they were separated from their engineer4 by the split-cab design of the "camelback" locomotive.  

     At the end, his final duties done, Engineer Ben St. John must have known that to leap from his locomotive's cab at high speed would almost certainly result in death.  In spite of that, it may have seemed to him that "hitting the cinders" would still be preferable to being hit by the oncoming train.   So perhaps St. John said a quick, silent prayer for himself and the remaining souls aboard both trains as, at the last possible moment, he "joined the birds" -- diving head-first out the open center window of his engine cab.   

     An instant later, O&W milk trains Nos. 11 and 12 collided head-on with all the horrific momentum of their combined speeds -- still more than 40 miles per hour, despite St. John's selfless last-ditch efforts to slow #144.  

     The identical sister Mogul-type engines were  so  evenly matched that they neatly telescoped one another, their smokeboxes sliding one inside the other until the polished brass faces of their thrashing 19 x 24 cylinders met with crushing finality.  The engines screamed like living things as iron rivets sheared, steel boiler stays snapped, crown sheets failed, and firebox mud rings ruptured from the tremendous force of the collision.  Both locomotive boilers erupted in searing geysers of high-pressure steam.  Locked together as one, the pair of  massive 70-ton engines rose ponderously into the air and heaved over to one side, crushing their boiler-mounted cabs and spreading deadly ruin in all directions.  

     Driven onward by their tremendous inertia, the tender of one locomotive dove under the red-hot ashpan of its engine and drove itself deeply into the ground.  The tender of the other reared up over the firebox of its locomotive and launched itself high into the air. Tons of coal flew in ebony sheets, like blackened funeral shrouds, over the wreck.  In that horrible instant, two magnificent and graceful machines, the best that men of that day knew how to make, were transformed into a single mangled heap of fractured metal, glowing embers, and scalding water.    

     Most of the following cars in the two trains telescoped, overturned, or derailed as they were instantly stopped short by the tremendous force of the collision.  The lead cars of both trains disintegrated completely and sent additional ruinous wood and metal debris flying, adding even more misery and destruction to the general chaos of the crash.  A heavy shower of jagged splinters fell like deadly hailstones over the wreck.  

The pace of life was slower and simpler along the O&W in the early 1900s.  Something as unusual as a train wreck, however horrible, was cause to turn out and take a break from the daily routine.  Judging by the attire of the ladies in the lower left of the photo, the dress code for viewing a train wreck called for wearing one's Sunday Best.  That's the George Treyz Acid Factory in the background, a large O&W shipper that rated its own sizable spur track.

 
     And then, in the space of a only few thunderous heartbeats, the horrendous crash was over.  The devastation was total.  Deathly stillness settled over the scene.  

     The first stunned rescuers to arrive at the site of the wreck came rushing over from the nearby George Treyz Acid Factory.  They were confronted by a chilling sight, one that might have come straight out of the local preacher's Sunday-sermon vision of the Inferno.    

     For despite the heat of a late-summer's day, dank clinging vapors from the ruptured locomotive boilers enveloped the massive heaps of tangled wreckage in a deep, forbidding mist.  Small fires burned redly amidst the carnage, sending out acrid plumes of thick, sulphurous smoke.  And out of that horrid pall there arose terrible sounds -- the thin, disembodied voices of men, only dimly to be heard above the mournful hiss of escaping steam, calling out for aid or searching in vain for their missing fellows.   

     It was late in the day before the enshrouding wrack dissipated enough for the full extent of the terrible disaster to be seen.  

     Anguished questions began to be asked even before the day's frantic rescue efforts were complete.  Why in Heaven's name would Engineer O'Neal fail to stop for a scheduled meet, in broad daylight on such a familiar route, and in perfect weather?  Had something happened to him even before the accident?  Many at the time insisted that some sudden spell, apoplexy, fit, or other disabling malady must have unexpectedly overtaken O'Neal at his post.  Some even suggested that he might have fallen from his cab and so was no longer at the controls when the crash occurred.  Why else would he, a trusted engineer with almost two decades of experience, "bust the rulebook" so badly?  

     And why did an equally experienced train crew foolishly decide to run a fast, heavy milk train on a tight schedule without bothering to fully hook up its air brakes?  The lack of completely connected air brakes, a hasty corner-cutting decision made in the interest of saving a scant few minutes time, was a foolhardy risk and a clear violation of Rule #278.  

     Most of the men responsible took their answers to those agonizing questions to their untimely graves with them.  In this case, the cost of ignoring the operating department rules was the cars and cargoes of two trains lost, and two of the line's best brand-new locomotives5 destroyed.  

     And, much more important than any mere material or monetary losses, four valued and respected O&W trainmen and devoted family men had been called Home to Glory, losing their lives in the massive pileup.  

Engineer O'Neal and Fireman Reese died at their posts on Train No. 12 that day.   

The body of Andrew O'Neal was found, still in his place after all, inside the mangled cab of Engine #143.  

Fireman Robert Reese was killed instantly, his body cruelly burned and  crushed under the engine he had faithfully fired.   

On board Train No. 11, Engineer Ben St. John's fellow crewmen M. J. Tully and E. Sweet  had also been killed.  

    Neither man seemed to have made any move to try to save himself by jumping from the doomed train before it wrecked.  Either they had never noticed that anything was wrong, had decided to try to ride it out aboard their train rather than risk death by jumping, or had simply been too startled to react in time – perhaps  mesmerized by the final, spellbinding spectacle of onrushing Engine #143 bearing majestically down upon them to crush out their lives.   

 

Oddly composed, this awkward shot of O&W Engine No. 143 leaving the station at Sydney might easily have been throw  away – except that as fate would have it, this unusual photo was taken only hours before the engine met its grisly  destiny in the infamous Chiloway Switch Milk Train Disaster.( (Artful photography or not, the author knows of no other surviving photograph showing any portion of the rear of the Wooten-type firebox of an O&W camelback locomotive.)

     Conductor Ducolon working back in the combination car of his train survived the injuries he received in the wreck, although given his role in allowing the train to proceed without functional air brakes, he may understandably have considered that a mixed blessing.  

     The official investigation that followed was nearly as puzzling as the accident itself.  Because of the human fatalities involved, there was an official coroner's inquest in combination with the O&W's company accident investigation.  Usually in such cases there were many people to be interviewed.  Although witnesses often initially told conflicting stories, the authorities almost always got to the bottom of things in the end.   

     In this case, however, there was almost no one left to interview.  Most of those who could have offered relevant testimony had lost their lives in the accident.  Those who had survived were in almost perfect agreement as to the facts of what had happened, but their statements contained nothing to truly to explain the underlying cause of the crash.  

 

In later years, Class U-1 #249 sits on the turntable at Middletown.  She was built from the salvaged remains of Class  T Mogul #143, which was leading Train No. 11 when it wrecked at Chiloway Switch.  Other than an older, slightly undersized sand dome and an unusual dead-level firebox skirt, she gives no other obvious outward signs of her origin. An engine involved in such a terrible fatal wreck might well have been saddled with a reputation as a jinx, but #249  succeeded in leaving  her past behind her.  She built a good reputation as a free-steaming engine and a fine runner.   Her good speed and easy gait earned her the genuine admiration of the crews who ran her, who affectionately nicknamed her "The Ostrich," for her ability to really stretch out and run.

     Since the essential facts of the wreck had been known almost from the beginning, the basic whats of the accident were never really in dispute.  Instead, it was the tantalizing whys of the accident that seemed destined to remain forever just beyond the reach of the puzzled investigators.  

     The principle blame for the wreck fell squarely on Engineer O'Neal for overrunning his assigned meeting place against  dispatcher's orders.  However, no completely satisfactory explanation could be conclusively offered for his actions.  The condition of O'Neal's earthly remains had yielded not a single clue as to what, if indeed anything, had befallen him prior to the crash.  Whether his death had come as the cause, or only a consequence, of the terrible wreck simply could not be determined by the medical sciences of the time.   

     Secondary blame was shared by the entire crew of Train No. 12 for violating operating department rules by running without fully connected air brakes.  But this, too, shed absolutely no light on the motivations, if any,  behind the final actions of Engineer O'Neal on that fateful summer day.   

     In the absence of any more useful facts that could be discovered, the frustrated authorities reluctantly brought their inquiry into the Milk Train Disaster at Chiloway Switch to an official, if singularly unsatisfying, close. 

     And what of Engineer Ben St. John, who had fought so hard to try to save his train?   For his part,  St. John was generally credited as a hero for remaining aboard and slowing Train No. 11 enough to have prevented an even worse disaster, which might have cost even more lives.   

     Miraculously, St. John himself had in fact survived6 the terrible accident after all, his life saved by his desperate last-second jump at speed from the center cab of locomotive #144.  Such a favorable outcome amazed no one quite so much as it did Ben St. John.  His timely leap had carried him completely clear of the effects of the wreck and straight through a farmer's trackside pasture fence, without his sustaining even a single serious injury7.  

     The troubling questions  surrounding Engineer Andy O'Neal's actions in the final critical minutes in the lives of O&W Milk Trains Nos. 11 and 12  remain a mystery that, down to this very day, has never been solved.  

NOTES:  1"Camelback" locomotives like many of those used on the NYO&W Rwy. had full-width fireboxes, necessary to provide enough surface area in the firebox grates to burn poor-quality waste anthracite coal, or "culm."  Since this left no space for a conventional cab at the rear of the engine, the fireman was provided with an overhanging platform at the front of the tender and a half-shelter (commonly called "the kitchen" due to its intense heat) in the normal cab position at the rear of the locomotive, from which to shovel fuel into the twin Wooten firebox doors.  The engineer rode forward in the right-hand section of a small cab set astride the locomotive's boiler at about its midpoint.  The conductor, head-end brakeman, or fireman (when not actually firing) often rode in the left-hand side of this cab, but were still physically separated from the engineer by the bulk of the boiler. 

2Early on, some cramped camelback crewman had compared riding in the narrow cab of a camelback locomotive to being locked inside a kitchen cupboard, giving rise to the other popular nickname for camelback locomotives – "Mother Hubbard," as in "Old Mother Hubbard's Cupboard" from the familiar child's rhyme.  

3Reversing the engine after closing the throttle may seem like a futile gesture, but actually makes good sense given the design of steam locomotive valve gear.  With steam shut off and the engine links reversed, the motion of the driving wheels and the action of the valves would cause the steam cylinders to alternately compress outside air on one side of the locomotive, while working against a vacuum on the other.  The backpressure of the air and vacuum trapped inside the cylinders during each piston stroke slowed a locomotive very effectively.   An added benefit of this plan over leaving steam applied in reverse was that if a collision were successfully avoided after the crew had jumped clear, the train would not take off unattended backwards down the track and create an additional safety hazard.

4 The complete physical separation of the crew aboard a camelback locomotive worked against good communications, and was a safety hazard frequently cited as contributing to accidents.  It was one reason why the Interstate Commerce Commission eventually banned further construction of camelback locomotives.  

5Both engines had been delivered new in 1901, #143 as Cooke #2645, and #144 as Dickson #1218.  They were very badly wrecked in the collision, but the railroad was so chronically short of motive power during this period that it could ill afford to send two brand new locomotives to the scrapper's torch.  As a result, engines #143 and #144 were retrieved, salvaged and completely rebuilt.  They remained in service until 1905 when they were ultimately  used to build Class U-1 4-6-0 and Class U 2-6-0 locomotives #249 and #248, respectively.  

6There is still one more ironic twist to be noted in the tragic tale of the Chiloway Milk Train Disaster.  Engineer Ben St. John's father had been the late George St. John, also an O&W locomotive engineer.  George St. John had died near the station at Liberty in the bitter winter of 1886.  His locomotive had broken through a frozen crust of ballast concealing a washed-out section of roadbed and had overturned, killing him in his cab -- making Ben St. John's father the very first NYO&W Rwy. locomotive engineer to die in the line of duty.  

7In the only humorous aspect of the whole tragic affair, local legend holds that Engineer St. John lost most of the seat of his trousers, and (depending upon who was telling the story) perhaps a bit of tender skin off of his "dignity," to the local farmer's use of a then-recent fencing innovation – steel four-point barbed wire.