Accidents, Montana =
; &=
nbsp; &nb=
sp; =
; TT00002
08/=
12/01
10:42 D. T. Sprau<=
/b> =
Ron
Nixon told me (while showing his photos of the wreck) that as he walked to=
ward
the scene he encountered the engineer and the fireman walking down the hig=
hway
away from the wreck. Both of them had very short conversations with Ron, w=
hom
they knew, and they expressed the fear that the passengers might harm them=
. I
will leave it at that without further comment or speculation. However I sh=
ould
opine that these catastrophes should not become a personal thing against
anyone. The engineer had some relatives who also were railroaders. I worked
with one of them; professional and competent in every way. Evaro=
NCL
North Coast Limited Ron Nixon Compiler C Frissell
08/=
12/01
17:57 Dick Carlson >> What happened
to cause the wreck? I don't want to speculate for fear of offending any on=
e, I
am just curious if the NTSB or equivalent found the cause of the accident<=
span
class=3DGramE>?<< Speed
was the cause. I will let someone more knowledgeable and who was involved
answer the why as the only information I remember is hearsay. Evaro=
NCL
North Coast Limited speed Compiler C Frissell
08/=
12/01
20:29 Jim Woodward
For NPRHA member=
s and
others who have it, the NPRHA Mainstreeter
Volume 7, Number 4 (Fall 1988) has a five page article by Bill Kuebler on the Evaro
Wreck, which occurred the morning of June 10, 1962. Speed was certainly a facto=
r, with
the NCL estimated to be
traveling at 87 mph into a 30 mph curve. Bill's article contains addit=
ional
details regarding the circumstances that led to this situation. For those who have access t=
o the NPTellTale via groups. yahoo.com=
, check the bottom of messag=
e 2347
for a brief synopsis of a major
underlying cause of the wreck.&nbs=
p;
I almost was on #26 that morning. My mother and I had taken the NCL from Butte to Seattle f=
or the
Worlds Fair, and were originally
planning to return to =
Butte
on that particular train, but our plans&n=
bsp;
changed. Evaro
NCL North Coast Limited source Compiler C Frissell
08/=
14/01
19:19 Bill Kuebler 1.
Re: Evaro & Sprau.
Dave's right. The engineer on No. 26 had relatives who worked for the NP, =
and
from everything I've learned about them from reliable sources who knew and worked with them, they were good, dedica=
ted
employees. What happened at Evaro should in NO=
way
adversely reflect upon them whatsoever. Ron Nixon told me the whole (I thi=
nk)
story about his encounter with the two enginemen at E=
varo
(Ron's story to me corroborates Dave's account), and also about what he di=
d as
soon as he took those pictures of the wreck--his first pic
was 15 minutes after it happened (the dust had hardly settled). After Ron =
took
all those pics, he left town under an alias, q=
uietly
ensconced in a roomette on No. 25, and went to Portland, so as to avoid be=
ing
subpoenaed for the court hearings--and I don't blame him one bit. It was u=
gly,
and as it was, one of Ron's photos (he took it without realizing what it
captured) was used as evidence to show that a member of the engine or train
crew had tampered with an angle cock on the forward end of the water bagga=
ge
car, right after the accident, so as to make it look like brake failure had
caused the accident. Both the prosecuting and defense attorneys were after=
Ron
to testify, which is mainly why he left town. He gave no testimony, at lea=
st
not in court. The situation =
with
No. 26 was most unfortunate. Frankly, the article I wrote about it for the
Mainstreeter was tough from the standpoint of the nature of the event. I
debated about whether or not to write that article, but then decided that =
it
was as much a part of NP history as was any other major event, good or bad.
Since the story needed to be told, I tried to tell it as accurately as
possible, and in reasonably complete (though not exhaustive) form. There is
always more to say. For example, I intentionally omitted the crew names, e=
ven
though they are easy to discover and are a part of the public record. My
opinion now, recently changed and shared by many, is that they should appe=
ar in
a treatment of the event, but only after a long-enough period of time has
passed (it has) and only if the story is properly told (it will be, in the=
NCL
book). When I think of the <=
span
class=3DSpellE>Evaro accident, a line from Clint Eastwood's "D=
irty
Harry" character comes to mind. With a bit of alteration to fit it to=
this
occasion, it would go something like this: "Ya know, there must be a thousand good things about alco=
hol
consumption...but right now, I just can't think of one." Those were sad days for NP employ=
ees
everywhere. 2. Carlson &=
Aspebakken Dick, good to hear from you again! No nee=
d to
apologize for being away...ya gotta
do whatcha gotta d=
o. Just
post when you can; your accounts are greatly appreciated by all--and saved,
too. As for the 2.5 or 3-inch
elevations on Butte
Mountain...interes=
ting
but not surprising. I guessed three inches account the Evaro
accident curve being 3 inches, although it was only six degrees (six degre=
es,
ten minutes, to be exact), not twelve. Lots of other curves on the Evaro line sharper than that one, but of all the one=
s they
could have gone off, that was perhaps the least dangerous one, so they were
real lucky compared with what one might expect in that territory for an 87
mile-per-hour eastbound train. Two curves farther, it would have been far =
worse
for train 26. And just beyond that...Marent Tr=
estle.
Anyway, I was curious if the =
Butte
line was engineered pretty much the same as the Evaro=
line, as the two territories are quite similar, track-wise. Incidentally, =
in
case anybody's curious, the curve in the Evaro
accident had been laid in 1947 with 131-pound rail, tie-plated with canted
single-shoulder tieplates having two rail-hold=
ing
spikes and two plate-holding screw spikes per tieplat=
e,
and four-hole 24-inch jointbars. Sound
familiar, Dick? Evaro NCL North Coast L=
imited source Compile=
r C Frissell
06/=
09/02
11:35 John Aspebakken Tomorrow morning, June 10 at 4:35 a=
m MST
(5:35 am MDT) it will be exa=
ctly 40
years since the North Coast Limited left the rails at high speed just east of Evaro,
Montana, west of Missoula.
This was a particulary dark day in the =
history
of the NP as this&nbs=
p;
incident resulted in the only passenger fatality ever record=
ed in
the 70 year history of the N=
orth
Coast Limited. A three year old girl traveling with her family,=
Teresa
Ann Dooms, suffocated after being <=
/span>buried
in mud that was scooped into the leading door of dome car 552 as it slid down a rain soaked hil=
lside
and came to an abrupt halt at the
shoulder of US Highway 93 paralleling the tracks. I was a month short of seven year=
s old
at the time of this accident. I
lived with my parents and three year old sister in the section house at the west end of Plateau =
siding,
a little east of Plateau tun=
nel
between Lothrop and Cyr, across the river on t=
he
"Natural Pier Bridge&qu=
ot;
from the Milwaukee town of Alberton. My Dad had
recently bid in
on the section foreman job at Florence, i=
n the Bitterroot Valley, so he was gone during the week, b=
ut
since this was a Sunday morning he
was at home. I'm not s=
ure how
my Dad learned of the Evaro wreck. It may have=
been from the
signal maintainer who lived across the track from us and had company phone lines in the house =
(we had
no phone), or it may have ju=
st been
from the regular TV or radio news. In any case when he=
found out about it he put =
me in
our '59 Plymouth
and drove the 30 miles from =
Plateau
to Evaro. We arrived there about the middle of that=
fateful
Sunday. We slowed to a=
crawl
as we approached the right hand curve on Highway 93 just south of the wreck=
site.
There were a lot of cars parked along the shoulders of the
highway, with workers and others who had&=
nbsp;
come to see the wreck site. We parked and got out of the car, then started to
walk around the curve. My dad stopped to talk to sever=
al NP employees he knew who h=
ad also
come to see the wreck site. <=
/span>Bear
in mind that while I had been around railroads all my life, we lived on the "low&quo=
t; line
between Missoula and Paradise
used exclusively by frieghts, so I did not have a lot of exposure to passenger trains. I suppose I had=
seen
the Mainstreeter in Missoula on Sat=
urday
afternoons on occasion when we were in town shopping. =
I may have seen some picture=
s of
the NCL, butI had not yet actually ridden any train. We continued around the cur=
ve
until we finally saw the cars and locomotives strewn all ove=
r the
hillside in all conceivable
positions. I distinctly remember one of the first things we saw was the=
lead
locomotive unit laying on its side with the nose almost touching the shoulder of the road=
. I
also vividly remember that dome car aimed down the hillsid=
e with
its front end jammed into the side
of the highway. This was perhaps the most impressionable sight to me, =
both the
odd position of the car, and the fact that I don't think I had ever seen a dome car before=
. I don't know if I was aware=
at that
time that a little girl, who was
the same age as my younger sister, had died there that morning, but=
that fact would weigh on me in la=
ter
years. As many of us are inv=
olved
in the transportation industry are well aware, it is a sad occasio=
n any
time an incident happens that results&nbs=
p;
in the loss of life or bad injuries. When that loss of life occurs to
persons, and particularly to little children, who have been entrusted to our care, it is even=
more
poignant. That this happened only
once to passengers on the premier train of the Northern Pacific Railway is a tremendous tribute t=
o the
fine work ethic of the emplo=
yees of
that railroad. Still I am sure that this incident must=
have been a serious blow t=
o the
pride of those employees. So=
on
this Sunday morning, 40 years after the fact, in the t=
rue spirit of NP employees, I =
feel
compelled to take a moment to reflect&nbs=
p;
and pray for those who were impacted by this incident, the railroad=
employees, the emergency personne=
l who
responded, and particularly =
the
Dooms' family whose lives were undoubtedly changed forever by the loss of their little girl. Evaro=
NCL
North Coast Limited Compiler C Fri=
ssell
06/=
10/02
7:31 Bill Kuebler Aspebakken wrote: > That this
happened > only once to passengers on the premier train of the > Nor=
thern
Pacific > Railway is a tremendous tribute to the fine work ethic of >=
; the
> employees of that railroad. Still I am sure that this > incident m=
ust
> have been a serious blow to the pride of those employees. Both of the above two statements a=
re
absolutely true. When one stops to think about the operating conditions fa=
ced
by the railroads in the northern tier states--mountains, snow, cold, heat,
thunderstorm downpours (now called "micro bursts"), floods, slid=
es--one
must conclude that their safety records, and especially that of the NP, we=
re
beyond remarkable. They were outstanding. I have often cited the statistic=
of
the North Coast's one-only passenger fatali=
ty in
its 70-year NP operation to non-rail fans, people I work with, etc., and q=
uite
often they simply don't believe me. Ironically, what with Amtrak's
less-than-sterling safety record (arguably better than that of today's air=
lines
and far better than that of automobiles), some of the people I work with h=
ave
this notion that passenger trains derail every week, which is nonsense. Ev=
en
so, Amtrak has come nowhere close to the fine record achieved by the NCL a=
nd
other trains of that era. When I describe to non-rail fans the NCL operati=
on
under steam, then early diesel, in the operating conditions the NP faced, =
well,
they find the cited fatality statistic to be amazing. > > > So on this Sunday
morning, 40 years after the fact, in the > true > spirit of NP emplo=
yees,
I feel compelled to take a moment > to reflect > and pray for those =
who
were impacted by this incident, the > railroad > employees, the emer=
gency
personnel who responded, and > particularly > the Dooms' family whose
lives were undoubtedly changed > forever by the > loss of their litt=
le
girl. She would be about 43 =
or 44
years old today. She was traveling with her mother and one other relative.
What's worse, had a Nashville=
man by the name of Aaron Scott not given up his coach seat for the Dooms g=
irl
to stretch out (Scott slept up in the dome), the girl might not have been
killed. Scott's seat was at the front of the car, whereas Dooms' assigned =
seat
was further back. First-hand accounts described how the girl's mother claw=
ed
her way through the mud to rescue her young girl--but it was too late. As =
for NP
employees, their lives, too, were impacted across the system and for a long
time. I had a conductor friend who was working No. 25 out of Fargo one night. One of the coach pass=
engers
who had boarded that night stopped the conductor as he walked past in the
coach, and said something to him like, "Say, what's with this drunken
outfit anyway?" and other such remarks, all alluding to the Evaro accident. This was in 1966, four years after t=
he
event. Todd Wilson writes: > Does anyone know what =
the
> cause of the wreck was? Seems like he said the train was going too fa=
st
for the curve. > Railroad and ICC officials knew the cause almost
immediately. Excessive speed? Well, yes. One of=
the
first officials to arrive on the scene went right for the speed recorded i=
n the
cab of the 6510A, and when he studied it, he simply disbelieved what it sh=
owed.
The train's speed had increased so rapidly and to such a high value that h=
is
first thought was that the recorder had malfunctioned. It was later tested=
and
found to be accurate. At the point of derailment, the speed was rapidly
accelerating past the 87 MPH mark. This was a 30-MPH curve. Blood alcohol tests of the engine=
er and
fireman taken a few hours after the accident revealed that at the time of =
the
accident, both were inebriated, well past the "legal limit" for
driving an automobile. The train went over the summit at 54 MPH, instead o=
f the
usual 30, with the throttle in Run 8 and ran that way all the way down to =
the
point of derailment. There was no brake application. The rear brakeman was
asleep in the rear dome, so there was no running brake test prior to summi=
t, a
test required by rule.
Incidentally, there may have been only one passenger fatality in th=
at
accident, but in all probability, the accident actually caused two fatalit=
ies.
The road foreman of engines who was the supervisor of the engine crew invo=
lved
committed suicide not long after the accident. Evaro=
NCL
North Coast Limited Compiler C Fri=
ssell
07/=
07/02
21:48 Bill Kuebler Fairchild AFB about a dozen years a=
go.
They were practicing a low-level pass for an upcoming airshow,
messed up, and crashed on the field, killing all aboard. One who was not a=
board
(since the flight was a practice for an air show) was that crew's boom
operator. Headed home, he stopped his car just long enough to watch his cr=
ew do
a pass. The airplane crashed into his car and he was killed. Which brings =
up a
general thought about "coincidences." Several NP ones com=
e to
mind. Like the fateful 1917, a W-2 smacked head-on by =
Extra
6011D west at Wibaux on 9/20/54. Dickinson
crews really liked the 1917 in yard service, where it usually served the N=
P in
those years. They said it was the best steaming W-2 and had all kinds of n=
ice
characteristics for an engine of that vintage. However, a periodic trip to
Glendive for boiler cleaning and some other routine maintenance meant that=
it
was on the mainline local, on its way home, on that fateful morning. The e=
ngine
was destroyed, even though it had at least one or two good years left in i=
t,
diesels notwithstanding. Dickinson crews were almost as sorry to hear about
their favorite yard engine's demise as they were to hear that one of the m=
ost
respected enginemen, "Deacon" Hunter Picken=
,
was critically injured in the collision. As a further "strange,"=
Engineer
Picken was actually pronounced dead at the sce=
ne of
the wreck--by three different men.
Then there was young Brakeman Diebel on=
the
1917 crew. Like that boom operator, he was unknowingly in a very vulnerable
spot. Unlike the boom operator, Diebel survive=
d. The
brakeman was just about to cross the track behind the stopped 1917, but for
some strange reason, hesitated. Just as he hesitated, the 1917 was smacked=
by
Extra 6011D West. He would have been run over by the W-2. As it was, the
"flying" W-2 hit his arm and bruised it. By coincidence, his dad,
Tony Diebel, was at that moment in the rear ca=
b of
X6011W, praying to God that the flying boxcars would miss him. They came a=
t him
every which way. All of them missed him.&=
nbsp;
Luck can run either way.
Then there's NP caboose 1005 and dome sleeper 314. These two pieces=
of
rolling stock have one thing in common, making them all but unique among t=
heir
peers. There is no known photograph of either. Were these cars operated by=
the
CIA? Did men in dark suits with wires in their ears appear out of nowhere =
and
rip the film out of cameras suspected of having captured these cars? I have
seen at least four or five photos, and in some cases as many as dozens, of=
all
ten of the other dome sleepers. As for the cabooses, I have or have seen p=
hotos
of 1000-1018 and most of the other 31 in that group, except for the '05 th=
at
is. Then there's NPRHA membe=
r Duane
Durr. One day, circa 1964, he looks out the wi=
ndow of
his car wash on west Main=
Avenue
in Fargo, only
to see 603 storming out of town--with a loose truck trailer aboard one of =
the
flatcars. A phone call to the right NP people resulted in a big save. Then=
...a
few weeks later, the same thing happened. Same train, time-of-day, place, =
and
scenario, but...different date and trailer. Another phone call saved the d=
ay,
and just in time, as by then the trailer had somehow lodged between its fl=
atcar
and the car behind. A few days later still, Duane stops by the Fargo Divis=
ion
headquarters building to look around. As one "official" is about=
to
throw him out, another, more senior, official quickly educates the lesser =
one
as to Duane's previous saves and then tells Duane he can come around the
property any time he wishes. Interesting coincidences =
with a
good ending. (Duane's story reminds me of the fact that I was never=
once
thrown off NP property, in spite of being in a lot of places I wasn't supp=
osed
to be.) =
Finally,
a personal one. I was sitting in a fine slide show at an NPRHA
convention a few years ago when, out of the blue, the slide shower shows t=
his
slide of NP No. 1 at the Farg=
o
depot "sometime in 1969." In the image, No. 1's rear brakeman is
busily chatting with a well-dressed man. The two men appear in the left
foreground, almost dominating the scene, and it looks kind of awkward. Som=
eone
in the audience wonders half to himself what that was all about, so I quie=
tly
told him. Brakeman Gregory Belland was trying
desperately to divert the NP exec's attention away from No. 1, because I h=
ad
just jumped aboard the rear car to hide in one of the roomettes (extra sle=
eping
car that trip). The porter on the bottom vestibule step is dutifully block=
ing
the view of the retreating kid as best he can. The scene was stunning; all=
the
details were there. It was somewhat eerie, not having known that a camera =
was
around that day. (I was busy doing other things at the time!) Our trip back home that night on No. 26 was much easier.
Anyway, thirty years later...this slide show. It has been said that there is no=
such
thing as a "coincidence" and that everything is somehow
"rigged". I beg to differ.
"Deacon" Hunter Picken 1938 E=
xtra
5105 East Z-6 Missoula
Ray Harstick Willis Wibaux=
Compiler C Frissell