| Montgomery Tower was the first interlocking plant west of Aurora on the CB&Q double-track mainline to Galesburg, IL. The single-track Streator Branch heads off to the southwest then and crossed the CRI&P at Ottawa, IL about 40 miles down the branch. The pictures in this album were taken the morning after the wreck, September 28,1964. The Rock Island was repairing its Des Plaines River Bridge in Joliet thus the detouring trains to Chicago up and trains to the west down the CB&Q branch. As this diagram shows three trains, all passenger, were at Montgomery at the time of the wreck. The first was an eastbound Rock Island waiting at a home signal (the signal on the signal bridge to allow a train to enter the interlocking plant) to come off the branch (upper right on the diagram). It was CRI&P Extra 656 the combined #4 and #10. The second was a Rock Island westbound on Track 1, the normally westbound track (both tracks were signaled in both directions), waiting at a home signal to go down the branch (lower left on the diagram). The third was CB&Q #3, the combined Ak-Sar-Ben Zephyr and Royal Zephyr, westbound at 59 mph on the normally eastbound track. Due to an error in upgrading the plant to electric-powered turnouts compromised the integrity of the plant and turnout #14 was improperly set for the branch and the Zephyr veered off into the waiting Rock Island train. Indications were that the operator had no indication of this error. The wreck took place at 10:49 p.m. on the 27th. The known diesel numbers are shown on the chalk diagram drawn right after the wreck. Some computer additions have just been made to the diagram. On the diagram the interlocking plant is between signal bridges drawn like an uppercase letter I across the tracks. The importance of the track that curves behind the tower labeled to SHEEP YARDS will become apparent. Three CB&Q employees (two in the lead CB&Q engine) and one in the RI lead engine were killed. 200 hundred passengers and other employees claimed injuries but amazingly only five remained in a hospital more than one day. ) I was the night operator leverman at the tower two weeks previously. See: http://railfan44.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=771462 The operator that night collapsed of a nervous breakdown soon after the wreck. Some of the details in this album are from the October 1965 TRAINS Magazine article titled The Accident That Couldnt Happen just brought to my attention by Mike Woodruff. The article goes into some detail on how interlocking plants work and what went wrong that horrid night. Here's the Chicago Tribune Article with pictures: http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&attid=0.1&thid=11ef75ca86297017&mt=application%2Fpdf&pli=1 |