Mud Run Train Disaster
The Mud Run disaster was a train wreck that occurred on October 10, 1888 at Mud Run station in Kidder Township, Carbon County, Pennsylvania, on the Lehigh Valley Railroad. At 10 p.m., one train ran into the back of another, killing 66 people.
The trains were taking home members of the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America from a 20,000 person rally in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Altogether, 10,000 were returning to Luzerne and Lackawanna counties via the railroad. To accommodate this many passengers, eight trains were provided ("laid on"), running at ten-minute intervals. Each train had between 8 and 12 cars and was headed by two engines to cope with the steep grades between Penn Haven and Hazle Creek Junctions through what is now the Lehigh Gorge State Park. Lookouts (the brakemen and firemen) were posted on each of the engines to watch ahead for signals. The first five trains had passed through the Mud Run station area without incident. As the sixth train passed through, it stopped 600 or 700 feet beyond the station as there was no 'All Clear' signal displayed ahead. There was a red light on the rear car of this train, indicating its presence and serving as a stop signal for any approaching train. The flagman walked back along the track to warn the seventh train, which was then approaching Mud Run. That seventh train, headed westbound, had passed an eastbound train, which would normally indicate that the single track area of the line ahead was now clear. The lookouts on the seventh train failed to see the red signal at Mud Run station and by the time they noticed the light being waved frantically by the flagman of the sixth train, it was too late to avoid a collision.
The full length of the lead engine telescoped into the rear car (car 210) and drove it two thirds of its length into the next car (car 204); which was in turn pushed into the third. Only two excursionists survived in the rear car 'on all sides hung mangled bodies and limbs' whilst the second was described as 'crowded with maimed and bleeding bodies'. An attempt was made to withdraw the engine from the third car but brought 'such awful cries of distress that it was abandoned'. In all 64 were killed and scores injured; 32 of the dead were from the small village of Pleasant Valley (recently renamed Avoca) or Moosic and attended St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, many were teenage members of the Drum and Bugle Corps of the St. Aloysius Society.
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The Mud Run disaster was a train wreck that occurred on October 10, 1888 at Mud Run station in Kidder Township, Carbon County, Pennsylvania, on the Lehigh Valley Railroad. At 10 p.m., one train ran into the back of another, killing 66 people. |
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