DISASTER: In the Wheatlands

DISASTER In the Wheatlands

Smoke from the hotbox eddied beneath the locomotive. The Great Northern's west bound Empire Builder, pounding hard for lost time in North Dakota's bronzed wheat lands, ground to an emergency stop just beyond Michigan City. A few miles back, the Empire Builder's second section was coming in out of the east. A flagman ran the few hundred yards back to Michigan City to flag it, but he never made it. Section 2 hit the Michigan City curve with its exhaust drumming, plowed slam-bang into Section I.

The observation car was smashed. Seconds earlier, two servicemen in it had seen Section 2 coming around the bend, jumped through the window glass. There was nothing that could be done for the other 34 in the car. All were dead—20 servicemen & women, 14 civilians.

Outside the tangled wreckage, a sailor from a forward car held his baby in his arms, clawed wildly at acetylene-torch crews cutting into the mangled steel. Just before the crash, his wife had entered the observation car.

It was the worst railroad wreck of 1945.