Today, when we speak of train wrecks on Capitol Hill, it usually refers to some blunder made by Congress. However, not so long ago, there was a real train accident that took place at Union Station. Read today about the wreck of the Federal, and the surprising aftermath thereafter.
It as January 15, 1953. All across DC, preparations were being made for Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration. Henry Brower was bringing in the Federal, a train from Boston, on its last leg into DC. Crossing into the District, he applied the brakes to bring the speed down to 30 miles an hour when de discovered that the brakes had failed completely and that the emergency brakes did nothing, as well.
Frantically blowing his horn, he caught the attention of a signalman at K street, who telephoned ahead to warn those in Union Station of the impending crash. A clerk took the call, cleared his colleagues out of their office, then went off to get those passengers standing in the concourse out of harm’s way.
The train was still doing well over 35 miles an hour when it smashed into the stop block at the head of the track, and it continued through the stationmaster’s office, where the warning phone call had come in less than a minute earlier, and a large newsstand, whose inhabitant saved himself by vaulting over the counter and thus out of harm’s way.
The train, instead of continuing through the concourse and then into the main hall of the station, crashed through the floor and into the – unoccupied – basement, taking the first car of the train with it. A second car remained teetering at the edge of the hole, the third car remained back at the stop block.
Emergency workers were summoned post-haste, and arrived to find a miracle: In spite of all the destruction wreaked that morning, not a single person had been killed. 49 people were, however, treated for injuries.
The problem that remained was an enormous hole in the concourse, and with the imminent presidential inauguration, huge crowds were expected imminently. Pulling the engine and car out of the basement was out of the question, so instead it was decided to put up a temporary floor in the concourse, covering the hole, and then dealing with the issue of the train in the basement later.
On January 20, 1953, the Washington Post published an article saying that Union Station was ‘normal again’ and that it ‘looked much the same as always.’ That evening, Harry S Truman, citizen, took a train out of Union Station to head back to Independence, MO.
The engine of the Federal, where it sits today in the B&O museum (Wikipedia)
The engine had a surprising history, post-crash. Eventually cut into three pieces and removed from the station, it was cut into 6-foot sections, pulled out of the basement and shipped to Altoona, Pennsylvania, where it had been built originally, and reassembled. It was used for another 30 years before being retired, at which point it was given to the B&O museum in Baltimore, where I spent a fruitless, but very enjoyable, afternoon searching for it recently.