On the night of Wednesday, June 21, 1905, the

New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Midw ...

's flagship passenger train, the ''

20th Century Limited The ''20th Century Limited'' was an express passenger train on the New York Central Railroad (NYC) from 1902 to 1967. The train traveled between Grand Central Terminal in New York City and LaSalle Street Station in Chicago, Illinois, along th ...

'', derailed in

Mentor, Ohio Mentor ( ) is the largest city in Lake County, Ohio, United States. The population was 47,450 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Cleveland metropolitan area. Mentor was first settled in 1797. In 1876, James A. Garfield purchased a home in Men ...

, on the

Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway The Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, established in 1833 and sometimes referred to as the Lake Shore, was a major part of the New York Central Railroad's Water Level Route from Buffalo, New York, to Chicago, Illinois, primarily along the ...

line, killing 21 passengers and injuring more than 25 others on board. A switch from the mainline to a freight

siding Siding may refer to: * Siding (construction), the outer covering or cladding of a house * Siding (rail) A siding, in rail terminology, is a low-speed track section distinct from a running line or through route such as a main line, branch l ...

was open, causing the ''Limited'' to leave the mainline and overrun the siding at high speed. The cause of the accident was never officially determined, but overwhelming evidence points to an act of

rail sabotage Rail sabotage (colloquially known as wrecking) is the act of disrupting a rail transport network. This includes both acts designed only to hinder or delay as well as acts designed to actually destroy a train. Sabotage must be distinguished from m ...

. The ''20th Century Limited'' connected

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

; its running time had just weeks earlier been reduced from 20 hours to 18.

Incident

On June 21, 1905, Train No. 26, the ''20th Century Limited,'' was approaching the town of Mentor from the west, running on a mainline owned by the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway. Conflicting reports exist as to whether the train was running behind schedule, but it was crowded, with 67 passengers on board. At 9:20 p.m. ( EDT), the engine lurched to the left as it entered a freight depot siding at a speed of about . The high speed of the

consist In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and Passenger train, transport people or Rail freight transport, freight. Trains are typically pul ...

mixed with the short length of the siding allowed no time to prevent the accident. The

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power gen ...

canted over onto its left side, ejecting fireman Aaron Gorham from his position and fatally crushing the engineer at the

throttle A throttle is the mechanism by which fluid flow is managed by constriction or obstruction. An engine's power can be increased or decreased by the restriction of inlet gases (by the use of a throttle), but usually decreased. The term ''throttle'' ...

. The engine plowed through a Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway freight

depot Depot ( or ) may refer to: Places * Depot, Poland, a village * Depot Island, Kemp Land, Antarctica * Depot Island, Victoria Land, Antarctica * Depot Island Formation, Greenland Brands and enterprises * Maxwell Street Depot, a restaurant in ...

, and its boiler exploded. A Chicago

sleeping car The sleeping car or sleeper (often ) is a railway passenger car (rail), passenger car that can accommodate all passengers in beds of one kind or another, for the purpose of sleeping. George Pullman was the American innovator of the sleeper car. ...

immediately behind the locomotive telescoped into the tender, and caught fire in the resulting explosion. The second car, a combination car, landed atop the carnage and was destroyed. The third car, another sleeper, left the track. No other cars derailed in the crash. Rescuers responded almost immediately, but the heat from the fire prevented close approach. The ensuing fire burned for four or five hours, not being contained until midnight ( EDT) on June 22. Physicians came from as far as

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

and as nearby as

Painesville Painesville is a city in and the county seat of Lake County, Ohio, Lake County, Ohio, United States, located along the Grand River (Ohio), Grand River northeast of Cleveland. Its population was 19,563 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 cens ...

to offer aid. Ultimately, 21 passengers were killed in the wreck or the fire, most burned beyond recognition. Five were seriously injured, and "more than a score" were less seriously injured. Some of the injured were placed aboard a relief train that took them to Cleveland, and others placed in ambulances that rushed to nearby hospitals. The last body was pulled from the wreckage at about 1 a.m. on June 22. One of those killed was C.H. Wellman, who had a friend in Mentor by the name of Horace Andrews, the president of the Cleveland Electric Railway Company. Andrews was summoned to the accident site, just in time to receive a final message from Wellman for his wife.

Investigation

The media speculated that the train had been running at an unsafe speed, but investigation indicated otherwise. It was found that 50 minutes before the ''Limited'' had arrived in Mentor, Train No. 10 from Chicago to

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

had passed through the switch without fault, and no other trains had since come through. Alex Hammond, the conductor of the ''Limited'', inspected the switch shortly after the disaster, and found that it was set and locked for the sidetrack. Also, a white light showing the positioning of the track was found to be in the "clear" position, which was supposed to indicate that the points were set for the mainline. With this evidence, the New York Central Railroad insisted that the accident was the result of willful misplacement of the switch by an unknown party. After an investigation, Assistant General Superintendent D.C. Moon of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern issued a statement that corroborated this belief, stating that he was "satisfied that somebody, with a key, opened the switch with malicious intent. The train did not jump the track." Despite efforts, no party was ever found at fault and to this day, the official cause of the accident is undetermined.

Aftermath

The Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway rebuilt its freight depot in 1909; it exists today. Directly opposite the freight depot, the former Mentor railroad station at the corner of Station and Hart Streets, became New York Central property when it merged with the LS&MS in 1914. Passenger service to Mentor ended in 1949, and as of August 2007 the station was occupied by Deekers Side Tracks, a sports bar.

References

External links

Newspaper clipping
featuring a list of the dead and injured (website currently down due to hacking incident, will return at unspecified time) {{coord, 41, 40, 44.6, N, 81, 20, 17.9, W, display=title 1905 in Ohio 1905 crimes in the United States Accidents and incidents involving New York Central Railroad Derailments in the United States June 1905 events Railway accidents and incidents in Ohio Railway accidents in 1905 Terrorist incidents by unknown perpetrators Train wrecks caused by sabotage Transportation in Ohio Unsolved mass murders in the United States

Incident

Investigation

Aftermath

See also

References

External links