The Jeannette's Creek train wreck, also known as the Baptiste Creek train wreck, was a fatal
railroad
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
accident on October 27, 1854, at Baptiste Creek near present-day
Jeannettes Creek in
Chatham-Kent
Chatham-Kent ( 2021 population: 104,316)[Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls () is a group of three waterfalls at the southern end of Niagara Gorge, spanning the border between the province of Ontario in Canada and the state of New York in the United States. The largest of the three is Horseshoe Falls, ...]
the previous afternoon; it comprised eight cars altogether; four first-class, two second-class and two baggage cars. As was commonplace during that early time of rail travel it was subject to several delays; these were caused by dense fog, a derailed gravel-train, a burst cylinder head and a slow freight train ahead of it. By the time it left
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
at 1 a.m. bound for
Windsor
Windsor may refer to:
Places Australia
* Windsor, New South Wales
** Municipality of Windsor, a former local government area
* Windsor, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland
**Shire of Windsor, a former local government authority around Wi ...
it was at least four hours late.
At Baptiste Creek, a gravel train consisting of fifteen cars loaded with wet gravel was on a siding employed in repairing the trackbed. Its engineer had been told by the night watchman at Baptiste Creek station that it was safe to venture onto the mainline as the passenger train had already passed; at 5 a.m. as the train backed along the main railway line at between the passenger train emerged from the fog at .
The collision was described as "absolutely dreadful", the second-class cars were described as being "smashed into bits and pieces" with "nearly every person of them killed or dreadfully injured". The people in the front of one of the first class cars suffered a similar fate.
Witnesses described several of the bodies, which included eleven women and ten children, as being "crushed out of all human shape". Six hours later, many of the bodies still had to be recovered. The second-class cars carried many German emigrants on their way to the United States. The 48
[ (some sources 60) injured were taken to ]Chatham
Chatham may refer to:
Places and jurisdictions Canada
* Chatham Islands (British Columbia)
* Chatham Sound, British Columbia
* Chatham, New Brunswick, a former town, now a neighbourhood of Miramichi
* Chatham (electoral district), New Brunswic ...
where their moans and cries could be "heard throughout the town", with blood literally dripping from the cars.
A grand jury found that Twitchell, conductor of the gravel train and Kettlewell, engineer of the train were criminally responsible for the death of 52 persons and they were charged with manslaughter. According to the jury, the gravel train had entered onto the track in contravention of the rules of the Great Western, and in any case, should not have proceeded onto the track in the dense fog.
See also
* List of rail accidents in Canada
Worst railway accidents
Other major railway accidents
Footnotes
References
*
External links
* {{Commonscat-inline, Rail transport accidents in Canada
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three te ...
* List of rail accidents (before 1880)
17th century
1650
* 1650 – ''United Kingdom'' – Whickham, County Durham. Two boys die when they are run over by a wagon on a wooden coal train way. While such tramway accidents are not generally listed as rail accidents (note the lack o ...
References
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jeannette's Creek Train Wreck
Railway accidents in 1854
Train collisions in Canada
Rail transport in Chatham-Kent
Disasters in Ontario
1854 in Canada
Railway accidents involving fog
Passenger rail transport in Ontario
Railway accidents and incidents in Ontario
October 1854 events