New York Central Derailment – Sept. 1962

Sixty years ago, a 37-car pileup of New York Central freight cars occurred at the Cooper Foster Park Road crossing in Amherst on Saturday, September 22, 1962. 

Above is the story that appeared in the Journal on Monday, September 24, 1962.

It notes, "What had been a 127-car westbound freight train gathering speed and doing 60 miles an hour or better erupted into a mass of tangle wreckage and twisted tracks at 6:30 p.m. when a broken wheel on the ninth car of the engine struck the switch leading to the Ford Motor Company's Lorain Assembly Plant.

"The nine cars ahead kept going, ripped free of the rest of the train, but one of them derailed about a quarter-mile west of the crossing.

"Behind, the pileup continued with boxcars sliding across derailed tank cars and coming to rest piggyback in a general scramble."

It must have been a sight to see. 

"The wreckage completely tied up rail traffic and extended on either side of the track with rubble scattered into the fields below the railroad tracks," the story noted.

"Behind the strewn wreckage 82 cars which made up the rest of the train came to a standstill upright on the tracks.

"An eyewitness, Ernest Emerich, Claus Rd., who was standing on his porch when the freight derailed, said he saw a huge puff of dust and watched the cars slide together into a pile.

"Other nearby residents said the wreck didn't make much noise.

"The dust cloud was later found to be from a car loaded with buckwheat pancake flour among the wrecked cars."

The story notes that in addition to the investigation that the railroad started to determine the cause of the wreck, the Cleveland office of the FBI was also on the scene.

I've been stuck at that crossing many times over the years. It seems like every time I decide to take the "scenic way home" from Target, I get stuck by a completely stopped train there, and end up having to turn around to go back to Oak Point.

Looking west at the crossing today