Once the railroad arrived in Elkhart 175 years ago, it didn’t take long for the area to have its first train mishap. "It happened in the first day," said Andrew Medford. "The very first day.”
He said a boy fell off the roof of a boxcar on a celebratory excursion train and died the next day.
Medford, the director of transportation at Lippert Components, reviewed some of the area’s notable rail accidents Saturday, as part of the ElkhartRail175 presentation series, hosted by the National New York Central Railroad Museum.
Other incidents included a head-on crash between passenger and freight trains in 1911 and a hazardous materials spill in the Elkhart yard in 1985. "Fifteen-hundred people were evacuated," Medford noted. "That’s mainly the neighborhood that is to the north and west of the yard. Seventy-five people were treated at surrounding hospitals for minor skin and eye irritations."
Medford said Elkhart’s incidents show how rail safety has developed over time. He said the area is well attuned to the industry’s dangers.
"Elkhart’s journey alongside the railroad has programmed this whole entire area to be more conscious of the dangers that come with trains," Medford said. "The Elkhart Fire Department is way ahead of the game."
That means not only being ready to respond to incidents, but also, trying to prevent them. "So, we see all these overpasses and underpasses getting built, and that’s a huge point of avoidance," Medford noted. "That’s limiting the interactions of cars with trains."
The Friends of the New York Central Railroad Museum is a financial supporter of WVPE.
