Train Wreck March 1958 Culver, Indiana

Here are pictures of the train wreck of March 1958 in the Culver Town Park of the Pennsylvania Freight train. Cars of coal derailed.

1958 - March 5 - Monday's Train Wreck I Worst In Many Years

14 Freigt Cars Pile Up At Park

Culver ’s worst train wreck since the 17 railroad cars were derailed near t he Lake Maxinkuckee outlet south of the city several years ago occurred at 4:12 o'clock Monday morning qhen 14 gondola frieght cars loaded with stoker coal piled up along the right-of-way near the Pennsylvania station which adjoins the Town Park

HUndred os spectators drawn to the scene Monday and Tuesday agreed that it was an awful mess

A broken rail may have been the cause of the 14 cars from the center of a 67-car freight train jumping the tracks.

Twisted Masses Of Steel

Although the special train loaded with coal for the Indiana and Michigan electric Company at South Bend was reputedly within the 35-mile speed limit through town the twisted mases of steel looked as if the smash-up had taken place at 100 miles per hour.

About 950 toons of coal were scattered over the area of the accident.

Glen S. Tibbetts, Union township Trustee, told the Citizen yesterday that he intended to bib on the dumped coal for school porposes.

Wrecking Crews Praised

Wrecking crews from the Pennsylvania Railroad's Logansport Division got to the disaster scene in a hurry but it will be several days before things return entirely to normal.

The four unit deisel engine was held about an hour before continuing on to South Bend with the 35 lead cars.

The condutor was E. T. Miles and the engineer W. C. fink, boh of Logansport. Neither received a scratch.

The wrecking crew did a fine fast job and railtraiffic in both directions proceeded cautiously at 6:45 Monday night.

Polic Ceif Don Mikesell was on the scene before 7 a.m. Monday to handle the hugh gathering crowd and relieve the traffic jam which resulted.

The only memory I have of this is that the park area was of limited use for quit a while and possibly into summer.