A freight train suddenly separated as it was entering a siding at the Grants Pass Station to make way for a speeding southbound passenger train. Half the freight cars remained on the main track with a load of dynamite.
There was no time for even a warning as the other train transporting 300 people roared into the station, creating a mighty crash heard all over town. Fortunately, it was February 1906 and the dynamite was still frozen from the train’s laborious wintry trip over the Siskiyous. The dynamite was tossed and broken, but did not explode. All 300 passengers emerged shaken and bruised from the crash, amazed they had survived.
The passenger train engine took the full force of the crash, but the coaches had remained on the tracks. Engineer M.V. Crocker and his fireman, John P. Barger, jumped from the engine when they saw the crash coming. Crocker escaped with a broken leg, but 33-year-old Barger, the only fatality, was crushed between the trains. A clerk in the freight's mail carrier just behind the crushed box cars limped out, counting this as his eighth wreck.
The crash was blamed on a bad bolt.
Sources: "Southern Pacific Trains Crash Together." Rogue River Courier 2 Feb. 1906 [Grants Pass Oregon] : 1+. Historic Oregon Newspapers. Web. 13 Dec. 2015.
