Logging Train Disaster Near Stella
A runaway locomotive and loaded cars derail on a steep grade, leaving two men fatally injured and four others seriously hurt.
Last evening, engine No. 5, heavily loaded with the cars of a logging train, at Stella, Wash., ran away on a downgrade for two miles. All the cars were wrecked by jumping the track. Six men were seriously hurt. George Weist, of Stella, and Max Wideman, of Portland, were fatally hurt. They were brought to a hospital in Portland this morning on the steamer Dixon.
“All the cars were wrecked by jumping the track.”
The timber industry was the lifeblood of early 20th-century Washington, but it came at a high cost of life. While modern safety regulations have significantly reduced industrial derailments, the dangerous topography of the Pacific Northwest remains a constant challenge for transit and freight operations.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.