A Boulder on the Track Nearly Sends a Passenger Train Down the Hill
A westbound train strikes a fallen boulder near the Hangman Creek bridge, throwing its engine trucks off the track within feet of a steep drop. A nearby pay-car locomotive pulls the disabled engine free.
The westbound passenger train struck a boulder that had rolled down from the side hill near the bridge across Hangman Creek, Thursday morning, throwing the forward trucks of the engine off the track. Fortunately the engine slid off toward the fill; if it had gone over on the other side it would have rolled down the hill, which is very steep at that point, and probably another frightful wreck would have been added to the long list of such occurrences that haunt the history of railroading. The engine attached to the pay car, that was on the side track at this place, ran down and pulled the disabled locomotive on the track.
“Probably another frightful wreck would have been added to the long list of such occurrences that haunt the history of railroading.”
Hangman Creek is now known as Latah Creek, and the rail corridor through Spokane still follows grades cut into similarly steep ground. The near-miss is a reminder that nineteenth-century rail travel depended on luck as much as timetables: one rock on the track could turn a routine run into a catastrophe.
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