The Gasconade Bridge train disaster was a rail accident in Gasconade, Missouri, on November 1, 1855. The Gasconade bridge collapsed under the locomotive O'Sullivan while crossing. More than thirty were killed in the first major deadly bridge collapse in American history.
History
At the time of the disaster, the Pacific Railroad was being built west from St. Louis, which was to be the starting point for the first transcontinental railroad, an effort led by Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri. Construction had begun on the railroad on July 4, 1851, and two years later, it had reached Kirkwood; by 1855, the railroad was completed to Jefferson City. The railroad bridge at Gasconade, a 760-foot wooden structure spanning the Gasconade River, was unfinished, but track was supported by temporary trestle.
Accident
On November 1, a day of heavy rain, the inaugural train carrying some 600 invited visitors and dignitaries, including Henry Chouteau, of the founding family of St. Louis, set out from downtown at 9 a.m. led by the locomotive Missouri. The departure was preceded by music and speechmaking. Thomas O'Sullivan was chief engineer on the train. O'Sullivan considered stopping to check the Gasconade Bridge but because the train was behind schedule he opted not to stop. He felt reassured of its stability, as a gravel-hauling train had traveled over it the day before. A single locomotive preceded the train across the bridge as a final check for any problems.
As the train started over the bridge, the span between the east bank and the first pier collapsed. The steam engine and seven of the cars fell through the wooden timbers and the others rolled down the 36 foot embankment into the riverbed (but fortunately not in the water). Only one car remained on the tracks. The engine tipped over backwards and landed on the first passenger car, which carried many dignitaries. Thirty-one people were killed (later revised to 43 killed), including Chouteau, O'Sullivan, and many other prominent St. Louis citizens. Newspapers named 136 as injured but estimated up to 200 more unnamed. (In this age of primitive medicine, germ theory and sterile wound dressing were not yet known. Simple wounds could be fatal due to infections. Twenty-nine people were killed outright, but hundreds were injured. The true number of fatalities is unknown.)
Passengers on the train included many well known people including Mayor Washington King of St. Louis (badly cut), Mayor Madison Miller of Carondolet (badly injured), and Erastus Wells, President of St. Louis omnibus company (not injured) as well as bankers, judges, representatives in the state legislature and their friends and children. Only two women were on the train. For some time after the accident, passengers were marked by cuts, scratches, bruises, blackened faces (presumably from bruising), and sometimes by broken limbs.
Investigation
The railroad commissioned an investigation of the accident.
The plan was a truss bridge of six spans, two of 130 ft each, two of 140 ft, two of 92 feet resting on five stone piers and abutments, 32 feet high. The false work, consisting of trestles to facilitate construction of the bridge, was strengthened to prepare for the train and tested with heavy gravel cars. The commission found the trestles were of traditional railroad design made of three to four posts (called bents) driven into the river bed. Caps on the posts held stringers, on which were mounted floor boards and then ties and rails. The trestles were held together with 2" oak dowel rods. They were stabilized with diagonal planks. The stone piers were completed; the trestles were spaced at 15 ft intervals across the river. The stone piers of the bridge were built by Saler, Schulenburg & Co. The wooden trestle was built by Stone, Boomer & Co., of Chicago, “men of great experience building bridges in the West.”
The investigation found that the trestle design should have been sufficient for the weight of the train at slow speed (4 mph). The engineer had been instructed to speed up going into the curve before the bridge, and then cut steam and coast across. The track leading to the abutment was newly installed and was rough. Although the engineer claimed his speed was 5 mph, witnesses estimated the speed at 15 to 30 mph. The commission cited excessive speed as the cause of the accident. Julius W. Adams, Principal Engineer of the Lexington and Danville Railroad offered the opinion that excessive speed and roughness of the tracks had caused the locomotive to derail on the first section of the bridge damaging the floorboards. The floorboards were found broken in half.