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That Time Trainwrecks Became a Spectator Sport · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you so
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: very much for tuning in. Today's episode is about train Rex.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Now these days, that can mean any number of things. Hi,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: I'm Ben, Hi, I'm no. So basically par for the
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: course then for us, Huh, train Rex, get it right?
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I was being self deprecating. I think we do a
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: fine job. Ben, I don't know why I said that.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Strike from the record. Let's let's carry the motion. Uh.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: You know. The one person who has made a dare
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: I say, a career saving us from train Rex is,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: of course, our super producer, Casey Pegram. I'll open open
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: today's episode with a question for you, Casey, Will you
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: ever forgive us? I wonder about that sometimes have you
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: seen have you seen first Reform? Been? Um, what's it about?
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: It's it's the joke's not gonna work. There's it's Ethan Hawk.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: He becomes like convinced that you know, the world's gonna end.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: And he's like this preacher who's like isolated and alienated,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: and he uh, he changes the sign out in front
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: of the church. Who will God forgive us? So that
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: came to mind. I have seen that. Actually I remember.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: It's it's a little bit of a bummer, and there's
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: a really cool psychedelic part where he's like floating through
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: the clouds inexplicably, which I quite enjoyed. Spoiler alert, NOL.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Is that a spoiler? It is kind of because the
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: movie is so anchored in realism that when that sequence
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: comes up, it's kind of like, whoa, Okay, we're shifting
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: modes here. Great, I'm just gonna read the wiki. That's fine.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Is it? Is it possible to spoil an art film though?
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: That that's the question that I put to the group. Yeah,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: that's true. That's true only if it's like a poorly
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: made art film, I think, because an art film should
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: be appreciable, you know, even if you know everything that's
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: gonna happen. Yeah, that's a good point. It's it's sort
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: of like saying you've spoiled a portrait, you know. Actually, Oh, man,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: I wish we were I wish we were hanging out
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: at a bar or something so we could talk over
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: this with some cocktails. Uh, those those days will come
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: one day, sooner or later, we'll be We'll be back
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: at our favorite spots or maybe we'll have a pizza party.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: But today we thought it would be interesting to talk
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  Speaker 1: about train wrecks in I don't and I don't know
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: man an unusual lights because nowadays, usually when we hear
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  Speaker 1: the term train wreck, we think of it as its
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  Speaker 1: current meaning, which is always going to be something that
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  Speaker 1: has gone catastrophically wrong. Right, like, Oh, I went on
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  Speaker 1: a blind date. How was it? It was a train wreck.
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  Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that you were on an AM track
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  Speaker 1: that went off the rails. Admit that you guys didn't connect,
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  Speaker 1: right like, we don't really talk about the physical ones. Well,
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  Speaker 1: I mean the amtrack off the rails situation is terrifying
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  Speaker 1: and would leave you with some pretty serious PTSD if
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  Speaker 1: you walked away from it alive. A bad date is
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  Speaker 1: really just kind of mildly inconvenient and and maybe a
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  Speaker 1: bit embarrassing, probably for more for one side than the other.
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  Speaker 1: I would argue, the one who is completely falling flat
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  Speaker 1: uh and not connecting or being connected with, but definitely
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  Speaker 1: not caused for too much alarm. I think we've all
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  Speaker 1: been there. Yep, well said, Today we are talking about
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  Speaker 1: literal train wrecks, actual locomotives, uh in rex. But we
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  Speaker 1: cannot call these accidents. They're not trained accidents. And you'll
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  Speaker 1: see what we mean in in a moment. Uh it's
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  Speaker 1: weird to say this, but well we'll just give you
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  Speaker 1: this first sentence to open this up. From eighteen until
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  Speaker 1: about the nineteen thirties, train rex were wildly popular. Isn't
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: that weird? They were popular? Yeah. I mean you could
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  Speaker 1: almost call it a spectator sport, in line with something
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  Speaker 1: like demolition derbys or monster truck rallies or something like that.
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  Speaker 1: It really capitalizes on people's kind of animalistic uh need
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  Speaker 1: to see things go horribly horribly wrong. Uh maybe there's
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  Speaker 1: a little schadenfreud involved. Um. I don't imagine that these
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  Speaker 1: uh that these involved anybody being hurt, because you know,
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  Speaker 1: there had to be some kind of uh checks and
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  Speaker 1: balances to keep that from happening. But this is the
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  Speaker 1: idea of train wrecks as a pastime. Not the same
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  Speaker 1: as train spotting, mind you, that's a much more banal
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  Speaker 1: and uh innocuous pastime. This is very active and required
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  Speaker 1: a lot of pre planning. Um. And I can't believe
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  Speaker 1: how long it it went on. It just seems like
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  Speaker 1: such a recipe for disaster. Yes, literally, yeah, it's it's
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  Speaker 1: an interesting point. We have to keep in mind that
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  Speaker 1: this occurs in a time when other public spectator sports
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  Speaker 1: included things like barn dog fights and bare knuckle boxing,
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  Speaker 1: even public executions. We're talking about a specific train wreck
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  Speaker 1: that set the stage for this. One of the first
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  Speaker 1: purposeful train wrecks staged four staged for the public, happened
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  Speaker 1: in was the brainchild of a railroad equipment salesman named A. L.
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  Speaker 1: Street or Over in Ohio, and this really set the
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  Speaker 1: precedent for all of the other stage train wrecks that
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  Speaker 1: would come after in the following decades. There's a book
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  Speaker 1: that examines this, which I have in full disclosure I
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: I haven't read, in Totality by James J. Riisdorf, called
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  Speaker 1: the man who wrecked one hundred and forty six local motives.
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  Speaker 1: And according to this historian, Streeterer's initial wreck in was
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  Speaker 1: so successful that the very next year there were at
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  Speaker 1: least six other staged train wrecks. Weird, it's super weird
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  Speaker 1: um and the kind of mother of all stage train wrecks,
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  Speaker 1: or at least you know, the one that kind of
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  Speaker 1: lives on in infamy. Um. You may have even heard
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  Speaker 1: the name is known as the crash at Crush Uh.
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  Speaker 1: And this was a big deal, as you can imagine
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  Speaker 1: a lot of moving pieces literally uh and figuratively involved
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  Speaker 1: in doing something like this. So why don't we take
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  Speaker 1: a step back and talk about kind of what led
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  Speaker 1: to this monumental public train wreck. Yes, let's so. As
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  Speaker 1: we were saying earlier, entertainment was kind of hard to
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  Speaker 1: come by in the eighteen Indes, especially out in Texas
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: that were about two million European American settlers there, and
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  Speaker 1: if you wanted to do something other than eat, sleep,
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  Speaker 1: and work, you would be hard pressed to find some
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  Speaker 1: good diversions. If you were dude, you could join some
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  Speaker 1: sort of farmers organization that would give you business support
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  Speaker 1: and networking opportunities. But often people had joined just so
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  Speaker 1: they could socialize. On the other side of the gender divide.
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  Speaker 1: At the time, women had the Christian Temperance Union and
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  Speaker 1: this would be like, uh, the same thing, right, your
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  Speaker 1: network you socialize you You could also after the first
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  Speaker 1: uh college football game was played in you could pick
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  Speaker 1: a side and you could root for that. That explains
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  Speaker 1: one of the reasons why sports have been so historically popular.
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  Speaker 1: But other than that, you're kind of s ol since
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  Speaker 1: we're family show that stands for straight out of luck.
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  Speaker 1: It does indeed, UM. So, as we said before, UM,
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  Speaker 1: the kind of precedent for this bizarre spectator sport was
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  Speaker 1: established by a l streeterer who had staged the first
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  Speaker 1: crash back in Ohio a year before. UM and William Crush,
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  Speaker 1: who was a railway agent, was inspired by that and
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  Speaker 1: also really thought that this was something that could kind
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  Speaker 1: of create that college football rivalry UM type scenario that
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  Speaker 1: maybe was sort of lacking at the time. UM and
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  Speaker 1: he decided to go all out and create a of
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  Speaker 1: a hugely UM marketed UH spectacle UM using the concept
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  Speaker 1: of a staged train wreck. And you ask yourself, you know,
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  Speaker 1: surely there must have been some injuries. This doesn't seem
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  Speaker 1: like something that would go over without some kind of
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  Speaker 1: carnage bleeding out into the spectators. And that's true. There's
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  Speaker 1: a apri that talks UH. Really the only thing we
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  Speaker 1: could find about a flying bolt that caused UM an injury,
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  Speaker 1: But that's about it. UM. So the idea of kind
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  Speaker 1: of recreating that and maybe making it a little more
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  Speaker 1: safe sort of it was Crushes kind of uh modus
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  Speaker 1: operandi here. And it's funny too because Crush was actually
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  Speaker 1: a pal of P. T. Barnum. So he came honestly
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  Speaker 1: by his fascination with the spectacle and the idea of
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  Speaker 1: you know, sort of a larger than life um event
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  Speaker 1: that would bring people from far and wide. Just so
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  Speaker 1: happened that instead of you know, animals and the circus
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  Speaker 1: and acrobats, he wanted to do it with two colliding trains. Yep,
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  Speaker 1: you see. Crush worked specifically for the Missouri Kansas Texas
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  Speaker 1: Railroad Company. The street name for the Missouri Kansas Texas
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  Speaker 1: Railroad Company is the Katie. And he said, we're gonna
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  Speaker 1: portray this as a gladiatorial battle. We're gonna have to
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  Speaker 1: thirty five ton locomotives that ram into each other. And
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  Speaker 1: for public safety, we're not going to hold this, you know,
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  Speaker 1: in a in your normal um on your normal train
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  Speaker 1: tracks near town, right, We're going to hold this in
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  Speaker 1: a special pop up town that we're building just for
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  Speaker 1: the occasion. And in what I can only describe as
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  Speaker 1: a burst of humility, Crushed decided to name the town Crush.
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  Speaker 1: It came at a good point it wasn't like, um,
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  Speaker 1: a dollop of swag on top of a successful financial Sunday,
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  Speaker 1: because the Katie was doing okay at this time. It
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  Speaker 1: had one point two million in passenger sales and three
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  Speaker 1: million in revenue for freight earnings as of but it
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  Speaker 1: was still kind of worried about its future. The country
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  Speaker 1: was recovering from a depression in eight three and a
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  Speaker 1: quarter of the country's railroad companies during that depression and
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  Speaker 1: right after it had to file for bankruptcy. So so
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  Speaker 1: Crush wanted to promote the Katie. Yeah, he was really
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  Speaker 1: looking at this. It's it's it's it's it's the strangest logic,
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  Speaker 1: But he was looking at this as a way to
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  Speaker 1: promote the railway and the railway line and kind of
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  Speaker 1: get people excited about train travel and freight by staging
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  Speaker 1: a an epic catastrophe where he could kind of control
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  Speaker 1: the variables. I guess, um, But yeah, I don't quite
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  Speaker 1: understand the logic there, but you know it, it did
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  Speaker 1: seem to get people's attention. Um. So you know, his
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  Speaker 1: motivations are a little sketchy in my opinion. Um, but
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  Speaker 1: he was able to sell the managers of the uh
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  Speaker 1: the Katie um on his schemes. So all of this
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  Speaker 1: preparation went into creating this pop up town at Crush
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  Speaker 1: and assembling um all of the infrastructure that was needed
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  Speaker 1: to do that. Uh. He found two thirty five ton
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  Speaker 1: steam engines that were being decommissioned being replaced by two new,
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  Speaker 1: more modern sixty ton engines and was able to uh,
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  Speaker 1: you know, commandeer them to use for this uh. For
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  Speaker 1: this event. He did have some consultants from the company
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  Speaker 1: and engineers that he was able to kind of talk
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  Speaker 1: through the logistics of making this as safe as possible.
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  Speaker 1: There was the mild suggestion that this collision could cause
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  Speaker 1: an explosion UM that you know, would would not go
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  Speaker 1: over particularly well with people watching, but that that was
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  Speaker 1: sort of tamped down and they were able to you know,
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  Speaker 1: kind of move on from that absurd scenario. Literally one
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  Speaker 1: guy brought that up, and everyone else was like, I
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: want to step back here, uh and note uh. The
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  Speaker 1: thing about the motivation that I find interesting is that
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  Speaker 1: even today, historians are not sure what actually motivated Crush
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: to take this line of marketing and spectacle, because if
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  Speaker 1: you think about it, it's a lot like Delta saying Hey,
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  Speaker 1: we want to get Delta in the forefront of people's minds,
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  Speaker 1: so let's like wreck some planes. You know, it's counterintuitive.
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  Speaker 1: This this is weird because eventually when they when they
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  Speaker 1: do decide, when the one engineer is like, hey, explosions
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  Speaker 1: are bad, gets shut down? What the next steps are are? Are?
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: You know? They're They're pretty interesting and there's a lot
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  Speaker 1: of work that goes into it. I have to respect
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  Speaker 1: the hustle. They paint one engine red with green trim,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: and they paint the other one green with red trim,
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  Speaker 1: so you've got a nice oppositional vibe. And then they
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  Speaker 1: lay a line of track fifteen miles north of Waco, Texas,
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  Speaker 1: which now is you know, best known for the David
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  Speaker 1: Koresh massacre. And they placed it on purpose beyond this
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  Speaker 1: kind of natural amphitheater of these three tall hills. Crush
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: drills wells. He runs pipes for spigots so they can
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: have water, and then they can build a lemonade stand.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: He's got like a lemonade specialist guy who comes in
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  Speaker 1: from Dallas to do this. They make a restaurant, they
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: build a wooden jail, and the main attraction is the trains,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: of course, but they also want people to stay and
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: get the build up and really feel the vibe and
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: the energy. So they build a midway. Basically, they've build
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: a carnival row and you know what that is. That's
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: like the games, Right, let's throw the darts at the thing, guests,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: somebody's weight. Are you strong enough to hit the bell
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: when you, you know, bring down the hammer. I don't
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: know whether they had a dunking tank, but those things,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know. They always stole the show for me.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: They're so intense. Do you think they had ski ball Ben,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: because that's that's a really important midway future for me.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: But that might be more modern. I went out, we
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: should do an episode in the history of carnival games
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: and all of that stuff, because a lot of them,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: you know, I've youre notoriously rigged and it's you know,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: sucker is born every minute and all that. But again,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: a lot of this had to do with his friendship
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: with P. T. Barnum and the massive popularity of the
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Midway plaisance. I think his house pronounced that took place
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: in the World's Fair in Chicago, and he actually borrowed
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: a tent um that he used to house a restaurant
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: and he borrowed that tent from his pal P. T. Barnum,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: and they had cigar stands and you know, like a
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: medicine show situation, which I guess what is that, Like,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: is that kind of a music thing or does that
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: have to do with selling fake snake oil kind of stuff.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: I'm not quite sure what a medicine show is. Yeah.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Actually I did a satirical medicine show a few years back. Yeah,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: it will be think of it kind of like a
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: variety show. So they're selling you know, the Reverend Honorable
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Doctor peg Rooms, Uh, snake lubricant. Uh. Well, you know
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: that's based on the secrets of the Far East or
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: ancient Native American communities. It's it's pretty tension with racism, uh,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: and and the medicine. The one rule of medicine shows
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: is the medicine never works, but people are mainly there
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: to see the you know, the pomp and circumstance. Yeah.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: It reminds me of the character and the Wizard of
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Oz that that ultimately is this a spoiler? Can you
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: spoil a movie that old that ultimately ends up being
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: the great and powerful as in the Oz universe part,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: but he's got a traveling medicine show. Uh, and it
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: sort of you know, ends up portending the fact that uh,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: the Great Powerful Laws is in fact a fraud. UM.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: So yeah, the idea of of special tonics and the
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: like uh that could cure what ails you. So this
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: was a real happening scene UM for the time. There
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: was a lot of excitement around it. UM. And you know,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: when I initially was reading into this, I pictured that
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: this would be something that we use actual railroad lines,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: and that just seemed absurd to me. So it's good
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: to know that they at least had a method to
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: this madness. So on Stept number fifteen, what was dubbed
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: the Duel of the Iron Monsters UM kicked into full gear.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: It drew spectators from all over uh nearby Texas and
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: and of course in Texas, and by ten in the
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: morning there were ten thousand people that had already shown up,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: and the new spectators kept showing up every few minutes
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: in um in train cars. And it was a real
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: mix of social uh strata. You know, you had men, women, children, lawyers, doctors, merchants, farmers, artisans,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: clerks representing every class and every grade of society. Um.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: And this is a quote from the Galveston Daily News
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: of the time. Uh. And they were quote clustered around
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: the lunch stands, discussing with eager anticipation the exciting events
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: that they had come so far to see. Yeah, this,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: this is amazing. So I think you said by ten
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: am there was a crowd of ten thousand people and
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: everybody who went to see this they paid the katie
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: two dollars to travel there by train from anywhere in Texas.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: So this could be a really good deal because you know,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Texas is huge. So if we if we do the
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: math real quick, then we say we have forty thousand
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: people they're paying two bucks apiece, so that's eighty thousand dollars,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: and then we adjusted for inflation. Calculation gives us, Casey
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Drummer will please, two million, four hundred and fifty eight thousand,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: two hundred thirty eight dollars and ten cents. So they're
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: they're making bank, you know what I mean, Like this
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: is not entirely just for the love of the art
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: of train Rex. There's no nobody like, uh, those characters
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: from that what was that old film crash, The people
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: who like have a predilection a bit of a bit
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: of a kink based on the the J. G. Ballard
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: novel and directed by David Cronenberg. That that one always
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: gave me the creeps. Casey on the case, Um, creep
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: me out to the JFK vibe? Was that the one
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: they're like recreating famous accidents or something. Yeah, I'm trying
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: to remember. James Dean certainly is one of them. Um,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: what was it? There was an actress that was beheaded
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: in a car accident. I'm trying to remember who that was.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: That's in there as well. Boy, Yeah, Casey on the Case,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: that's a that's a wild win. So yeah, as you said, well,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: they've made this an event. By there were ten thousand
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: people there at ten. By four pm, which was showtime,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: forty thou people came. And the weird thing about this
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: is that population of forty eight means that for one afternoon,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: this entirely made up town of Crush was the second
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: largest city in all of Texas. That's that's probably my
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: favorite fact from the Smithsonian article about this. I think
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: that's that's definitely up there for me. My my one
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: of my favorite facts from the Smithsonian article, and just
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: from this the day's goings on was um. When it
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: was time for the actual main event to take place
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: around four o'clock, the two trains approached each other slowly
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: and touched cow catchers, the little thing on the front
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: of the trains you also see on the front of
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: police cars. Um in some sort of weird anthropomorphized like handshake,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: you know, uh that they were about to do battle, right, Yeah,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: that's so cool. And then they and then they began
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: to back up, uh for the distance of one mile each.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Just after five pm, William Crush himself comes out. He comes,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: he comes in riding on a horse, you know, and
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: he's waving his hat. And that's the signal for the
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: trains to start. So the engineers, the conductors, they get
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: the trains moving and then they do their best to
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: put all the gas on right. They tie down the
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: whistle cords, so these trains are screaming along. They like
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: open up the throttle all the way the equivalent of
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: redlining an engine, right. And then after they do this,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: these guys literally jump out the vehicle because of course
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: they don't want to be at it. No um and gosh,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: this is this the story is about to take a
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: bit of a dark turn. They the trains got up
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: to about fifty miles per hour in speed. UH. They
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: were rigged up with box cars, as they would be,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: but they were empty uh and and made of wood UM,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: and the collision was really one for the books. But
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: it turns out that even the two hundred yards that
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: separated the crowd observing from this uh hillside natural amphitheater
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: was not nearly enough UM to separate them from the
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: chaos that was about to ensue. UM. As that one
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: gentleman predicted he probably was doing a bit of it.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: I told you so. At this point, both of the
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: trains boilers immediately exploded UM and flung the debris and
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: shrapnel from these explosions through the air like rockets. UH,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: not to mention all of the splinters from the exploding
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: box cars UM, and it came down like a hammer
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: onto the assembled crowd. There were injuries and fatalities, as
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: reported by someone who observed the event. UH. Ten pounds
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: section of brake chain hit a teenager in the skull. UH.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: A young girl was struck by a chunk of iron
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: and fractured her skull, and she died on the way home.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: In an attempt for medical care, the official event photographer
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: took a bolt and iron bolt to the eye. However,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: he did not die. Oddly enough, the reports said tell
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: us that he stood up and this guy's name is
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Jarvis Dean. He instructed his photography team to take photos
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: while he was, you know, while he's digging this bolt
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: out of his eye. And there was a veteran there
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: from the Confederate War. Remember that's pretty recent at this
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: time in history. And this guy, you know, you imagine
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: that he may be experienced something like PTSD. He said.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: This was more frightening to him. All the chaos and
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: the smoke and explosions, Uh, terrified him more than Pickett's
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: last charge at Gettysburg. All to say, as you can imagine,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: William Crush is fired. He is beyond fired. He is
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: like out the door. You're lucky that we're just firing
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: you and not sending you to prison. But then something
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: strange happens because the managers at the Katie start to
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: realize this is getting them a lot of publicity. Yeah,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: I guess there's no such thing as bad press. I
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: don't know. This seems like the kind of bad press.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: That's just bad. But for some reason it caught on
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: and it it upped the profile of this railway line
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: in a way that that led to some some positive financials,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: you know for the company, and Crush was promptly rehired
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: when they realized that this thing was you know, actually
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: a weird kind of success. Uh. They dealt with the
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: claims made by people who were injured. Uh, they even
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: paid that photographer you mentioned, Ben who got a bolt
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: through the eye ten thousand dollars. That's the equival out
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: of three thousand today. Yeah. And also um gave him
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: a lifetime railroad pass, which I don't know if that
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: was me, I would be hesitant to to ever go
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: near a train ever again. But we have to remember
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: this was, you know, the primary mode of transportation in
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: those days. So that's pretty pretty solid Um to be
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: able to, you know, ride the trains for free for
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: the rest of his life. He also put a hilarious
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: notice in the paper. He said, quote, having gotten all
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: the loose screws and other hardware out of my head,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: I'm now ready for all photographic business, which which I
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: think is h He's handling it with a plum. You know,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: the way that they handled this. It's callous, right, people died, Uh,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: But but the way that they handled this is so
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: strange to me. I kept thinking over this week as
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: we were getting ready for this episode. I kept thinking, like,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: what kind of motto would you make for that. Would
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: you be like the Katie, we only crash on purpose,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: or would you be like the Katie train wrecks for
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: train wrecks, you know what I mean? Like, I'm not
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: sure how they pulled this off, because if this happened,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: you know, in the modern day, or if this happened
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: with some other kind of transit company, if FedEx was
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: like watch us wreck these trucks and people were injured,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: then it would spell the end of the company, you
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: know what I mean. That's like bankruptcy lawsuit territory. But
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: for some reason, this accident, like you said, NOL made
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: the Katie an overnight sensation. Uh. The historians that we
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: mentioned earlier said, it's just incredible. You could still stage
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: this in the modern day. You probably just wouldn't want
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: it to be sponsored by a company. You could get
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: to light rail trains going a hundred miles an hour
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: and get them to smash into each other and would
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: people still attend The answer is probably yes. Well let's
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: not forget ben too. That like automobile races is like
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: the lament Um there were constantly uh spectator injuries and
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: not to mention driver injuries because those cars were prone
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: to explode um because of the way they were built. Uh.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: And you know, those races persisted because I think there's
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: something about the danger and the risk I think is
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: what captures people's imaginations that you know, maybe it's a
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: little bit um you know of kind of like a
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: thrill seeking situation, like yeah, you know, you can jump
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: out of an airplane and you might die. You probably won't,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: but that little bit of risk makes it all the
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: more enticing to people, especially you know, the blood lusts
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: of kind of things like gladiator battles and even today
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: like monster truck rallies or like we said, demolition Derby's
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: where people want to see things explode and they want
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: to witness mass destruction. It's something ingrained in us as people.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: That's a little unusual, but there it is. I think
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: about that too with rubber neckers. You know, for quick morbidity,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: we all slowed down at accidents. Uh, you know it's
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: it's so it's so strange that fascination that is common
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: and I would dare I say universal in our species.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: What happened to the Katie? You might be wondering, Well,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: they earned more than ten million dollars by one They also, uh,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: they also became an economic force in their territory. Uh.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: You know a lot of success of smaller towns in
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Texas can be traced to the Katie. And they sort of,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: there's no other way to say it. They commemorated the
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: crash at Crush there's an historical plaque and West Texas,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: which is just a few miles from the actual site,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: and overall the company considered this a success. Train collisions
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: became like the big ticket show for state fairs across
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: the country. People were writing songs about these staged crashes.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: I know what you're thinking, folks, how can I visit Crushed,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: Texas today? Well you can't. It really was a pop
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: up town. You can visit. Wait, I think you can
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: visit where it used to be, right, yeah, I think
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: there's a marker that memorializes, you know, where the actual
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: event took place, So you could consider that as visiting
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Crush but you know, in terms of it being like
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: a unincorporated town, it does not exist anymore, but that
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: area is still available, um to check out in West
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: Texas where you can take a look at that marker.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: But you know, like like most things that seem sort
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: of absurd, Like we've talked about the pastime of competitive walking, Uh,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: you know this this one waned as well. Um. And
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: you know, by the early thirties, when trains had become
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: a little more old had I think there was also
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: like a fascination with them as technology. H and just
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: the you know, the the power and majesty of these
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: iron giants. You know, it became a little bit less
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: remark coball, and I think people moved on to other
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: forms of destructive entertainment like boxing, sure, yeah, boxing, Uh,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: competitive eating contest uh, you know, demolition Derby's of course. Uh.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: Just a few years ago I traveled to our to
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: our Atlanta Motor Speedway to watch someone redo all the
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: stunts of cannonball run. They actually did it. You know,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: they threw the cars in the air, they did car chases, uh.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: And they had a big crowd because this sort of
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: stuff fascinates us. Wait, wasn't Burt Reynolds actually in attendance
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: at that event? Ben, Yeah, Yeah, I saw Burt Reynolds there. Um,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: this was toward the end of his of his days.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: But he was a really he was actually really humble,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: nice guy like he stayed and insisted on signing autographs
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: for everyone. And I gotta admit, you know, uh, he
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: looked great. He looks great for his age, his eyebrows
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: on point. So hats off to you, Bert. This is
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: where we draw the wild train of ridiculous history to
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: a stop for today. We hope that you enjoyed this episode.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: We hope that you, if you are in marketing or
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: pr don't decide to recreationally wrecked trains for the benefit
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: of the public or the entertainment thereof. But we would
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: also love to hear your stories of some of the
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: weirdest publicity stunts of all time. It can be small
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: stuff like how Salvador Dolly gained some local notoriety by
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: routinely jumping out of his window and falling into bushes.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: That's how he that's part of how he became known.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: By the way, is that weird? That is weird? It
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: could It could also be a big thing like this
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: recreational train wreck, or just any old thing that catches
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: your eye, we'd love to hear about it. You can
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: find us on Instagram, you can find us on Facebook,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: you can find us on Twitter. Yeah, and you can
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: also find this as individuals. I am at how Now
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Noel Brown on Instagram exclusively, and I am at Ben
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Bolan on Instagram. You can see my adventures as I
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: struggle with the decision whether or not to keep this
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: quarantine beard and go full the Old Testament. You can
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: also find me on Twitter at Ben Bullen h s W.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Thanks as always to our super producer Casey Pegram, who
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: I don't know if we mentioned this on air, but
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: you've got some great lighting going on today, Casey, Oh,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: thank you, Ben. It's the natural light coming in through
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: the window. Can't go wrong. Well, I'll tell you. It's
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: framing your background. What is that? What's what's that French
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: locale right there that you've seen? Yeah, that is the
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: politoguts in Paris and the sin Well, the way you're lit,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: it almost looked like you're really there, Casey. And thanks
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: as always, of course to uh the quister who is
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: overdue for return appearance, as is our research associate, Extraordinary
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Gay Blusier, who we would love to have on very soon.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: We're gonna make that happen, um, and I do believe
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: we will. Thanks to Christopher aciotis here in spirit, Eve's
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Jeff Coates, who else you Ben, Thanks to you as
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: always for being my train buddy on on this here
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: episode all right, and thanks to you as well, nol Um.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: I don't know what the caboose for this show is.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: I guess it's our ultra music. Let's see you next time, folks.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: your favorite shows,