In the early 1900s, railroad tracks were among the most dangerous places a person could be. Trains moved with tremendous force, often at speeds that gave little warning and almost no chance of escape. A handcar, by comparison, was small, exposed, and powerless against anything larger coming down the rails.
Handcars were commonly used by railroad workers to inspect tracks and travel short distances along the line. They were practical tools, built for labor and maintenance. In the wrong hands, however, they could become deadly.
A few people looking for excitement could take one onto the rails without fully understanding the danger they were entering. Once on the track, there was nowhere to turn aside, and the sound of an approaching train might come too late.
That appears to be what happened near Tiffin, Ohio, in September 1912, when a group of six people took a handcar from a camp north of Mansfield and rode it into the city. After spending the night away from camp, they started back in the early morning hours. By about 8 o’clock, their trip ended in horror when an excursion train struck the handcar.
Four Are Dead After Crash On Rails In Ohio
TOLEDO, Ohio. — Four persons were instantly killed, and a fifth is dying in the emergency hospital here as a result of the handcar, on which they were returning to Mansfield, being struck by an excursion train about 8 o’clock today.
Six were in the party and they had taken one of the handcars in the camp five miles north of Mansfield to come to the city for a joyride. They remained in several of the resorts of the northern section of the city all night and started back on the return trip about 6 o’clock.
They had reached the city limits of Tifflin when an excursion train crashed into the handcar with such force that the bodies were jammed under the engine and stopped the cars.
All the bodies were terribly mutilated. The victim in the hospital cannot survive.
Source: The Washington Times. Washington D.C. September 22, 1912.
