Trains collided head-on near Harriston in 1909

The following is a re-print of a past column by former Advertiser columnist Stephen Thorning, who passed away on Feb. 23, 2015.

Some text has been updated to reflect changes since the original publication and any images used may not be the same as those that accompanied the original publication.

Train wrecks arouse a morbid fascination among both railway buffs and local historians. 

Indeed, there are several books dealing exclusively with train wrecks as a subject matter. I have written about several in Wellington County over the years, and all have been popular with readers.

Fortunately, no wreck in this county’s history caused major loss of life, though there were several fatal ones. One of the latter occurred on Jan. 27, 1909, a short distance from Harriston, on the Grand Trunk Railway.

The year 1909 had not started well for the Grand Trunk in southern Ontario. On Jan. 14 a night express train smashed into a carriage at Grimsby, killing five people. The railway drew much criticism because it had removed the night crossing guard only a short time before. Two days later, a Hamilton-bound passenger train jumped the tracks at Gourock, a few miles from Guelph, injuring several people seriously and badly shaking up several dozen more, including Guelph druggist Alex Stewart and dry goods merchant G.B. Ryan. This wreck generated more bad publicity for the railway. 

The wreck near Harriston gave the railway yet another black eye. It might have a resulted in many more deaths had passenger trains been involved, rather than freight trains.

Things began to go wrong soon after a northbound freight left the Harriston station around noon on Wed., Jan 27. The train, bound for Owen Sound and carrying a mixed cargo of general merchandise, had originated in Stratford, and was in the charge of conductor Matthew Fleming and engineer Conrad Kennedy. Their locomotive was an old one, Number 311, built in 1873 and originally used in passenger service.

Fleming and Kennedy were not familiar with the line through Harriston, or the switch at the north end of town where the line divided, with one branch heading northwest to Clifford and Southampton, and the other leading to the north and Wiarton and Owen Sound.

In 1909, that was a busy junction, with a dozen passenger trains and 10 to 15 freight trains – sometimes more – passing through it each day. With that amount of traffic, the Grand Trunk assigned a switchman to the location. Trains bound for the Southampton line (which the Grand Trunk considered the main line), according to the railway’s rules, were to give one long blast of their whistle, while those for the Owen Sound line indicated their route with four short blasts.

It appears that engineer Kennedy got the signals reversed, and conductor Fleming did not detect the mistake. Kennedy whistled for the Southampton line, and his train headed out of town and into the swirling snow on the wrong line. Catastrophe would be the next stop.

Back at the Harriston station, the baggage man glanced up the track when he heard the whistle, and to his horror made out the form of the train heading up the line toward Clifford. Knowing that a southbound freight was due down that line, and a passenger train later in the afternoon, he rushed into the station and quickly informed the telegraph operator of the mistake. The operator immediately contacted the Clifford station to hold the southbound freight there, but it was too late. The southbound freight had pulled out of Clifford a few moments previously.

The Grand Trunk men at Harriston realized that a head-on collision was imminent. The line between Clifford and Harriston was a six-and-a-half mile straight line, but a fine snow was falling that day, and a strong wind swirled it about and made visibility poor. As well, both engineers believed they had a clear track ahead. The Harriston operator sent an emergency message to Palmerston, where the alarm was raised. Yard crews began assembling a rescue train before the crash occurred.

The trains came together about three miles from Harriston, where the line passed through the farm of George Staiger. The spot was a short distance southeast of Fultons station, which was an un-staffed flag stop used mainly by a sawmill and some cattle dealers. Freight trains on that line normally travelled at speeds of 20 or 25 miles per hour, but at that location, both were moving faster on downgrades.

The crew of the southbound train had no hint of trouble ahead until the tremendous crash and jolt of the impact. On the northbound train, the engine crew glimpsed the other train seconds before impact. Engineer Kennedy and fireman Frank Lane bailed out. Lane sustained a bruised shoulder, but the two were otherwise unhurt. Engineer Joseph Arkell in the southbound train was knocked out cold, and could remember nothing, other than regaining consciousness to realize that the tender of his locomotive was overturned and beside the engine. He had two bad cuts on his head, and lost part of an ear. Still, he fared better than the rest of the engine crew.

Arkell’s fireman, Murmar Root, known locally as “Stub,” was horribly mangled, with both legs severed from his body by the rear driving wheel of the locomotive. The death of 23- year-old “Stub” Root shocked everyone in his native Palmerston, where he was well known and popular. He pitched for the local baseball team, and had been engaged to be married later in 1909.

One of the brakeman, John Smith, of Southampton, became pinned under the tender of the locomotive when it broke away from the engine. He was alive when rescuers arrived, but died during the three hours it took to free him.

The impact of the collision wedged the two locomotives solidly together. It was a miracle that neither boiler exploded, which surely would have resulted in additional deaths. The train from Southampton included several cars of grain, as well as general merchandise. None of the cars escaped damage, and several were totally demolished, with cargo and rolling stock scattered all over the track and down both sides of the embankment that carried the tracks.

The rescue train was on the site in less than an hour, but by then news of the crash had travelled back to Harriston. Despite the near blizzard conditions, dozens of people walked from Harriston to view the scene. The rescue train almost ran over several of them on the track. 

The Clifford station master prevented further calamity by holding Number 22, the southbound passenger train. Travellers who normally took the train had to find alternate arrangements between Harriston and Clifford for a couple of days, until the wrecking crews could clear and open the line.

Observers at the site considered both locomotives to be reduced to heaps of scrap metal. The Grand Trunk removed them to Stratford, where old Number 311 was indeed scrapped. Shop crews managed to patch up the other locomotive, Number 584, a freight engine built in 1890. In 1914, that engine went west, to a new life on the Grand Trunk Pacific line across the prairies, until it was retired in 1923.

Next week: a coroner’s inquest, criminal charges and a trial for manslaughter.

*This column was originally published in the Wellington Advertiser on Oct. 6, 2000.