On the Edge of Disaster: Vintage Train Wrecks in Stunning Detail

You aren't just witnessing train wrecks here. You are witnessing freedom. Note how the people went where they wanted and nobody stopped them.

Let's be honest, none of us searched for this but we all found it strangely riveting

IMAGINE how difficult it would have been back then to deal with the aftermath of these wrecks! Hard ENOUGH today!

I don't know about any of the others, but the first photograph is a still from Buster Keaton's "The General" his Civil War film made in 1927. The wreck was staged for the film using a real locomotive, a real bridge and a real fire. Obviously, a one-take scene.

And just think of the equipment it takes to lift those heavy locomotives weighing tons. Thanks for the video history.

The derailment titled Michigan Central Station is actually Ann Arbor Michigan

A lot of people don't understand why towns are often close to each other. This was due to how far a steam 🚂 engine could travel before it needed to take on more water. After all these water stops were built, the steam engine improved, causing some of these water stops to disappear, no longer serving any purpose. Once the diesel-electric engine (a diesel engine spinning an electric turbine, providing electricity to a large electric motor) replaced steam, even more of these water stop towns completely disappeared or regressed into mere villages or for ranch use. Locations that were strategically useful for the railroad thrived and grew. The second most important thing about these pictures, is the high cost that it took to build this country into the superpower that it became. We have activists today, who want to erase this history of sacrifice, struggle, hardship, and death from the books and replace it all with nothing but racism, oppression, guilt, and shame. They, who have invested absolutely nothing into this society, see it as their duty, to destroy our society and remake it into their warped image and the first place they start their attack, is our history. Thank you History Lounge for being a true guardian of our history and heritage and we salute you, sir.

Neat side of history. No graffiti vandalism on train cars back then.

Why is the Texas the image for the first wreck? Wasn’t that a shot from 1926 from Buster Keaton’s; “The General” Movie?

Had to watch this when I saw the train with "Monon" on the side. Sure enough, it was the same railway that gave its name to the Indianapolis Monon Trail, which was converted for outdoor exercise, I learned to roller blade there in the 90's

В первом кадре, 1927 года, была сцена из фильма ,,Генерал".

The locomotive in the 1940 pic is a heavy Mikado, It was Lima built and featured at brute look

0:58 that wreck is somewhere on the PRR system as that was a K4 Pacific buried in the mud. If I had to guess, somewhere near Harrisburg by the Susquehanna river in the 1930's or early 40's.

I miss the old days when the whole town would come out to pose with the carnage

As a kid in the early 60’s I would visit my grandparents house and view the old steriopticons they had. Most of them were of train wrecks. Bet they’d be valuable now.

I can’t wait for these trains to get dash cams so we can see how this happened.

I dread to think how many staff and passengers lost their lives in these wrecks. The first image was, of course, a staged wreck for the Buster Keaton film "The General". The wreck at 6m.34s was at Maze Hill near Greenwich, London in 1958. Luckily the train ran into a rake of empty electric multiple units and the driver was unhurt.

I’d like to see a follow on of the wreck trains and the “big hooks” cleaning up the messes.

The shot at AnnArbor , MI was a classic , I spent many hours there as a kid . Never saw steam there , but lots of early Diesels !!

The old soft trumpet really set the tone