82-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, July 1,1989
Maryland Railroad
Tragedy Remembered
Editor’s Note:
The June 24, 1905 edition of
“The Democratic Advocate”
reported one of the worst railroad
accidents-in Maryland history. In
describing the magnitude of the
calamity, the paper declared,
“Not since 1863, when parts of
the Federal and Confederate
Armies passed through here and
a cavalry fight occurred in the
streets has there been such inter
est and excitement in
Westminster.”
The following is a fictional
account of that day, which makes
use of factual details taken from
actual newspaper articles. Photo
graphs of the wreck, are courtesy
of the Historical Society of Car
roll County.
THE RANSOM WRECK
By Sharon B. Schuster
Maryland Correspondent
PATAPSCO. Md. ’Long
about 190 S, June 17 to be exact,
one of the worst train wrecks in
Maryland history occurred at Ran
som near Patapsco.
It was a sweltering hot day. The
mercury on the thermometer
topped 100 degrees by that Satur
day afternoon. Looking for an
escape from the fumace-like city,
heat-wilted Baltimoreans boarded
the special #5 train that would
rush them to the cool blue moun
tains of Western Maryland.
George B. Covell was at the
throttle that evening. Among
those who could truly judge, he
was known as a ‘Master Knight of
the Latch.’ he slipped the eighteen
sided silver railroad watch from
his pocket and saw that they were
pushing the 5:00 p.m. scheduled
departure.
The conductor, George Buck
ingham, made his last sweep along
the side of the train before he
called out the last “’Board! All
aboard!” He shook his head and
reached for his watch fob as he
motioned to a young miss who
seemed oblivious to the timetable
that others lived by. He felt sure
that the face of the smalt intricate
watch pinned to her crisp white
blouse had rarely seen the light of
day. Seeing the hands of his own
watch slipping past 5:00, he
grabbed the gleaming brass rail of
the #5 and pulled himself up onto
the steps of the train.
The great smoke stack of the
engine belched puffs of thick
black smoke as the fireman filled
her belly with coal. As the train
slowly pulled out of Hillen Sta-
The wreck |vas a hepp of twisted metal 20 to 30 feet hi
tion, Coveil knew he had to give
her full throttle to get her back on
schedule.
Meanwhile, a clean-up crew
was boarding a special double
header freight that had been dis
patched to pick up a spill at Mount
Hope. They were headed home,
down the mountain toward
Patapsco, to spend the Sabbath
with their families.
Fpurteen year old E.M. Miller
was among the crew, along with
his father and three dozen other
men. Young Miller loved to work
with the floater crew. Most of the
men were workers at the Catoctin
Furnace, and they worked the rail
road when they were needed.
They were rugged men, and the
comraderie that they felt was
bound by the times they had seen
while working the rails.
On this day, they were hot and
sweaty, and dirty and tired. Some
climbed wearily into the baggage
car for the journey home, and
others, the boy among them, per
ched themselves on top of the train
and on the platforms outside. As
the freight train’s two engines
gained speed down the mountain,
Miller felt the cool mountain air
rush over his hot skin. Perched on
the bumper of the baggage car, his
eyes scanned the ‘jungle’, as they
often referred to the underbrush
along the tracks. He wondered if
they would see any ‘smoke
bounds’ on the tracks. He had
heard his father talk of the way
ward men who would mix water
and canner heat and shake it up
and drink it. “That really put them
up in the clouds,” he would say.
The ‘deadheads’, as the crew
was called, were always full of
stories. And this was one of those
times that a good tale would make
the ride home seem a little shorter.
There was talk of good engineers,
and the worst they had ever seen,
and it all lead up to stories of peo
ple killed on the tracks.
Each man’s story topped the
last There was talk of suicide
attempts and track walkers. Some
recounted their first encounters
with death on the tracks, while
others told of the worst time or the
strangest. Wide-eyed, young Mill
er sat entranced by the details.
“Yessir, we ground him up like
mincemeat,” ended one story.
Another account of death on the
rails went like this: “We broke
both his arms and legs, and drove
one of his ribs right through his
heart He looked just like a bundle
of rags.” Then there was the story
Although passengers on
killed, 10 severely injured
of the priest who was walking
along the tracks with his baqk to
the train..“ The engineer didn’t see
him, and later he thought he hit a
dog or something. One of the crew
said when the train hit that priest,
he flew up in the air like a ball.
about two or three hundred feet.
Some say he went straight to
heaven.”
The stories had taken them to
the Gorsuch Road switch where,
the freight train was to pull over
and wait for three west-bound pas
senger trains to go by. The train
slowed to an eventual halt and the
crew jumped down and rested on a
pile of railroad ties on the siding.
By this time, the #5 Through
Passenger train was speeding tow
ard the mountains with 80 passen-
gers already feeling cooler than run in two sections that day. of the freight, and some say he
when they stepped onto the train Whatever the reason, the crew saw the freight rounding the bend
back at Hillen Station. was accounted for the three trains that at Ransom. No one will ever be
a true ‘throttle artist’ They said Hfe they had been waiting for and they ‘ sure. George B. Coveil went'to his
could move a train with less coal hopped back on the freight to con- death with his hand at the brake,
and less water 1 thari '4hybhe ( and tinue their journey doWti 1 tHtf'"' He fcouldhave jumped to save his
hardly lift the coal off the stack, mountain. As the train got back on life, but he put the lives of his pas-
He checked his watch again and the main track, a flagman waved sengers above his own. He threw
seemed pleased with the train’s to one of the crew and pointed to on the brake, blew the whistle and
progress, but he had to maintain his watch, but the crewman threw her into reverse. But, the
better than 30 mites per hour to motioned him to get on board. freight rounded the bend and the
discharge his passengers by the Thinking that the crewman two trains with a crash
scheduled 6:03 p.m. knew the schedule better than he, that was heard for a mile apd a
The crew of the now resting the flagman dismissed his con- half away,
freight passed the time with more ccms and hopped on the train. Young Miller jiitnped from the
talk of trains. They watched as the The fireman of the freight fed bumper just in the nick of time.
Blue Mountain Express streaked coa l into the firebox like a fevered The passengers on the #S escaped
by. They talked about how pretty man - H® shoveled so hard and so serious injury, but 26 of the floater
she was, with each spoke of the fast 1,131 his teeth dropped onto the crew were killed, ten severely
driving wheels painted yellow, shovel and he threw them into the injured and two slightly injured,
and the rods polished and buffed f umac ® before he knew what hap- They said there was a postal clerk
to catch the sunlight. It ran in two P® ned< ® ut he kept on shoveling, on board the passenger train
sections that day. At the end of the Soon the boy, young Miller, heard whose legs were broken. He had
hour’s wait, the Union Bridge the engines popping and cracking in his possession a mail bag and
Accommodation passed them. through the wooded bottoms, refused to surrender it until an
Maybe they thought the third They would soon be coming up on official representative of the Post
train was the #5. Maybe they PaIa P SCO - Office arrived. Some say there
didn’t realize that the Express had “Patapsico.” That’s the way the was a great amount of money on
people who lived there said it. the train that disappeared.
Miller thought of the times when The wreck was a heap of'
he rode the train to school and the twisted metal twenty or thirty feet
conductor would announce high. The next day, the Sabbath,
Patapsco as “Paradise, Paradise! crews were still digging through
Next stop Paradise!” Anyone who the wreckage. Young Miller, dry
knew anything about Patapsco eyed and fearless, helped to iden
knew it wasn’t exactly Paradise, tify the dead, among which was
One good thing about it was that it his father. The engineers of both
meant they would be closer to trains were killed. Covell’s body
home. was crushed like jelly, but his
The ‘quailing’ of the whistle eighteen sided silver watch was
jolted Miller back from his day- still running,
dreaming. The train was speeding ■ Victims of the Ransom Wreck
down the track at over thirty miles were fitted with the finest coffins,
per hour. It was 5:57, They were and each was adorned with a
making good time. basket of flowers. George B.
Some say he heard the whistle Coveil was buried on his birthday.
"Oil,. >, V
history occurred at Ransom near Patapsco.
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