Understanding the Custer Creek Catastrophe
The Consequence of Designing Infrastructure without Considering All Hazards
This June 19 will celebrate the 85th anniversary (1938) of the Custer Creek Disaster, a train wreck that claimed more than 48 lives and injured more than 70. But this crisis was unlike many of the train wrecks we think of or read about today. It did not collide with another locomotive (such as in the recent Indian disaster), it did not mechanically fail in any way, and it was not overweight or speeding.
Instead, it became an unfortunate consequence of its environment. A nondescript bridge over a small creek. This descriptor is vague. This bridge was not remarkable. There are hundreds of thousands of similar ones across the United States today, and few are likely as well kept as this one was.
Background:
The train, Olympian [Hiawatha] (No. 15), which was traveling on the Milwaukee Road from Chicago, Illinois to Tacoma, Washington, hosted supposedly 152 persons (SBPC, 1938), consisted of eleven cars (including two (2) coaches, three (3) sleeping and one (1) dining) and was in good working order as recent maintenance checks had surmised (ICC, 1938; pp. 9).
Although the official accident report (ICC, 1938) notes 152 total aboard the train, various newspapers at the time reported that many of the passengers were unticketed (The Washington Times, 1938a). The Imperial Valley Press newspaper (1938) reported this total number as being 191 while others like The Evening Star (1938) report 165.
While unconfirmed, it is possible that the accident report was only able to officially establish 152 tickets as being aboard. To read about this event in newspapers from June, 1938 click here.
Officially known as AA-438, the bridge spanned 180 feet and supported a single set of rails. It was rigorously constructed to more than adequate standards and had a safety factor over three. It had been heavily reinforced for tension, compression and shearing stresses and was well maintained (ICC, 1938; pp. 5). Although it led to the Yellowstone River, the aptly named Custers Creek saw little water for more than nine months of the year. Despite this, it consisted of six heavy and structurally sound piers extending into the ground between 7 and 10 feet; the complete diagram (ICC, 1938; pp. 6) can be seen below. During these other three months, however, the surrounding watershed had an area of approximately 160 square miles and was non-exclusively emptied through this point. A recent inspection a few days earlier had also determined that there was enough rip rap present to sustain the structure for this expected flow - which for the last decade rarely ever topped a depth of 5 feet, with 2-3 feet being the norm. Only 2 hours before the incident, a different train (No. 263) crossed the bridge without incident, and the crew aboard noted that the water depth had been in this range (ICC, 1938; pp. 12). Oh, and the weather was calm and cloudy during the accident.
So what happened? What events led to a significant loss of life on one of the country's safest railways - which spared no expense in its maintenance and safety measures (ICC, 1938; pp. 16) - and what lessons could apply to EM today?
So what went wrong?
Like much of the infrastructure built today, this bridge was designed within a function of its environment and the stresses it would likely face. The rip rap had been sufficient for the average water levels of 3 to 4 feet that it came to meet annually. It was not, however, designed to withstand a sudden cloudburst in the area - which locals described as the most violent ever experienced. Incredibly, within two hours, three separate storms had caused the water under the bridge to rise from 4 to 20 feet deep!
“When [train] No. 263 crossed the bridge at 10:15 p.m. the water was about 3 or 4 feet deep and the crew of that train found the bridge to be in normal alignment and surface. When trackmen inspected the bridge about 20 minutes later the water was about 6 or 7 feet below the girders [4-5 feet deep]. When No. 15 [Olympian] reached the bridge at 12:35 a.m. water in the channel was about 20 feet deep.” (ICC, 1938; pp. 13)
It should also be noted that after each storm had ceased, railroad foremen were dispatched to check on nearby railroad infrastructure, each patrolling just miles up and downstream of the bridge. There was no indication that this bridge, in particular, was threatened in any way, shape or form.
Unbeknownst to all those aboard the Olympian, by the time she had reached the bridge, the sequence of natural weather phenomena resulted in a rapid flow that dislodged and washed out “rip-rap weighing hundreds of pounds… from their locations around piers 1, 2 and 3 and [were] taken a considerable distance down the stream." (ICC, 1938; pp. 18). This “flash flood” may be one of the first events substantiated under this term (Allen, 1938). Now, without rip-rap near the piers, significant scouring had taken place, undermining the bridge's structural integrity. Piers #2 and #3 are believed to have been the first to tip as the Olympian passed overhead. As the train’s weight reached these undermined structural supports, the concrete slabs “in spans 3 and 4 collapsed as pier 3 tipped. the locomotive struck the north slab of span 5 between the locomotive boiler and the cylinder. Lower portions of the locomotive struck and destroyed piers 4, 5 and 6 and the west abutment.” (ICC, 1938; pp. 15).
Some eyewitness accounts suggest that the locomotive successfully made it to the other side of the bridge before getting pulled in backward by the train cars that had plunged into the raging river. (The Times News, 1938).
Lessons for Infrastructure, Planning and Mitigation:
As you may recall, the Custers Creek bridge had been well designed to withstand the environmental hazards it would encounter (i.e., 3-4 ft water depth for a few months of the year). However, Its design was inadequate for the flash flood it experienced on that fateful day. Today’s engineers similarly try to design infrastructure sufficient for the environmental hazards it is likely to face throughout its lifetime, which can be of concern since factors like climate change have not historically been part of this long-term equation. This is especially true in places not generally associated with flowing water.
Scouring is by far the most common reason for bridge instability around the world (Ayres, 2022 & Pruebas, 2020), and in the United States specifically, of the 504,000 bridges over water, more than 70% have not been designed with it in mind. (Flint et al., 2017). As regions continue to face changing Climate-induced rain and snow patterns - which will result in higher frequencies and intensities of flooding - we are bound to see scouring-based critical infrastructure failures, especially as our nation's infrastructure continues to erode. It seems to be a matter of time until we face the next bridge scour-induced disaster, whether passenger or hazmat based.
To read more about scouring, click here.
Lessons for All-Hazards Approach Emergency Egress:
Despite the technology being only a few years old, air-conditioning on passenger rail cars was quickly adopted throughout the industry; by June 1935, the Olympian had wholly joined that list (Scribbins, 2008). The windows were now permanently shut to keep the cold air inside the cabin- unfortunate for many aboard the train as it fell into the river and prevented their escape. Many drowned without a way to break the windows from inside the cabin. Around 30 lives were saved by responding rescuers who could break the windows (from outside) and pull victims to safety (The Washington Times, 1938b).
While it is possible to egress through modern railway/subway windows, a proper standard for doing so doesn't seem to exist, let alone for those with functional needs. For those entities that promote this option for emergency egress (which is uncommon), few people are likely to use this method since, much like on airplanes, people head to the most salient option - the doors (Still, 2013). Inevitably, this results in single points of failure and a reliance on technology to function correctly in all circumstances - a utopian ideal. This issue is further demonstrated by the following video from 2016 in Boston and, more recently, in London, where passengers could not escape (and crowded around the doors) until outsiders aided in smashing the windows. It is important to note that modern train/subway windows must meet a certain hardness (FRA Type II) that prevents rocks and debris from shattering the glass (Prabhakaran, 2022). The direct effects of that however, is that it makes emergency evacuation through these same windows much more difficult.
Worse still, images from the recent Indian disaster showcase external horizontal bars on the windows, which prevent emergency egress. Had any of these trains derailed over water (where passersby are not immediately present), the Custers Creek Disaster would have looked like a mere exercise in comparison.
Hopefully, we can all learn from the lives lost on June 19, 1938, so the suffering felt won't be in vain.
In Memoriam
Crew: Engineer Frank Merrifield, Fireman H. E. McCoy, Milton Norborg, Charles James, Fred Raschke
Passengers: Mrs. Josephine Frelich Lemmon, Mrs. Leroy Bailey and her two daughters, Joyce, 3, and Juanita, 6, Mrs. E. H. Johnson, Mr. & Mrs. Leleas, Ms. Emma De Thier, Mrs. Milton Lehr, Mrs. Roda E. Leer, Lavonne Lou Leer, P. F. Shultz, Mr. & Mrs. W. H. Range, Sarah Olson, Don Hanscom, Thomas Lallas, Dorothy Debeer, Neil Clancy, Kate Clancy, Ms. Conway, Henry Shultze, Mrs. L. Erickson, Mrs. J. L. Warning;
And all those who remain missing or unidentified
The Evening Star. (1938, June 20). Tangled Wreckage of Crack Western Flyer Shown From Air. The Evening Star, 3 [Picture]. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1938-06-20/ed-1/seq-3/
SBPC. Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation. (1938). Thirty-Eight Lives Lost When Cloudburst Damages Bridge. Railway Age, 104(26), 1050–1051. https://archive.org/details/sim_railway-age_1938-06-25_104_26/page/1050/mode/2up
References:
Allen, J. B. (1938, June 22). [Personal Letter to F. H. Johnson]. Custer Creek Correspondence Volume One (Consolidated PDF, pp. 1). https://www.milwaukeeroadarchives.com/CusterCreek/CusterCreekCorrespondenceVolumeOne.pdf
Ayres. (2022, June 28). What is bridge scour? Why should you care? Ayres. https://www.ayresassociates.com/bridge-scour-care/
Flint, M. M., Fringer, O., Billington, S. L., Freyberg, D., & Diffenbaugh, N. S. (2017). Historical Analysis of Hydraulic Bridge Collapses in the Continental United States. Journal of Infrastructure Systems, 23(3). https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)IS.1943-555X.0000354
ICC. Interstate Commerce Commission - Washington. (1938). Accident on the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad (No. 2278). https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/45039/dot_45039_DS1.pdf?
Imperial Valley Press. (1938, June 20). 48 Bodies Taken from Wreckage of Fast Train. Imperial Valley Press, 1–2. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92070146/1938-06-20/ed-1/seq-1/ and https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92070146/1938-06-20/ed-1/seq-2/
Prabhakaran, A., Gantoi, F. M., Radovich, M., & Harmon, S. (2022). Integrity of Rail Passenger Equipment Glazing Systems [Technical Report]. United States Department of Transportation. https://railroads.dot.gov/sites/fra.dot.gov/files/2022-06/Equipment%20Glazing%20Systems-A.pdf
Pruebas, A. (2020, May 4). Scour and its relation to the collapse of bridges. IDVIA. https://www.idvia.es/en/scour-and-its-relation-to-the-collapse-of-bridges-2/
SBPC. Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation. (1938). Thirty-Eight Lives Lost When Cloudburst Damages Bridge. Railway Age, 104(26), 1050–1051. https://archive.org/details/sim_railway-age_1938-06-25_104_26/page/1050/mode/2up
Scribbins, J. (2008). Milwaukee Road Remembered. University of Minnesota Press.
Still, G. K. (2014). Introduction to Crowd Science . CRC Press.
The Evening Star. (1938, June 20). Crews Dig for Bodies Entombed in Car as 40 Die in Train Plunge. The Evening Star. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1938-06-20/ed-1/seq-1/
The Times News. (1938, June 20). 40 Are Known Dead; Flood Ruins Bridge. The Times News. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86063811/1938-06-20/ed-1/seq-1/
The Washington Times. (1938a, June 20). Wreck Toll 50 Dead, 70 Hurt. The Washington Times, 3. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1938-06-20/ed-1/seq-3/
The Washington Times. (1938b, June 21). 48 Wreck Dead Estimated By Montana Chief. The Washington Times, 3. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1938-06-21/ed-1/seq-3/
The Waterbury Democrat. (1938, June 25). 40 Passengers Still Missing. The Waterbury Democrat, 1–2. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82014085/1938-06-25/ed-1/seq-1/ and https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82014085/1938-06-25/ed-1/seq-2/