America's Worst Train Disaster: The 1910 Wellington Tragedy

Citation

(2000), "America's Worst Train Disaster: The 1910 Wellington Tragedy", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 9 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2000.07309eae.002

America's Worst Train Disaster: The 1910 Wellington Tragedy

America's Worst Train Disaster: The 1910 Wellington Tragedy

Don MoodyAbiquePlano1998183 pp.ISBN 1-892298-12-0US $ 24.95

This is the carefully researched story of Great Northern Railway trains #25 and #27 that departed Seattle for Spokane on 22 February 1910. Caught in a monumental blizzard in the Cascade Mountains, the train waited for weather to clear as supplies dwindled. Disaster struck on 1 March when a snow avalanche tossed the train from its tracks and brought death and destruction.

The book presents an excellent view of the disaster against a background of social history. There is ample discussion of the social-Darwinism, the rise of labor unions, and basic concepts of social justice. The author, however, shows no understanding of disaster studies, even though he records many basic aspects of disasters.

The well-told story is set in an era in which the disaster cycle was essentially limited to response. If there was any recovery, it was limited to the railroad restoring service; the human element of recovery was limited to financial compensation (incidentally, with a lower court decision of relatively generous payment overturned by a superior court ruling). Yet, these terms of reference were evidently unknown to the author. The phenomena of volunteerism and convergence are documented but not really understood. Body collection and identification were documented, and mistakes were criticized; there was, however, no real explanation of how errors were made, except for one piquant story of two brothers with a sizeable inheritance and the quirk of identical names. Even the title of the book reflects a known occurrence in disasters – the railroad tried by every means to count fatalities so that the number would not exceed 96, then the largest train disaster in US history. The number was set, then one more body was found as the snow melted.

To be certain this is an accurate rendering of an historical incident from which disaster researchers can learn even today. The fact that the author did not avail himself of disaster management concepts does not negate the collection of interesting raw material.