Historic Hood River
“Her Nose in Our Front Door”
11-26-2018
Notes
I think this is Alva Day’s birthday present for Arlen. From notes on the back it looks like this postcard was taken by Dietz as a gift to the railroad. Someone (I suspect station manager J.H. Fredricy) added the note, “Showing the Mt Hood engine with her nose in our front door, return this to me.” Fortunately Alva kept the image so we can see it today.
I checked the depot this afternoon, and there is still a small spur track from the MHRR which aims directly at the depot on this side. It stops just short of the building, though this train did not seem to care that the track ended.
Category: Downtown Hood River
Tags: Alva Day, depot, Dietz, Fredricy, locomotive, Mt Hood Railroad, railroad, train
Tags: Alva Day, depot, Dietz, Fredricy, locomotive, Mt Hood Railroad, railroad, train
Longshot
Cool picture, it’s amazing that people can be so nonchalant around such a fire breathing monster.
L.E.
Now that is certainly a bit of HR history. Thanks for checking out the tracks Arthur.
I wonder how many years Mr. Fredricy said, "I loaned that photo to someone, and never saw it again."
Arlen Sheldrake
WOW……what a birthday present!!!! This is one unique picture, had no idea this derailment ever occurred….bet some station passengers were surprised. the station sign will help date this picture.
if anyone wants to get up close to one of these steamers, the Oregon Rail Heritage Foundation is operating the Holiday Express the next two weekends out of Oaks Park in Sellwood using the SP4449 steam locomotive"¦.while Santa and the ride are nice, it is fun to just be up close to one of these "fire breathing monsters".
will ask to use this picture in a future PNWC-National Rail Historical Society newsletter….MANY thanks Arthur for this Christmas present (not having birthdays anymore….can’t count that high). Arlen
LMH
This newspaper article from the Hood River Glacier may describe the incident.
The Hood River glacier., September 26, 1918, Image 1
RELIC VIEWERS SEE
RUNAWAY ENGINE
A spectacle that was not on the program, a runaway locomotive of the Mt. Hood Railroad Co., that flew down a track alongside that on which the war trophy train had just parked, and missing by inches scores of the spectators, furnished a thrill for the hundreds here to see the relics of European battlefields yesterday morning.
The relic train, arriving a little late of scheduled time, was switched to a joint track of the O. W. R. & N. Co. and the short lire. The engineer and fireman of the runaway locomotive had left their engine to catch a glimpse of the relics. The track along which the locomotive swept was fairly lined with spectators, and it is considered miraculous that some one was not run down. Scores of school children were present to see the trophy train, and but for the presence of mind of elders who jerked them from the danger, some of them would have been struck.
Traveling at a speed estimated by spectators from 10 to 15 miles an hour, the locomotive struck a rail passenger auto at the end of the track, and ploughed for 100 feet over paving until its course was stopped by the thick brick walls of the west, end of the 0. W. R. & N. station. The big rail auto was caught on the locomotive’s tender and seven automobiles, left in the path of the runaway, were caught as though by the scythes of a mowing machine. Women screamed as a little child rushed across the path of the wreckage just in time to save herself. A. A. Lausmann, driving to the station, stopped his automobile as the mass rushed past his radiator.
Two of the machines were ground into twisted steel and splintered wood between the locomotive and the brick walls of the station. The big crowd, watching the destruction of the automobiles and fearing that they might have contained passengers, shuddered." Until men pried into the wreckage it was not known but what someone had been maimed or killed.
How the locomotive started remains unexplained. J. W. West, manager of the line, says he has the name of a woman who says she saw two men leap on the locomotive and then leap away as it started. This report spread through the crowd viewing the wreckage and has caused feeling to run high. Others say that it has been reported that the throttle of the locomotive was in need of repair, and the enginemen are blamed for having left their charge. Local citizens and officials are determined that a thorough investigation shall be
made.
Work of clearing away the wreckage began almost immediately. Foust & Merle quickly removed the damaged automobiles and in less than an hour the rail auto was back in the Mount Hood yards. Before noon the locomotive had been drawn back to its own track.
Owners of cars damaged were; Joe Haviland, W. F. Shannon, C. F. Alloway, Frank Davenport, J. E. Ferguson and Frank J. Schuler. It is not known to whom the seventh car, a Dodge tour ing car, belonged.
Buzz
Some days in a mans life, things just do not go well.
Jeffrey Bryant
In the Hood River Glacier, 1926-06-10, page 6 is an article written by a student about the Mt. Hood Railroad. It includes the following:
“In 1919 a booty train laden with German arms and supplies came through and the engineer of the “Polygamy Central” went into the freight depot for something and an anarchist tried to wreck the larger train by running the smaller into it but he wrecked the depot instead as a man switched it off the track.”
The Mt. Hood Railroad “was and is yet called “The Polygamy Central” because it was built by a Mormon company.”