The Purdue Wreck: The Devastating Indiana Train Crash that Claimed 17 Lives

In 1903, Halloween fell on a Saturday. It was a big day for the Purdue, and Indiana university football teams. There were two trains that were carrying the 1,500 passengers, and the Purdue football team from Lafayette, to Indianapolis, Indiana. The game’s location had been set to at a ‘neutral’ territory — the field at Indianapolis’ Washington Park.

What should’ve been a fun Halloween football game between the two rival teams ended in a deeply unfortunate tragedy. The two trains carrying their passengers to the football field ended up crashing — killing more than a dozen passengers.

The trains were operated by the ‘Big Four Railroad’ (Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis Railway). The lead train had 950 passengers (600 of these were students). This was the Richmond engine №350, a coal tender, and its 14 coach cars. The train’s conductor was Frank M. Johnson, and piloted by Engineer William H. Shumaker.

The second train, which had 550 passengers, was pulled by engine №183. The coal train had the switching engine №84, and 7 coal cars. Each of these coal cars were 80,000 pounds (36,000 kg) — with a total of 560,000 pounds (250,000 kg). The train was piloted by Engineer Smith, and Conductor Acres.

Witnesses who had spotted the №350, said that the train had been heading in a SE direction toward Union Station. They had been travelling at about 40 KM/H (25 MPH). The Coal train №84, had been slowly chugging…