1919 cornfield meet!

[Trainman203]

https://mirc.sc.edu/islandora/object/usc%3A1303

This is from the vintage railroad film collection posted a few days ago.  There are a good number of train wrecks in this series but this one is head on.  Wrecks looked a lot different in the days of wooden cars.  Steel cars were barely beginning to make an appearance in 1919.  Aside from an occasional corrugated steel boxcar end, under frames, and trucks, there usually wasn't much left of the cars. Around 1:04, though, is seen one of the only relatively intact freight cars, what appears to be an upside down fishbelly steel flatcar converted to a low gondola.  Right after that, the road is identified as Canadian Pacific on the side of the steam crane.

Archbar trucks, failure of which were a frequent wreck cause, were still around.   Fires from burning car debris are along the right of way.  Probably set by firebox coals since it was a freight train. Or by coal stoves in wooden passenger cars.

Brownville Junction is noted in the film caption.  This area of the CP was not far from some of the very last CP steam operations, ending in March 1960, concurrent with the IC and the C&S.

Another film shows a camelback engine in a wreck with the tender separated from the engine, giving us a never-seen clear view of the backhead.  There are two side by side butterfly fire doors.  I would never have thought of that but it's clear that two were required to properly fire that extra wide anthracite coal Wooten firebox that created the camelback engine in the first place.

[Trainman203]

Despite all this destruction, you had a much better chance of living through something like this compared to an airliner crash.