The Great Railroad Roundhouse Explosion of 1912
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- čas přidán 5. 03. 2024
- Story Contribution: The City of San Antonio Historical Society and the San Antonio Police Department Historical Records.
This story covers the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio railroad explosion of 1912. It's causes and the people involved. - Věda a technologie
My grandfather died on the Union Pacific in 1916. He was shovelling cinders into the cinder pit. He heard an engine coming down the track. He stepped back from the track and leaned on his shovel to wait for the train to pass. In 1916, worker safety was not a major concern of large corporations, and there was no OSHA. The engineer had extinguished the engine's headlamp to conserve kerosene. Without the light to see how far back from the track he was, Grandpa didn't realise that his shovel was right on the trackside. The train knocked his shovel away from him and he fell under the engine. He survived for an hour or so, but he was so badly injured that there was nothing that could be done.
Oh My! That's terrible!
If the boiler failed in the lower part of the firebox it would be a mud ring failure, not the crown sheet. Mud ring failures were very common due to more corrosion happenening in this area. Crown sheet failures are usually due to a low water level in the boiler. This is what happened at Gettysburg Scenic back in '95. A catasrophic mud ring failure usually gives no warning and will occur even with a full sight glass. A small boiler working at 150 psi is equivalent to 1.5 tons of TNT in an explosion. Fortunately boilers tend to blow UP, not OUT or the damage would be far worse. Cool video.
This comment deserves more tractive effort!
The two archive records are quite old.. So I think I can give them a bit of a pass in their idea of things. But I know your point and it's valid.
So true. Crown sheet failures would occur when the crown sheet became exposed due to water not covering it and almost get red hot. When water was introduced, it would instantly turn to steam, expand and blow up, with catastrophic results. I've run a few steam locomotives in my career and they are fun to operate, but there is a lot to keep your eye on.
I love practical experience
Over pressure seems to be the root cause from defective safety valves.
Any component can fail from over pressure. If the crown sheet stays or the crown sheet support bars failed it would give the classic crown sheet failure appearance. In this case it is quite clear that the crown sheet was torn completely loose and inside out. This was not because of low water but over pressure.
I am not speaking from theory but from practical experience from working on no less than five steam locomotives and some forty years of practical experience in the railroad industry. I have extensive knowledge in the steam mechanical engineering as well.
All the information necessary for a proper diagnosis was mentioned in this video if we listen carefully.
Round about 1860, a loco exploded in Brighton, UK, killing the driver, fireman and a fitter and demolishing the engine shed. One of the driver's legs was blown 200 yards and through a guesthouse window, landing on the dining table. This caused "much consternation".
Made him a legend in his own time.
My uncle used to say that the rule book was written in blood.
As are many building codes. Steam is a scary powerful force. Someone explained it this way. In a boiler explosion you got a lot of superheated water prevented from boiling due to the pressure, then the vessel ruptures. In an instant you have a pressure drop, some of that water flashes to steam taking up 1700 times the space of the water causing a massive pressure spike and ripping apart the boiler with massive force.
A similar one applies to the airline industry.
The oil used for fuel at that time was Bunker C or the leftovers in the cracking tower in an oil refinery after extracting everything else out of the crude oil. Bunker C is a cut above asphalt. It has to be heated to pump it. The only way this stuff caught fire was that it was very hot or it was crude oil which was possible at the time.
The Reader RR burned oil from the Berry Asphalt Co refinery at Waterloo, Ark. which had to blend diesel with the Bunker C to make the fuel oil.
Bunker C in 1912 only cost about $0.10 per gallon so it was cheap and much easier to handle than any other fuel at the time besides not readily setting the surrounding countryside on fire from cinders and sparks.
Regretfully, railroads and most other industries of the time did not treat employees very well.
The explosions of steamboat boilers of the 1800s were commonly from tying the safety valves down to get extra pressure and thus extra speed from the engines either to win races or get to the destination early. Maintenance was not a high priority either.
The locomotive was fired when it blew up.. I took the meaning that it was it's tender that went up. The archive records said a bit differently to your point I think.
My grandfather started with the B&0 in 1904. He saw no less than three or four men killed, pinned between cars. Switching yards were so noisy that it was impossible to hear cars coming, or yell warnings.
I definitely can believe that!
It’s not easy to hear cars coming in a quiet yard, and during very cold weather, it’s all but impossible to even hear a locomotive coming. They used to show us videos on this subject 4 or 5 times a year to keep it on fresh in our minds year round.
That's some scary stuff.. The only thing I cant relate to as being the same was my being on a aircraft carrier flight deck during flight ops. same thing... gotta stay alert and keep your head on a swivel.
Clearly you were not in the Metra car with me last week after that I ate that questionable Italian beef.
Thank you for your content I love playing your vids in the back ground. I mainly listen when I'm running model trains, searching for new models online, or while I'm waiting for a train/railfanning.
Glad you like them!
It wasn't until I began to experiment with steam that I understood at least one reason for the sudden popularity of Diesel-electric locomotives. Steam is romantic, historic, and utterly terrifying.
Well stated. It would seem the only other equally or greater hazardous jobs are soldiers in a time of war.. And any type of law enforcement. All three professions (Railroad included) you just didnt know if you were safely coming home everyday. Especially in the age of steam.
Around 1965 I asked a railroader about steam engines. By that time, they were all gone, but their people weren't. Apparently not a single one mourned the loss of those locomotives.
I haven't seen it mentioned yet but the volumetric expansion of water to steam is a factor of 1600 times, or 160,000 percent. Meaning, you get 1600 gallons of steam when you heat 1 gallon of water to the point where it turns into a gas instead of a liquid. Keep in mind this is only by volume, not by weight. However it's that very expansion which gives steam it's enormous power. All that expansion pressure is always pushing on the walls of the boiler, which is designed and meant to contain that pressure. From what I know steam loco working pressure is usually 200-300 pounds per square inch (PSI). That's at least 200 pounds of pressure on *every square inch* of the inside surface of the boiler.
I won't bore anyone with the math but by my rough figuring a typical 10 wheeler like that one has a total boiler surface area of about 25,000 square inches, times a minimum working pressure of 200PSI = 5 million pounds of pressure. And that pressure got released *very* quickly. It's no wonder people & buildings "came apart". yikes. 😱
This kind of caught my attention because I'm a former volunteer fireman & we used to use the expansion of steam as a tool in structure (building) fires. Even in a somewhat enclosed space, you could hit the fire with a fog nozzle & the resulting expanding-yet-contained steam would help "suffocate" the fire, cutting off air supply that the fire needs to keep burning. The only trick to it was though, not to get par-boiled yourself in the process.
Very good video sir. 👍
An Allegheny engine DID blow up in the 1950's. It underway at the time as most loco explosions were. There was a horrendous explosion in 1941 of a big loco, not an Allegheny but nearly as big.
Yes I know.. I did a video on it.
I'm seriously astounded at the violence of this boiler explosion, leaving me asking what pressure No 704's boiler had reached before it gave way. There was an incident many years ago on the Rhymney Railway in Wales, when their No 97 also exploded, wrecking the running shed but fortunately, so far as I know with little loss of life or injury. Like 704, No 97 was being readied for service after an overhaul, during which, it was later discovered, her safety valves had been assembled the wrong way round - so the steam pressure was pushing them tighter and tighter shut.
As for railroad men's fatalities, they were proportionately just as bad here in the UK; my home village churchyard has a memorial to a father and son, both lengthmen (section hands or gandy dancers) killed on the line within 10 years of each other, and another memorial to a 'miner' killed while building the line. Similarly, two other local churchyards have memorials to a 'navvie' (construction worker) and two enginemen killed in a boiler explosion - all three of their graves have carved headstones, the one with a graphic illustration of the labourer being run down by a tip wagon, the other two having very accurate ones show a pair of Norris 4-2-0 engines.
Yeah, it's just incredible the force these types of boiler explosions have.... Just no words can describe the destructive capability for something that's not associated with traditional explosives.
There was also a No.97 in the US,in Virginia that crashed around the same time. There is a song about it: Wreck of the old 97.
In Bromsgrove churchyard (UK) there's the grave of 2 men killed in a boiler explosion.
If this happened today it'd immediately get called a terrorist attack
Perhaps
Well we live a post 9/11 world so who knows...
No, a whistle is NEVER a pressure relief devise.
Apparently in 1912 they were. The San Antonio Police Department wrote that particular info. Not me.
"actual photo of the accident" Picture shows a riveted-metal-lined square whole where there used to be a train.
WOW! I knew boilers that experienced rapid disassembly where bad, but not on this kolosso scale! Great video, but O wow!
I know, right?
I lost a great uncle in this disaster, he was identified and shipped home for burial. Was seventeen
Oh My!!
When ships were still wood, a boiler explosion usually sank the ship. Once ships went to water tube boilers, explosions were rare. When a water tube boiler fails, it just blows out some tubes and the steam goes out the stack and leaves the boiler men unharmed. I was on a destroyer making a high speed run and some tubes blew. Suddenly there was a pop and the sound of escaping steam. Some people inside the ship but away from the boiler room didn't know it happened until later.
The way this guy talks is beyond comment.
It go "BOOM"!
I wish they would do a movie on this.
Don't play around with your crown sheet.
I had a great uncle who lost both legs in a railroad accident in the 1930s.
Oh geez-louise!
October, 1948 UP 4-12-2, how did thengine crew allow the boiler to run low on water? Once discovered, can they dump the fire? Or oil-burner? Thank you.
A story yet to be told.. Stay tuned.
So how did the procedures and management practices change after that? Next video?
2:04...That's not where the crown sheet is! It's on TOP of the firebox. Hence the name!
I would think that would have killed S.P. Scary thought about the explosion.
That's what happens when skilled union labor is replaced with scabs. Support union workers, they are worth the cost.
Said the NFL
@@TheRailroadCrossing-SteamPower Sounding like a moron, won't help your channel. I'm done with it.
How about calling it a colossal f up.
They lowballed the cost. The body count
Oh Im sure that they did. And you're still being kind.
This story has been greatly embellished !
No.
It hasn't.
Sorry to disappoint your "theory".. But the story as presented came directly from the City of San Antonio and the San Antonio police department records. Both sources are listed in the description. Maybe look before you speak next time. I never do a story without confirmed sources.
I live in San Antonio. My father was already 58 years old when I was born, in 1962. I heard this story first-hand from him. He was eight years old when his family moved to San Antonio in 1912, right when this disaster occurred. This documentary is very accurate, save for the pronunciation of Seguin.
My dad described dismembered human limbs hanging in powerlines and in streets and rooftops all over town. God only knows how many people died in that thing, but I'd bet the toll was a lot higher than even the least conservative estimate.
Yeah.. what happened to the people is what I had to leave out of the story as far as the gore is concerned. And yes... I have no doubt many, many more people died in this thing. I gotta feeling that what was reported was all they could confirm. Everyone else...well, basically became cosmic dust without a trace.
@@TheRailroadCrossing-SteamPower
That's pretty much what they did. I think they confirmed 16 dead and 10 "missing," but those missing 10 were all registered workers on site. Any umarried and unregistered strike breakers would not have been missed. It was a ghastly, nightmarish sight. Probably the greatest loss of life in this 306 year old city since the Alamo.
I live here in San Antonio and the story goes but not confirmed that way more people died because they were non union scabs. Though the official report is mechanical failure, its been passed onto as being sabotage. Not that it matters but Seguin is pronounced Sageen. Great video!
A few of you have now indicated the sabotage angle and that could be.v The railroad certainly acted like they didnt want the Feds involved.
One can only imagine the lawsuits today. Seems to me that SP did a poor job of educating their employees. Who would sabotage?
I dont necessarily believe in the sabotage idea... It's a rampant theory that angry former employee's set up the accident.
If that's so, again it reflects on company training or lack thereof
@@ronalddevine9587 The employee's went on strike.. Many were fired outright, or removed for bogus reasons because they struck. That's the basis of the sabotage theory. That roundhouse had so many brand new employee's and people who didn't know what they were doing. You can train people.. But training knowledge never replaces practical experience knowledge. Im a perfect example of that. Im book smart on this stuff.. But not practical smart.. On the actual machine.. I dont know what I am doing.
This boiler was sabotaged. Someone clever figured out how to cause the boiler to fail.
One has to wonder about that.. Especially with the circumstances.
Inexperienced workers is a far more likely source. Unless your mind can't process anything more complicated than conspiracy. It sounds like a different crew fired it up in the morning, than shut it down the previous day, for an issue they had. Maybe the crew from the day before didn't leave a note attached to the firebox door, and were given a different assignment the next day. No Post-its invented yet. In addition, drinking on the job was more rampant, than it is now. I can think of more possible reasons beside sabotage, but you get the idea that possibilities are endless.