Soon, the trains are picking up steam, hurling towards each other at 50 miles per hour, getting closer and closer until they finally hit. Train personnel get the trains going full throttle, jumping off once the locomotive hits about 10 miles per hour. When 4 o'clock hits, the trains begin their iron joust. It’s colors the reverse of its competition – bright red and trimmed in green. And on the other side of the track was another 35-ton locomotive, No. It had a bright green body with red trimming. On one end was a 35-ton locomotive, engine No. "When you first hear the story, to imagine this happened, to imagine that in this middle-of-nowhere, for a day, what would’ve even the second largest city in Texas popped up to see this event that still seems hard to imagine that it actually occurred.”Īt this fictional town, a 3-mile stretch of track was set up, adjacent to the Katy railway that ran through the area. “Well there’s kind of a surreal-ness with it," Sloan says. Sloan is a historian and director of the Baylor Institute for Oral history. And when it came time for the crash, Stephen Sloan says an estimated 40,000 people descended upon a pop-up town called Crush, Texas – a site just 15 miles north of Waco, near the town of West. Soon, word of the event was in headlines across the state and flyers were posted along the Katy railway, encouraging riders to take a $2 round trip to see the spectacle. And that was enough for the Katy board members and Crush. All but one of the engineers that were asked said no. The only concern: would the trains’ boilers burst upon impact. In part, that’s what led to Crush’s outlandish pitch – he wanted something that stood out. Not only is the industry well established at this time but it’s also really competitive. "It was actually the first railroad to build through the Indian Territory, I believe it was still called." Louis and Parsons, Kansas and places like that," Gallamore says. “In this case, what was it, the Katy Railroad – the Missouri Kansas Texas railroad had expanded from its base in St. Robert Gallamore, is the co-author of "American Railroads: Decline and renaissance in the 20th century." He says at the time that Crush is pitching this publicity stunt, the railroad industry is already a dominant force in the country and the Katy is growing.
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