Train wreck summer of 1959 at Washago when two passenger trains collided head-on
Toronto. Not long after its invention, photography and photographers recorded exotic landscapes, famous people, disasters, wrecks, wars, etc. Before the evolution of such photographs, we relied on wood cuts, steel cuts, and the written word to describe events near and far.
War benefitted from photographers. They roamed the battlegrounds with only a camera and recorded stills and later movies too that resonated with those at home. Wrecks such as this train wreck at Washago, Ontario in 1959 would be forgotten in the mists of time if not recorded by photography. Some times the photographer was famous, or became famous.
Other times – like in this case – the photographer chose to keep his efforts hidden to all but family. A freight train headed south for Toronto was waylayed in a siding to let a busy passenger train pass. A few miles down the track at Washago the passenger train crashed head-on with a second train headed north. The engine crew in the south bound train were killed instantly.
The freight train that would have crashed, but for the directive to pull into a siding to let the ill-fated passenger train pass, went by unscathed after the line was cleared and restored. The freight engineer was my grandfather …
