Flagman George Lynch’s eastbound Western Maryland Railway train had pulled onto the side line at 4:25 p.m. on June 17, 1905, to wait for three westbound trains to pass.
Waiting for Clear Tracks
Drawn by two engines, Lynch’s freight train was 18 cars long and heavily laden with coal. Once the three westbound trains had passed, the line would be open for Lynch’s train to continue its eastbound journey to Baltimore, but with only one set of tracks to travel, the passenger trains had priority.
The Union Bridge Accommodation passed on time. Then came the Blue Mountain Express, also on time for its first trip of the season.
A Bad Decision
Lynch retold the events that followed to a reporter with the Catoctin Clarion.
With a few minutes left before the third westbound train, the Thurmont Express, was scheduled to pass, Lynch walked away from the group to get some water at a nearby spring. When he returned, the engineers were in their respective engines. The firemen were shoveling coal into the fires to build up a head of steam.
“Jump on board if you're going,” one of the engineers called.
Lynch looked at his watch once again. By his reckoning, they still had a few minutes before the train could leave, but he wasn't going to be left behind. He grabbed a handrail and pulled himself aboard the moving train.
“Where are you fellows going to pass the No. 5?” Lynch called to the fireman.
“At Lawndale,” was the answer he thought he heard over the noise of the steam engine gathering speed.
Lynch couldn't believe the answer. There wasn't enough time to get to Lawndale if the No. 5 hadn't already passed.
“For God's sake, look at your watch!” Lynch shouted.
The fireman waved his hand at Lynch as if nothing was wrong. Lynch wondered if his watch was simply wrong.
“There were two engineers, the two conductors, and the fireman, five in all, who had the time and knew the schedules as well as I did,” Lynch said.
Why the Confusion
The Washington Post suggested because a new schedule was going in effect the next day, the crew had gotten the times confused. Had this been the case, the freight train would have had time to reach the Lawndale side line.
Lynch said he considered pulling down the air brakes, but he deferred to the greater experience of the other crewmen.
On Their Way to Disaster
The Thurmont Express had left Hillen Station in Baltimore on time at 5 p.m. About 100 passengers were aboard. The train had three passenger coaches and a baggage combination car. Most of the passengers sat in the coaches.
The baggage car was filled with railroad workers, many of whom lived in Thurmont, Md. and Catoctin Furnace, Md., two towns next to each other in northern Frederick County. The workers – they were called “floaters” because they traveled to where they were needed to work – had boarded the train at Mount Hope where they had been working to repair the damage from a small freight wreck there during the week prior. The train was so crowded that some of the men had to sit on the bumpers between the baggage car and the engine tender and between the baggage car and the first passenger car.
It was a choice most of them would not live to regret when the trains collided.
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