The Altoona 17th street bridge, had a bow in the center, had 2 outside pedestrian walkways, and had 2 roadways that shared 2 trolley tracks ...
Altoona, PA Freight Train Crash, Nov 1925
FREIGHT TRAIN CRASHES AFTER WILD RUNAWAY.
ENGINEER AND FIREMAN DIE AND BRAKEMAN IS BADLY INJURED.
MAD DOWN GRADE DASH ENDS FATALLY.
SIDE-SWIPES ANOTHER STRING OF BOX CARS NEAR STATION, DEMOLISHING BOTH THEM AND ITSELF.
By Associated Press.
Altoona, Nov. 29. -- Traveling at a speed variously estimated between 50 and 80 miles an hour, a runaway freight train was wrecked, two of its crew killed and one severely injured in one of the worst accidents on the middle division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The accident occurred within two hundred yards of the Pennsylvania passenger station here at 8 o'clock this morning after the train had made a mad dash down grade from Kittanning Point, seven miles away.
The dead are:
F. C. SCHELINE, 48, of Sharpsburg, Pa., engineer.
H. H. TAUBER, 27, of Aspinwall, fireman.
Seriously injured:
G. M. PINEUSPY, Pittsburgh, brakeman.
Gathering speed on the down grade and with the engineer whistling for hand-brakes, the oncoming freight train side-swiped another freight train just under the Seventeenth Street bridge, making kindling wood of the box cars. The wreckage was piled up thirty or more feet high, with the cargo strewn everywhere. The brakeman, who escaped death by running back on top of the train, said that the blast had been blown for hand-brakes shortly after the train had passed Kittanning Point.
After the crash, the engine of the runaway train was completely turned around and was lying on its side, wheels in the air. The tender of the locomotive was 20 yards away. Thirty-nine out of fifty-eight freight cars in the train were completely demolished.
The crash, coming under the Seventeenth Street bridge, severely strained the structure and traffic has been barred from the bridge, one of the main traffic arteries of the city.
Main line trains were held up for hours, the first train to go through the scene of the wreck passing westward at 3 o'clock. As many trains as possible were routed over other branches.
Titusville Herald Pennsylvania 1925-11-30
The wreck occurred when an eastbound freight train "lost its air" descending the East Slope and ran away, derailing and striking the old Seventeenth Street Bridge moving it 32 inches off its foundation. The bridge had to be rebuilt before it could be used for vehicular traffic again
The replacement bridge was a through girder truss type