A Tragic Day in Echo: The Southern Cambria Railway Trolley Accident

Where the trip began. Car 104 curved past Franklin Street Church, right, in Johnstown to load passengers.
Rob Quay Collection

There are few hot days during the summer in Johnstown, Cambria County, but this day, Saturday, August 12, 1916, would be one of them. It was a good time to live in this bustling mill town nestled in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains. Newspapers were reporting appalling numbers of soldiers killed and wounded in the Battle of the Somme, an ocean away, but the war was not yet a local concern. Here one had to decide whether to see Mary Pickford in Madame Butterfly at the Garden Theater or Hobart Henley in My Lady’s Millions at the Palace. Movies were a nickel, Panama hats were a dollar, and a new suit would set a person back a whole five dollars.

The people waiting at beautiful Central Park on the corner of Main and Franklin streets this morning, however, had bigger and better plans. As they waited, they barely noticed little four-wheel trolleys plying Main Street. Instead, their focus was on the historic Franklin Street Church. One of those big Electric Pullmans from the Niles Car & Manufacturing Co. in Ohio would be arriving shortly from around the corner to whisk them away for a day of fun, picnicking and adventure at Woodland Park, just outside of Ebensburg. An extra car had been put on the line to accommodate the day’s heavy traffic, and it was due to arrive shortly. There was a big reunion of the Dishong-Riblett family scheduled at Woodland Park, among other events, and hampers of food sitting on the sidewalk were evidence of the kitchen labors performed by the women in the group since early that morning.

The Southern Cambria Railway line that the assembled crowd would soon be riding had been completed in 1912 to connect Johnstown with Ebensburg, the seat of Cambria County, 23 miles away. During the week the cars were generally full of men traveling to transact business. Today, however, the ride in the big interurban car would be just for fun. Presently the car announced its arrival, squealing around the curve at the corner of Locust and Franklin streets, passing in front of the big stone church that had defied the waters of the great Johnstown Flood a quarter-century earlier, and then stopping at the end of the line next to the ticket booth that stood by the park.

Car 104 on a much happier day—celebrating completing the journey to Ebensburg for the first time on May 20, 1912.
Miller Library, Pennsylvania Trolley Museum

Car 104 was quite a machine, varnished Pullman green with brass trim and gold lettering. It had end doors, a railroad roof with a clerestory, arched stained glass windows below the letter board, air brakes, an air whistle for the country, a gong for the city, and Janney MCB couplers. It looked more like one of the passenger cars that ran through town on the mighty Pennsylvania Railroad than the local trolleys scooting among the wagons and horseless carriages on Main Street. Motorman Taylor Thomas must have felt a sense of pride as he brought his well-bred charge to a stop. Indeed, this was the very car that had inaugurated through service to Ebensburg back in 1912.

As Thomas readied the car for the trip up the mountain, the conductor, George Morgart, helped the capacity crowd aboard. Sure, there were plenty of picnic baskets and children to load, but at least that silly notion of several years ago, the hobble skirt, was all but gone. The women, ankles exposed, were able to climb the car steps with only a steadying hand.

Once aboard, any newcomers to the Southern Cambria Railway were able to drink in the sumptuousness of the car. No workaday rattan or slatted wood seats here. Hale & Kilburn plush reversible seats – leather in the smoking area – awaited them, so that they could sit forward and enjoy the ride or face friends and family to talk about all sorts of matters, weighty or frivolous.

As the riders continued to check out car 104’s interior, other special touches would become obvious: mahogany interior, bronze parcel racks, polished plate glass and, of course, electric ceiling lights. Indeed, as the Niles company had promised, this was an Electric Pullman, what with its monitor roof, vestibules and all.

The Brookdale siding showing, from left to right, car 108 and car 107. Rob Quay Collection

As their 10 a.m. departure time arrived and the last dew was drying off the grass in adjacent Central Park, they were off. In the city limits, motorman Thomas was unable to immediately apply the 300 horsepower that the car possessed, so he moved it slowly back around the corner of Franklin and Locust streets. Then it was down Locust for a quick stop at the intersection of Center and Locust to cross the Johnstown Trolley tracks and again at the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad’s tracks leading to the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Center Street Train Yard.

The revelers soon found themselves rolling past the Gautier wireworks on Railroad Street. Then 104 swung right on Church Avenue over to the hillside and started to climb. Ebensburg has an elevation some 900 feet higher than Johnstown, so those four 75 HP General Electric motors were now about to get a workout. In order to cross the Conemaugh Valley, the Southern Cambria built a 525-foot bridge to cross the mill and their railroad tracks, the Conemaugh River, and the Pennsylvania Railroad mainline. First the car swung to the left on the bridge approach, then onto a straight stretch that offered a magnificent view up and down the valley, and finally a right turn that would bring the line into Woodvale. They were now up above the receding mill town with its heat and smoke, heading to where the air was pure and clear.

The big green car then ran onto Woodvale Avenue and resumed its street-running routine. At the end of town there was a bit of hillside, followed by a short but steep descent bringing the travelers to First Street in Conemaugh. Then the car ran up Main Street onto Fourth. If anyone had taken a break from their excited chatter, they might have noticed car 103 slipping by on the passing siding, either in Woodvale or Conemaugh. She was 104’s sister. Both cars were equipped to operate as a train with end doors and multiple unit equipment, the only cars so outfitted on the Southern Cambria Railway.

After leaving Conemaugh, the Southern Cambria trolleys clung to the hillside on the way up the valley.
Rob Quay Collection

The interurban line had been a hit with the traveling public since its inception. The company’s optimism was obvious in an article that appeared in the September 10, 1910, issue of Electric Railway Journal. The magazine mentioned the thought, planning and care given the enterprise by its management. A state-of-the-art transmission system at 1,200 volts with power generated midway on the line made substations unnecessary. Double overhead wire, one for each direction of travel, was used throughout the system, simplifying movement at the railway’s passing sidings.

Brookdale was the heart of operations, possessing a carbarn and powerhouse made of locally quarried Mahoning sandstone. The Conemaugh River, running down below the facilities, and an on-site coal mine made supplying the needs of the two Babcock & Wilcox water tube boilers a model of efficiency. Two 600-volt DC generators, operating in series, sent the 1,200 volts into the overhead wires. If one of the generators should be down, the cars were able to convert over to full operation on 600 volts, but at reduced speed.

Additionally, the big trestle across the valley back in Johnstown had been constructed to accommodate a second track, when sufficient business developed to make double tracking necessary. To top things off, the rails were standard gauge and there was an interchange with the Pennsylvania Railroad mainline at South Fork. Not only did the road haul passengers, but motor 301 handled express freight and doubled as a locomotive, hauling steam-road freight cars on the line. Yes, the planners of the line had built thoughtfully, and they had built well.

Express freight motor 301 at Vinco Road siding on Ebensburg line. It was here that car 102 began to run away.
Rob Quay Collection

Soon enough, motorman Thomas was through the streets of Conemaugh, his car running skills now on display as 104 started out on the hill crest running private right-of-way. They were giving up brick street and girder-rail, running for a roadbed ballasted with blast furnace slag and 70-pound T-rail. After negotiating an ascending S-curve through a cut, those in the front seats could begin to see how much farther up the hillside they had come, with the river below on the right and the jagged line of rocks to the left where the Southern Cambria had so brazenly carved, chiseled and blasted their line onto the side of this valley in the Alleghenies. Down below, the Pennsylvania Railroad needed to add extra locomotives to get their trains up to the mountain summit at Gallitzin, and that line’s grades and curves were child’s play in comparison to what stretched out in front of the big electric Pullman.

Anything but flat and straight. That was the condition of the line from here to the four-mile straightaway just outside Ebensburg. Motormen were alternately accelerating or braking on this section to keep on schedule while dealing with a track profile that bore a real resemblance to the roller coaster at Johnstown Traction Co.’s Luna Park. Every dip in the track meant that car 104 had that much more elevation to recover on its climb up the mountain.

It was beautiful here. The river valley had recovered much of the greenery that the flood of 1889 had scoured away. The interurban was quite a sight as her green flanks alternately stood out in contrast to the rocky ledge on which the line ran, only to duck occasionally into a copse of trees where the car blended with the mottled green hues produced by the bright sunshine.

It was 10:30, almost time for conductor Morgart to get to work as the car approached Brookdale siding, where all of the interurbans met to transfer riders between South Fork, Ebensburg and Johnstown. As the car was packed and difficult to traverse, he had mostly remained at his post in the rear of 104 until now. The heat of the day was starting to make itself felt on the car’s right flank, and soon enough he would have his hands full unloading everything and everyone as Woodland Park was now a couple of stops away.

Those who actually saw what happened next had only seconds to comprehend their situation, for they were about to take their last breath. With a crash that could be heard up and down the valley, the joy-filled trip turned into a heretofore unimaginable nightmare.

About five minutes after northbound car 104 left Johnstown, southbound car 102 had departed from downtown Ebensburg. Number 102 had been featured in the 1910 Niles Car catalog along with several other Southern Cambria cars then being completed at the factory. Two selling points in the catalog’s text were her speed and acceleration.

But first there was some street running to get out of the way, west out of town, then southwesterly upon having attained the road’s private right of way. Motorman Angus Varner and conductor Andrew McDevitt had already made two round trips with 102 and were making good time on the four-mile straight stretch, the only straight stretch on the entire line, below Ebensburg. This was the country section with pastures, fields and woods that the folks from the bustling mill town so loved to visit. Varner and McDevitt then made their first two assigned stops, the latter being at Vinco Road.

It was after departing Vinco Road that Varner began to experience a problem with the air brakes on 102. Accounts vary widely on the events that followed, but it appears that McDevitt came to the front of the car to assist Varner in cranking up the handbrake. The combined force of the two men on the handbrake caused something in the ratchet mechanism to snap. The car was a runaway.

Well aware of the danger, McDevitt began moving passengers to the rear while Varner struggled with the car’s nonresponsive controls. Some reports say that the hapless motorman tried reversing the car’s motors with little success. Others say the motors reversed, temporarily slowing the car, but the main fuse blew causing the car to resume its mad dash.

There was one hope left as car 102 careened through countless curves heading toward Brookdale – that car 104 had made it into the clear at Brookdale siding. As 102 squealed around the final curve into the tiny village, Varner soon enough had his answer: Car 104 wasn’t there.

Varner waved frantically as the car flew past startled passengers and coworkers. The fact that the car’s air whistle wasn’t shrieking a warning at this point indicates that there was no air left in the brake line. A company employee started running toward the powerhouse to shut off power to the overhead wire. He didn’t make it.

Car 104, foreground, and car 102 become enmeshed. Miller Library, Pennsylvania Trolley Museum

Motorman Varner still had time to save himself by leaving his post and running back into the interior of his car. The fact that he didn’t, made him and motorman Thomas of 104 the first of dozens to be crushed in the horror that ensued below the Brookdale carbarn. The first 8 feet or so of both cars disintegrated into flying shards of wood. Picnic baskets became projectiles. The comfortable car seats smashed together, crushing bodies and amputating limbs as the contents of 102 and 104 fought to occupy the same space. As the reverberation from the crash subsided, it was replaced by the screams of the injured and trapped on car 104. Conductor McDevitt had managed to save the lives of everyone on the runaway car, except the motorman, by moving them to the rear of the car.

Community response to the accident was total and immediate. Folks from the small village of Echo, which 104 had passed through a moment before, rushed to the scene while residents of Brookdale ran down the tracks along with the Southern Cambria Railway personnel who were at the carbarn and powerhouse. Telephone operators were soon swamped with calls for medical assistance while frantic efforts were made to pry survivors and victims from 104.

Telescope accidents – where one car slices into another end-to-end – were horrible enough on their own, but with the number of women and children involved, along with all the trappings of the picnics that had come to naught, gave the wreck site a macabre awfulness that was never to leave the consciousness of those on the scene. Injured passengers were first placed on the hillside above the mangled cars. They were then taken on boards or the crossed hands of men and boys in both directions from the wreck scene, the mangled cars being perched on a ledge above the Little Conemaugh River with scant room to maneuver.

The tragic result is shown here. Car 104 has been split open and telescoped. Note that both vestibules where the motormen operated the cars are completely gone. Rob Quay Collection

Private automobiles and locally owned delivery trucks started appearing to transport victims as the tight-knit community continued to mobilize. Two cars, one of which was 103 (104’s twin), were able to run east to the scene and begin loading the injured, 103 through its end doors. Meanwhile express car 301 on the Brookdale side of the wreck was loaded as well, with injured being laid on the floor.

Beside the 20 or so people killed outright, more than 80 others had been injured. Johnstown gradually became aware that a tidal wave of gravely injured humanity was headed its way. The initial news had been no fatalities, then the first automobiles and trucks began to show up with the injured. By the time the first car rolled to a stop beside the Gautier works in Johnstown, the magnitude of the disaster had set in. It was there that a triage site was set up at the American House, a local eatery, adjacent to the trolley tracks at Railroad and Church streets. The assembled doctors and nurses sent survivors to local hospitals according to the type and severity of their injuries.

While relief cars had been heading west to town, express car 301 was traveling east to the South Fork Interchange with the Pennsylvania Railroad, where one of their innumerable H-class consolidations was shifting coal cars off the branch line that was built through the breach of the now infamous South Fork Dam. It was arranged to have the locomotive run to the Southern Cambria’s interchange, pick up the express car and deliver its load of injured to Johnstown. The freight locomotive coupled onto 301, the trolley pole was lowered, the brake line was charged and they were off. Retracing the path of the Great Flood, the engineer yanked the throttle wide open and hooked up the Johnson Bar near center for some fast running. As they flew down the valley the one-car train passed the wreck site on the opposite bank of the Little Conemaugh. They were now running on the same stretch of railroad that engineer John Hess had traveled ahead of the flood 26 years earlier, the whistle on his locomotive tied down, screaming a warning that saved countless lives. Now a workaday freight engine pulled a trolley car full of injured people at near passenger train speeds on the mainline of the Pennsylvania Railroad, heading for Center Street Yard. On another day that would have been big news, but today it was only a sidelight to tragedy.

Unloading and transferring injured passengers from car 103 in Johnstown. The truck in the foreground is the only motorized vehicle in the photo. Harry Dishong Collection

As rescuers pushed, pulled and pried their way into the crushed section of car 104, the work became more grim. The car interior was sweltering from the hot summer sun and the sights turned more unbearable. A number of these unfortunates would be identified by the clothing they wore, so badly mangled were the bodies. The dead were removed to the Brookdale carbarn, where another one of the Niles cars took them to South Fork. From there they went to local South Fork undertakers.

The final tally was 28 killed and more than 80 injured. Newspapers carried the story nationwide. Johnstown papers covered the tragedy for days. Funeral notices were printed next to each other in the Tribune for Varner and Taylor, both young men who should have had many more years than they did. At a funeral in nearby Tanneryville, 10 members of the Dishong family were buried at the same time.

Eventually, 102 and 104 were loaded onto flatcars and returned to the Niles factory for rebuilding. By the next year, 1917, the factory at Niles would exit the car-building business. Electric Pullman would soon fade from the rail transport lexicon. Indeed, the interurban craze itself was all but over. The peak of the trolley industry was 1918. Ford’s Model T would win over the traveling public.

What became of the Southern Cambria Railway? Sadly it went on to rack up one of the worst safety records in the industry, earning the title “Dread of the Timid Traveler.” Like it or not, this was mountain railroading, and the dangers inherent in such surroundings were deadly. Indeed, the Pennsylvania Railroad, “Standard Railroad of the World,” lost more than one train to the mountain during its existence.

The Southern Cambria was able to hang on another dozen years, with drastically declining ridership, before shutting down without warning in December 1928, two weeks before the bond payment was due for reimbursement to the 1916 accident victims.

Funeral service at Tanneryville for members of the Dishong family. Horsedrawn hearses are lined up in front of the small church. Harry Dishong Collection

It was a sad ending to a noble enterprise. What remains today? The section of the Southern Cambria from South Fork to Mineral Point is now a bike trail that traces the path of the Johnstown Flood. To comprehend that such a tortuous route once carried a set of rails plied by the big Electric Pullmans is not always easy.

At Brookdale, the carbarn and powerhouse survive in the service of a heavy equipment operator, the thick Mahoning sandstone walls a tribute to the dreams of the past. Still extant is the right-of-way past the carbarn, where young Angus Varner struggled valiantly to ward off catastrophe, to the wreck site just above the village of Echo. Wooded and green, it is quiet there today except for the gentle murmuring of the Little Conemaugh River below and the sound of modern-day freight trains working up and down the mountain through the valley.

There was an effort made in the 1960s to gather the 1916 wreck survivors and rescuers for a reunion of sorts, with limited success. Most didn’t want to remember or reminisce. They had spent a half-century trying to forget.

How did those who were there that awful day keep going? This was Johnstown after all, and they had seen much, much worse. When George Swank, editor of the Johnstown Tribune at the time of the 1889 flood, wrote the following lines, he could as well have been talking about the Echo trolley wreck 26 years later. He said, “We cannot help things by repining. We cannot bring back the lost loved ones by giving way to our feelings which will now and again swell in spite of our endeavor to keep them down. But in the activities of business and industry we can find a solace and it is there we find it today. All eyes forward then. Look the other way.”

Visit the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum

At the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum in Washington, Washington County, visitors can take a ride into the past on a 4-mile scenic trolley ride. The museum’s Visitor Education Center puts the trolley in context with exhibits and a video presentation. A guided tour features a 15-minute look at the development of streetcars through the Trolley Era. For information on hours, admission and special events, visit patrolley.org.

The author wishes to thank the following people for providing information and suggestions: Scott Becker, Kurt Bell, Dennis Cramer, Harry Dishong, Edward Lybarger and Fred Schneider III.

Rob Quay is a retired band director living in York, York County. He is married with two children and one grandchild.