History & local legend
On February 18, 1947, the Red Arrow passenger train derailed at Bennington Curve near the Gallitzin Tunnels while traveling from Detroit to New York. It entered the curve at excessive speed, sending cars down the embankment. Twenty-four people died, including six railway mail clerks working aboard the train.
Folklorist Patty Wilson recorded a story set two years later, when a railroad lineman was working nearby. He heard a violent crash, metal shrieking and the repeated impact of passenger cars leaving the rails. Screams followed. Believing another train had wrecked, he ran beyond the curve to help, but found an empty railroad.
Only later, the story says, did he recognize the date: February 18, the anniversary of the Red Arrow disaster.
Sources
- Patty A. Wilson, The Wreck of the Red Arrow, author’s excerpt from Ghosts in the Museum
- Interstate Commerce Commission, investigation 3078, February 18, 1947 accident at Bennington, accident cause and fatality breakdown
- Seven Oaks Press, railway historian’s account of the Red Arrow wreck
- Bennington Curve, crash location coordinates, cross-checked with the ICC track diagram and NAIP aerial
