Recently found postcards show tragic 1907 train wreck

GAINESVILLE — It’s local folklore.

Ask an older resident around Silver Springs and he or she might be familiar with the 1907 train wreck just north of the village.

The tale’s like something out of a Johnny Cash song — a holiday snowstorm, a runaway train, and a conductor who waited just a little too long to jump before the impact.

A Le Roy historian has recovered four old postcards showing the wreck’s immediate aftermath.

“I came across them,” said Mark Milcarek, who found the images online. “I collect Wyoming County memorabilia … I just came across them and because they had a date and some information with them, they were something you could trace.”

The wreck occurred in early January 1907 after a northbound Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh coal train lost its air brakes heading north in the town of Gainesville.

The crewmen began climbing over the cars and setting hand brakes in a vain attempt to stop the runaway. Some accounts had the engineer tying down the steam whistle as a last-ditch distress signal.

In the meantime, a southbound train was stopped a few miles up the tracks at Silver Lake Junction.

The southbound train’s crew ran for safety when they saw the oncoming headlight speeding toward them. The men on the runaway began jumping off, but the conductor apparently waited too long, trying to set a last hand brake.

The resulting impact was horrific. It left locomotives, train cars and wreckage strewn over the countryside. Photographs taken the next morning were quickly made into postcards.

Milcarek is a former Warsaw resident and member of the village’s historical society. After buying the postcards from a Web site, he began researching the accident through the defunct Western New Yorker and Wyoming County Times newspapers.

“The part that intrigued me is if you read the story is that (the conductor) stayed on the train,” he said. “Apparently the opinion from the other train crewmen, who all jumped, is he was vainly trying to stop that train crash.”

Researching an old train wreck isn’t always easy. Milcarek said derailments were common back then, and old photos usually lack dates, locations and other helpful details.

But the postcards — mailed from people named Pat and Sarah to a Mr. Fred Lewis of Pearl Creek — carried a Silver Springs postmark.

Milcarek hadn’t personally heard the wreck’s folklore, but was able to track it down. He found a newspaper account of a later accident, which tipped him off to the runaway’s approximate date.

He learned the conductor was a Rochester man named O’Brien, who was married to the former Brigid Fitzgibbons.

“The thing about Mr. O’Brien is that he lived in Rochester with the railroad of course, but his wife was from Silver Springs,” Milcarek said.

O’Brien had Christmas off and was visiting relatives in the village, he said. The accident was his first run since returning from his holiday.

The Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh sent a crane and track crews the following morning. They cleared 450 yards of wreckage and re-opened the track by the next day.

Milcarek has sent the postcards to Carlson’s Photo Studio in Warsaw. Owner Kevin Carlson is cleaning up and enlarging the images, revealing much greater detail.

Carlson on Thursday noted the postcards were originally mailed over of several days. They shared personal messages about planned visits, asked how Mother was doing, and other everyday things — all set somewhat bizarrely against the apocalyptic destruction.

The enlargements reveal vividly the coal, mud and wooden railroad cars smashed to splinters.

“You can see a little better and make out stuff,” Carlson said. “You can start making out different stuff in here, and see the people’s heads more. Making it bigger.”

Milcarek plans to use the images for a display this August at Wyoming County Fair. He said the four postcards will be part of his collection.

It never amazes him, he said, to see how history repeats itself over and over again. He said it always amazes him that people think something’s happening for the first time.

Plane crashes are today’s headlines, but train wrecks were the major newsmakers 100 years ago.

It’s why Milcarek likes studying history.

“Those are great photographs,” he said. “I was very fortunate to acquire them, and to see them put to use education-wise, that’s for sure.”