1974 3 April , Xenia, OH: As the F5 tornado passes over the center of town, it lifts and overturns 7 of the 47 railroad cars of a a moving Penn Central freight are lifted and blown over.
Found this while digging around for information. Anyone have photos or any more info?
Indeed it was a DT&I train...I believe it was one of the "DC" series (Detroit-Cincinnati) trains. I'll dig around in my DT&I resources to see what I can uncover.
CG Tower
jallenp7 wrote:I thought is was a DT&I Train that was derailed running on trackage rights?
There is a video on Youtube, I think its called "The day of the killer tornado" that talks about that day. Part two of it covers the tornado that struck Xenia and there is a brief part of it that deals with the train that got derailed by the storm.
conrailman75 wrote:There is a video on Youtube, I think its called "The day of the killer tornado" that talks about that day. Part two of it covers the tornado that struck Xenia and there is a brief part of it that deals with the train that got derailed by the storm.
I remember, I also remember the track in place between Spfld and Yellow Springs, saw a train once when I was a kid and cars spotted at Wicks Lumber on 68,
Also remember a track gang working on the tracks around the crossing at 68 just south of Fairfield Pike
Remember? Heck I rode through Xenia twice on Amtrak's National Limited.
My parents would take us on a trip to Dayton (my Aunt and Uncle lived there) and we'd make the short hop from Columbus to Dayton via Amtrak just to ride the route, little did I know it was going to be ripped out. This was in the late 1970's early 1980's. I remember trips over to Dayton by car going through Xenia and still seeing damage. We would cross the PRR several times along the way. Then one trip, the signals were turned and the rails lie rusting. The deed had been done.
midland sub wrote:There's quite a few Xenia pics from the late and early '90s on Facebook. Amazing what Xenia had at one time.
Very true because if you look around town now its hard to picture what used to be there. Most of the ex PRR routes thru town are now bike trails(Xenia to Yellow Springs and Xenia to Dayton).
The train derailed on the west side of downtown. This picture shows the view looking west down Market Street with a loaded auto rack car turned over blocking the street:
On youtube is a recording that includes some footage of the Xenia tornado, and beginning at the 3:14 mark on this video you can clearly hear a train horn (the video begins silent, but there is audio added on the Xenia part):
The audio was recorded from the corner of Church St and West St. as the tornado approached, very near the railroad crossing on Market Street. Perhaps a horn buff can decipher what type of horn it is...
