Oft Off Topic
Oft Off Topic is a humorous podcast where two men with no memory or attention spans attempt to talk about all the nerdy and geeky things they love.
Marvel at how they fail to stay on topic in the most entertaining ways possible. If the subject is The Ewoks, they'll wind up talking about Tarzans nipples or Alan Thicke the robotic love machine. Talking about Mr. T and theyll somehow wind up connecting his success to the Umbrella Corporations T-Virus.
How do they manage this?
Subscribe to Oft Off Topic today to find out!
Feel free to check out our website as well, for links to our YouTube channel and more!
https://oftofftopic.com/
Oft Off Topic
The Crash at Crush: A Spectacle of Steam and Slaughter
What do you do when you have a surplus of train engines that no one wants? Why, you smash them together for fun and profit! But mostly for profit.
How did this all work out? Well you're going to have to listen to find out!
Feel free to check out our website for links to our YouTube channel and more!
https://oftofftopic.com/
Our host Nathan also does art in addition to this podcast, including having is own sticker store. Please check it out and purchase anything that strikes your fancy.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/stickersbytownsend
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review us on your favorite podcast platform. Even if you didn't like the show, please do it, we appreciate it. You can also email us at OftOffTopic@gmail.com and let us know what you like or don't like, maybe we will even read your email on our show!
Thanks for listening and stay tuned for more Oft Off Topic!
The Crash at Crush. Nate, you know anything about the Crash at Crush? Nothing. I guess you know the answer to this already yeah.
Speaker 2:Nothing. You mentioned that before we started recording and I was like you were just confused.
Speaker 1:You're like Crush, that orange soda. Ha, I guess they also have grape crush too. Anyways, alright, we'll get into the Crash at Crush. Back in 1896, william Crush got himself a brilliant idea Crush. Back in 1896, william Crush got himself a brilliant idea. See, he worked for the Missouri, kansas, texas Railroad, which was then known as the KD, or from the MKT initials, which I'll just refer to him as the railroad company, so we don't get confused and think we're talking about some lady named Katie.
Speaker 1:Anyways, this railroad company had a problem. It just replaced its fleet of 30 ton steam engines with new 60 ton models, and now they had a whole lot of obsolete trains that no one wanted. Well, enter William Crush, a man with a plan to use up these engines in spectacular fashion. His plan was to set up railroad tracks 14 miles outside of Waco and have train crashes for spectators to witness. This would bring publicity to the railroad company, get rid of old inventory and make a little money on the side. So William Crush took his idea to the railroad engineers and asked Yo, this seems safe. Boiler explosion would really kind of suck here. And then the engineers told him those boilers are over-engineered. They are designed with wrecks like this in mind and they are quote-unquote unlikely to explode. Can you see where this is going, anyway?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Unlikely anyway. Yeah. Unlikely does not mean yeah. Unlikely does not mean no. The event itself was going to be free, but since it was in the middle of nowhere, they were going to make a killing on the train rides they'd provide to the site. Price for the tickets were three dollars and fifty cents, or about 125 bucks in today's money. So, yeah, it's not too bad really for something that was not gonna make them any money to begin with.
Speaker 2:And again, again like people were so bored back then.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I don't know why I say that again I haven't said that before.
Speaker 2:But like man, just let's go. It's like that. What was it? People?
Speaker 1:would come from miles around to watch a parade. Yeah, it's like. This is the one car in all of Kansas. Let us go to a parade and wait around for four hours to watch it.
Speaker 2:We have nothing better to do, or like go to a ship that's taken off and like wave at it.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, the idea was actually modeled after an Ohio railroad company who had a lot of success doing the same thing, so this, like wasn't an unheard of form of entertainment at the time, the site of the event. They wanted to make this a big old production, so they drilled water wells for use. Ringling Brothers even showed up and brought a circus tent. There's grandstand, telegraph offices and a viewing area for the press. It was actually a pretty well-built-up little thing. They even had lemonade stands, carnival games, snake oil shows, tons of vendors, Lots of, you know, scam artists, I'm sure, like as was back in the day in the circus tracks. Oh yeah, absolutely. A giant sign was erected proclaiming this as the new town of Crush, Texas.
Speaker 1:A four-mile standalone track was built for this event. Each end was going to be on the top of a hill to get the trains going as fast as they could get going. So yeah, picture, you know, a four-mile standalone track. Each far end is a giant hill that the trains start at so they can get as much momentum going as possible. The train engines would also be pulling six railroad cars, each full of railroad ties. Why full of railroad ties? Why full of railroad ties? I guess to look really cool when they smash together and stuff would get to go flying and the railroad cars would actually be attached by chains instead of the usual couplers, because they figured chains were going to be a more reliable option for the situation. You need some shrapnel, I mean. It's Right. I like the fact that it's like we're going to load these railroad ties.
Speaker 2:Why I like the fact it's like we're gonna load these railroad ties why we need some shrapnel to make the people go Right. If there's no shrapnel, did we even a crash to you?
Speaker 1:Really want them to know. So the railroad company and Ringling apparently did a good job advertising this event. They expected 20 to 25 thousand people to attend and they got 40 thousand. Honestly, even 25 thousand seems like a lot of people, but, like you said, people were born back then. 40,000 people. 40,000 seems like a lot of people, but, like you said, people were bored back then. 40,000 people, 40,000 people.
Speaker 1:Yep, september 15th 1896, and the big day of the event is here. The event was actually delayed, however, as William Crush insisted, for safety reasons, that the general public be back a minimum 200 yards. People didn't like this as they wanted to crowd as close as they could and apparently the event had to be delayed for an hour While the police like literally forcibly moved people back as far as they could. However, for better viewing, the press was allowed as close as 100 yards from the event. So you know you could take pictures and stuff, get a really good view of everything. At least this guy, this show that the dude setting up the whole event, he did care somewhat about the safety of the people.
Speaker 2:You know he was like hey, at least the Le Mans thing took place in like 1955, where people kind of started giving shit about people like not getting killed. Yeah, Like the 1800s they're like what was that? Oh, Sally's dead. Oh man, she didn't finish her chores Well let's go make another kid. Yeah, like damn it Come here, susie yeah right, get in the mines.
Speaker 1:We need somebody else to work for us. 5 pm comes along and two trains sit in the middle of the tracks for a photo opportunity. Pictures are taken and then trains start heading to their starting points. So for Ed Razzle and Dazzle, they actually line the track with what's known as torpedoes and they're basically these little explosions that are really loud on the train tracks and it's basically they set them up so the train engineers can hear them to know that they're coming up on, like you know, the station or whatever, or it's basically like little signal noises to slow down, stop Kind of varies on the situation.
Speaker 1:So as these trains are racing towards each other and trying to crash, the explosions get closer and closer together and it helps build up the excitement. You know, you hear it, it from a distance, you know pop, pop, pop, and then it starts building up speed. So they take off slow at first and then the torpedo starts popping off slower, faster, faster and eventually the witnesses said they eventually got so fast that it sounded like musket fire going off during a war, constantly just like bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. So the crowd sees the train zooming into sight and they were kind of hoping these trains were going to be doing at least 45 miles an hour for maximum crash impact. Witnesses say they were going a lot faster than that. They didn't really have, like you know, radar guns or nothing back then.
Speaker 1:Right right right, but anyways they collide, and I'll let the Dallas Morning News describe what then happens A crash, a sound of timbers rent and torn and then a shower of splinters. There was just a swift instance of silence and then, as if controlled by a single impulse, both boilers exploded simultaneously and the air was filled with flying missiles of iron and steel varying in sizes from a postage stamp to half of a driving wheel. By driving wheel I mean those giant wheels that the train actually has, with the little connecting plates between them. Yeah, debris was blowing hundreds of feet in the air and people panicked and ran in quote-unquote, inappropriate response. An instant later, a rain of metal and wood splinters come showering down on the crowd below. A photographer took a bolt to the eye and lost it.
Speaker 1:At least six people were injured and at least two died, which honestly, that seems pretty good, considering. You know, two trains exploded within 200 yards of people. Trains were reduced to a pile of smoldering iron and wood. The engines themselves actually crushed like soda cans and, ironically enough, the very last trains of the cars, the very last cars that the trains were pulling. They were actually unharmed. So I guess the lesson of this is if you're going to be in a head-on with the trains, be at the very back of the cars, because apparently those things had no damage, didn't even move or pop off the tracks or nothing.
Speaker 2:Caboose is the safest.
Speaker 1:Yep, unless I guess you get rear-ended. But, anyways, soon as the shock wore off, though a few seconds later, the crowd swarmed the wreckage for souvenirs to take home, probably climbing over the occasional yep, they're just like, and apparently people just like stormed from the crowd just like complete descent on the air.
Speaker 2:Just picked it clean. It's like oh wow, I bet this is gonna be talked about forever. Let's get a piece of it yep.
Speaker 1:Well, naturally, this story makes headlines everywhere and instantly william crush is fired from his job as a way to avoid bad publicity. However, william crush is hired back the very next day because apparently there is no bad publicity for this. In fact, people seem pretty okay with the deaths, because the whole thing was just so cool to see, and William Crush went on to work at the railroad company for another six years after that.
Speaker 2:There was some lawsuits, I mean because like I don't know like what, what even matters, you know they're like oh, just it doesn't happen to you, then it's okay yeah like oh, they died, that sucks. Hey, let's, let's go grab a piece of this train over here right, oh, that's a bummer.
Speaker 1:Hey, this dead guy's got like a bolt hanging out of his head. I didn't want that bolt.
Speaker 2:And I guarantee you that, like someone in there was like, uh, this is why I wanted to stay home.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So whether there was a wife being like oh God, yeah, husband drug me this dumb thing.
Speaker 2:I wanted to go to my sister's and yeah, right, when it comes to the why weren't you the one to get crushed by that Uh railroad tie?
Speaker 1:Of course, not everybody was totally happy with this. The railroad company did have some lawsuits they needed to settle in a hurry Cash and lifetime railroad passes were given to the families of the dead. Oh yeah, I know, hey, your traumatic experience with railroad cars. Here, have some railroad passes. Relive that trauma every day. The photographer that lost his eye got a settlement for $10,000 or $350,000 in today's money, which I mean I'd personally rather have my eye, but as far as things go, that's not awful.
Speaker 1:The King of Ragtime composer, scott Joplin, was performing in the area at the time and when he heard of it he composed a piano piece called the Great Crush Collision March. The piece was notable because it included instructions in the score how to replicate the sound of the train's collision through playing techniques, specific notes and the use of dynamics. The railroad company known as Katy Well, even with the lawsuits and payout, they still came out way ahead and saw a huge jump in business, in addition to the money made in this event. So they considered a huge success because not only did they make a ton of money off the actual event, but, yeah, I guess their business went through because everybody's like oh look, we get right on the trains that crashed at Crush In 1976, texas put up a historical marker 5315, a few miles from that site. So the crash at Crush is a historical site in Texas's eyes.
Speaker 2:A few miles from that. What's the even point?
Speaker 1:Yeah honestly, that was kind of my thought too. It was like a few miles from the site. Why, what's the even point? Yeah, honestly, that was kind of my thought too. It was like a few miles from the site, why not put it, like right in the middle of where it happened? So, yeah, I didn't understand that. I did not bother to look up more about that info.
