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The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/fireinvestigator113 on 2024-10-31 14:04:25+00:00.
121 years ago today, one of the worst disasters in college football occurred in the middle of Indianapolis.
Purdue and Indiana were planning on playing their annual rivalry game, but this time with a slight twist. They were going to play at a neutral site in Indianapolis instead of on campus.
To add to the pomp and circumstance of this particular game, the universities decided to have special trains carry the teams and fans up to Washington Park in Indianapolis for the game.
The Purdue football team was aboard Special No. 350. The football team and coaches were in the lead coach behind the locomotive and the coal tender. In the coach behind them was the band and cheerleaders. The rest were full of students and fans excited for the game and their team. They were cruising along at a cool 25 to 30 miles per hour having a great time.
Unbeknownst to those aboard the 350, in Indianapolis, a freight train was traveling in the opposite direction of them. The No. 84 coal train was moving northeast at about 5 or so miles per hour, on the same track, northwest.
Neither train knew the other existed. They certainly had no idea they were on the same track moving directly towards each other. There should have been communication to all rail yards along the route of the Purdue team special that the unscheduled train was coming through, but only one was told and they didn’t inform anyone else. So the engineer and conductor aboard the coal train had no idea they weren’t supposed to be on the tracks.
At about 10:00 am on October 31, disaster struck.
The No. 350 was coming around the bend at 18th street at the Mill Street Powerhouse in Indianapolis when the engineer saw the approaching coal cars. He threw on the brake and shoved his train in reverse before leaping from the locomotive, but it was too late.
The engine and coal tender of the No. 350 were shoved underneath the coal cars of the other train. This then obliterated the first coach where all the players and coaches were sitting. The coach was wrenched in two with debris scattered all around the railroad.
People from all around the area as well as passengers in the coaches further back streamed into the area to begin performing rescues. They commandeered any vehicles around to get victims to hospitals.
In the end, 17 people died in the crash. 14 of those individuals were Purdue football players, 1 was an assistant coach, 1 was a team trainer, and 1 was a local businessman. There were also a significant number of injuries to players, with several never playing football again, most notably, Purdue’s starting quarterback had both legs crushed but managed to survive. Also, future Indiana governor Harry Leslie was declared dead in the crash but it was discovered at the morgue he had a pulse and was rushed to the hospital where he would survive.
By this time, the IU football team and its fans had arrived from Bloomington aboard their specials and began the celebration of the gameday. However, news quickly arrived of the disaster from the Purdue train and Indiana players rushed to the crash site to help extricate victims while Indiana fans traveled to hospitals in the area to help in any way they could.
Purdue would not play another game of football that year.
To memorialize the unimaginable loss the Purdue community had lost, they dedicated the new gymnasium built to those that lost their lives in the crash and called it Memorial Gymnasium. It is now called Felix Haas Hall. If you walk up the steps into the front of the gym, you’ll note there are 17 steps, one for each life lost in the Purdue wreck. Additionally, in 2003 on the 100 year anniversary, Purdue dedicated the tunnel in Ross-Aid Stadium that the team runs in and out of to those that suffered in the crash.
The yearly Indiana-Purdue rivalry game would resume the next year with Purdue absolutely trouncing Indiana 27-0.