Weird Inventions that Saved Lives: Railway Fog Torpedo

Blogger: Amber Lemus

Welcome back to our series on Weird Inventions That Saved Lives. Today, we explore a lesser-known device used on the railroad.

The railroads spread rapidly throughout the world, offering a modern and fast way to travel. However, the railways brought massive risks to both passengers and railroad employees. One major danger was collisions caused by track hazards, such as damaged lines, washed-out bridges, repair crews, or stalled trains.

Edward Alfred Cowper
Inventor of the Railway Torpedo

If an engineer failed to see a hazard in time, the results were deadly. Heavy fog, blinding snowstorms, or simple distraction could cause a driver to miss a vital visual signal. This recurring problem caused countless tragic deaths during the early days of steam travel.

Many inventors tried to solve this deadly issue using complex sound signals triggered by moving trains. Most proved too expensive, inflexible, or unreliable. Then, in 1841, a mechanical engineer named Edward Alfred Cowper came up with a simple, brilliant idea.

He put a small amount of gunpowder inside a small metal capsule, which was fastened to the rails with lead straps. When the heavy wheels of the train passed over it, the capsule detonated with a loud "bang." This sound instantly alerted the engineer to stop, even in zero visibility or if he was distracted by the train's mechanical needs.

Here's a video demonstration, if you're interested. 

While it is a little weird to think that an explosion is saving lives rather than taking them, this incredibly simple device was cost-effective, reliable, and DID save thousands of lives. In the United States, it became known as a "railroad torpedo." While Edward Alfred Cowper designed many things, this humble fog detonator was his most impactful and life-saving legacy.

A Railway Torpedo
Photo By Ralph Mayer - Flickr

The most famous historical testament to its effectiveness occurred on the foggy, rainy night of April 30, 1900, during the legendary final ride of engineer Casey Jones. As Jones hurtled his Illinois Central passenger train through Mississippi to make up for lost time, a stalled freight train blocked the tracks ahead. A flagman had walked back into the darkness and placed warning torpedoes on the rails. When Jones's locomotive crushed the tiny devices, the sudden, deafening explosions instantly alerted him to the danger. Though he could not stop completely before the collision, the torpedoes gave him just enough time to slam on the emergency brakes. Jones tragically died at the controls, but his split-second reaction—triggered solely by the blast of the torpedoes—slowed the train enough to save every single passenger on board.

Today, modern railway technology has made the torpedo mostly obsolete, but we can look back with gratitude for how this simple invention protected so many people.

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Two-time winner of the Christian Indie Award for historical fiction, Amber Lemus inspires hearts through enthralling tales She has a passion for travel, history, books and her Savior. This combination results in what her readers call "historical fiction at its finest".  

She lives at the foot of the Rocky Mountains with her prince charming and two boys. Between enjoying life as a boy mom, and spinning stories out of soap bubbles, Amber loves to connect with readers and hang out on Goodreads with other bookish peoples.

Amber is a proud member of the American Christian Fiction Writers Association. Visit her online at http://www.amberlemus.com/  and download a FREE story by subscribing to her Newsletter!

Train Wreck! by Cindy Regnier

 

Everyone’s heard of Casey Jones, the famous train engineer. There are songs, books, and even a museum dedicated to his memory. You can visit it in Jackson, Tennessee and tour the residence of the Jones family. And, of course we all know he died in a train wreck when his passenger train collided with a stalled freight train in Vaughan, Mississippi in April of 1900. But what isn’t so commonly known might surprise you.

John Luther Jones was born March 14, 1864 in southeastern Missouri. When he was a teenager the Jones family moved to Cayce, (pronounced Casey) KY, which earned him that nickname. Always fascinated with trains, Casey began his career as a telegrapher at Mobile and Ohio railroad at age 15. In 1884 he was promoted to flagman and moved to Jackson, Tennessee. That is where he met Mary Joanna “Janie” Brady when he lived in a rented room of a boarding house owned by her father. Casey and Janie married in November of 1886 and would become parents to a daughter and two sons. Railroads were flourishing at the time and Casey progressed quickly through the ranks, eventually landing his dream job as an engineer at Illinois Central Railroad.

He became well-known among his fellow engineers for what was often termed as his penchant for speed and gained a reputation for always arriving at his destination on time. What engineers of the time knew full well, but was not common knowledge to passengers on the trains, was that the engineers were under a great deal of pressure from the companies they worked for to make on-time arrivals. Engineers received “demerits” for violations that would eventually suspend them from their jobs for a period of time with no pay. The demerits given for exceeding certain speeds were not nearly as steep as those handed out for late arrivals. Casey, as most engineers did, chose speed over being late whenever they could. (Wow – maybe someone didn’t think that one clear through.)

On the evening of April 30 1900, in an unfortunate last-minute decision, Jones volunteered to cover for a sick co-worker, which put him on a double shift. Having just finished another route, he was now southbound on Engine 382 along with company fireman Sim Webb, with numerous passengers on board. They were already an hour and a half behind, but Casey was determined to make it on schedule and exceeded the normal speed limitations, some accounts saying he reached almost 100 miles per hour. 

Sim Webb

As misfortune would have it, a freight train was stalled on the tracks at Vaughan, Mississippi. Reportedly, train personnel at Vaughan were in a panic trying to move the train, but when it became obvious they couldn’t do so in time, they put flagmen on the route as well as torpedoes to warn Engine 382 to slow down and stop.

And, so herein lies the controversy. No one on the train, including Sim Webb or any of the passengers ever saw a flagman or heard a torpedo detonate. Did anyone actually perform these duties or did workers not realize the serious nature of their task, and simply ignore the instructions? No one knows for sure. 

What we do know is that Sim and Casey did not see the stalled train ahead until it was too late to stop. According to Sim’s testimony, Casey immediately put on the brake with all the force he could muster, yelled at Sim to bail off the train, and blew the whistle with his other hand to warn whoever may be still on the tracks ahead. Sim bailed as ordered and would later say that Casey could have bailed as well, but instead chose to remain on the train so that he could continue to slow it as much as possible before it crashed into the freight train ahead. The railroad’s reports show that Casey managed to get the train slowed from 75 mph to35 mph before it crashed, taking Casey’s life but saving the lives of every passenger on the train.

So – was it Casey’s fault for going too fast? Was he too tired from the double shift? Was it the railroad’s fault for their unfair demerit system? Did the workers sent to warn Casey ever make it to their flag posts? Was Casey a hero or simply reckless? Passengers from the train were sure their lives were saved by the brave engineer. The railroad blamed Casey saying he didn’t heed the signals on purpose in order to not be late. After much negative publicity that greatly affected his wife and family, the railroad would officially exonerate Casey from causing the crash, but never placed the actual blame on themselves either.

The infamous accident eventually made Casey Jones a folk hero when Wallace Saunders, an engine wiper for Illinois Central wrote ‘The Ballad of Casey Jones’. So, what do you think? Did Casey Jones deserve what happened to him or was he a brave hero? I know which way I would choose!

Scribbling in notebooks has been a habit of Cindy Regnier since she was old enough to hold a pencil. Born and raised in Kansas, she writes stories of historical Kansas, especially the Flint Hills area where she spent much of her childhood.

Her experiences with the Flint Hills setting, her natural love for history, farming and animals, along with her interest in genealogical research give her the background and passion to write heart-fluttering historical romance.