Historedia
Episode 1 of 3

Bridge Collapse

When
December 29, 1876
Where
Ashtabula River bridge
Part of
Ashtabula River railroad bridge collapse

The Pacific Express crossed the Ashtabula River bridge, which collapsed, dropping cars into the frozen creek.

On December 29, 1876, Train No. 5, the Pacific Express, crossed the Ashtabula River bridge. The Howe truss structure collapsed, causing the second locomotive and 11 passenger cars to fall 150 feet into the frozen creek. The lead locomotive remained on the bridge.

Sources

  1. Ashtabula, Ohio Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-08
  2. Ashtabula River railroad disaster Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-05

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.