On This Day in 1960, Southwest Limited Train Crash

On January 10, 1960, the New York Central Railroad’s Southwest Limited, a long-distance passenger train running between St. Louis and Cleveland, derailed near Wellington, Ohio. The train failed to slow as it approached Wellington in foggy conditions to pick up a required train order and instead went through a crossover switch at excessive speed, well above the permitted limit for that movement. The locomotive and several cars left the rails and struck trackside structures, demolishing the nearby signal tower. Contemporary investigations identified excessive speed through the crossover as the principal cause of the derailment.

Reports from the time vary on the exact human toll, which is common in the immediate aftermath of major accidents. Compilations of rail accidents list the crash with six people killed and at least forty injured, while newspaper coverage from the period described four to seven fatalities and dozens of casualties. The victims included passengers and crew, and the engineer was among those reported injured. Although figures differ slightly between sources, the crash is consistently described as resulting in multiple deaths and many injuries.

The derailment occurred in the evening on a rural stretch of track in Lorain County, where fog and mist were present. These conditions complicated both the crash itself and the response. Emergency crews from surrounding communities worked through difficult weather to reach the site, assist survivors, and transport the injured to hospitals. The destruction of the signal tower highlighted the violence of the derailment as the heavy passenger train left the rails and scattered debris.

More than six decades later, the Wellington derailment of the Southwest Limited is remembered as part of the wider history of American rail safety in the mid-twentieth century. At that time, adherence to train orders and strict speed limits was essential for operations on busy main lines, particularly in poor visibility. The accident helped fuel discussion about operating practices, communication, and speed control in adverse conditions, well before modern automated systems became common on passenger railroads.