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The original postcard photograph by L. D. Shipley of the 1912 Fredericktown train wreck.
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Fredericktown’s Owl Creek Trail today occupies the site of what began in the 1850s as the Sandusky, Mansfield & Newark Railroad. By the turn of the twentieth century, the line had been bought out by the B. & O. Railroad.
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The hand-chiseled marks remain in the cutting for the railroad grade, which was hewn out around 1852, before the 1853 opening of the S. M. & N. Railroad.
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The railroad cutting was also the location of an encounter between the author and a train in 1990, during his misspent youth. The indentation on the left side of the path, halfway through the cutting, is where he stood and watched the train pass at 2 a.m., probably startling the engineer.
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This view duplicates, as much as is possible, the original photographer’s point of view.
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The previous photo was taken from this location under the eastern end of the bridge.
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Although the current County Road 14 bridge is a modern structure, the original central bridge piling was kept as part of the current structure, which means this bridge is in exactly the same location as the bridge in 1912.
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This was approximately the view of the Fredericktown Mill that the train engineer would have had at the moment his train began derailing. Author’s rusty GMC Jimmy provided in foreground for scale.
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The general slope of the bluff can be compared with the original postcard in this photo taken from the bridge on County Road 14, although it isn’t quite the same perspective as the original.
GALLERY: Fredericktown RR cutting
