Green Mountain train wreck

{{Short description|1910 railway incident in Iowa, United States}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2025}}

{{Infobox public transit accident

| name = Green Mountain train wreck

| image = GreenMountainTrainWreck.jpg

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| caption = Telescoping of the wooden coaches

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| coordinates = {{coord|42|9|53|N|92|46|00|W|display=title,inline}}

| date = {{start date and age|1910|03|21}}

| time = 8 am

| location = Spring Creek Township, Tama County, Iowa, between Green Mountain and Gladbrook

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| country = United States

| line = Chicago Great Western Railway

| operator = Rock Island Line

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| type = Derailment

| cause = Undetermined

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| trains = 1

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| deaths = 52{{cite news| url=https://www.thegazette.com/2010/03/01/iowas-great-train-wreck| title=Iowa’s Great Train Wreck| website=The Gazette|last=Rasdal|first=Dave|date=March 1, 2010}}

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The Green Mountain train wreck is the worst ever railroad accident in the state of Iowa. It occurred between Green Mountain and Gladbrook on the morning of March 21, 1910, and killed 52 people.{{cite web| url=http://www.kwwl.com/Global/story.asp?S=12182884| title=Fatal Train Wreck 100 years ago| website=KWWL News| date=March 22, 2010| access-date=June 22, 2010| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120224203338/http://www.kwwl.com/Global/story.asp?S=12182884| archive-date=February 24, 2012}}

A train wreck earlier that morning at Shellsburg meant that the Rock Island Line trains were being diverted from Cedar Rapids to Waterloo over Chicago Great Western tracks via Marshalltown.{{cite news| url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2211&dat=19100326&id=Nx4mAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6v0FAAAAIBAJ&pg=3190,5506551| newspaper=Afro American| date=March 26, 1910| title=Forty-Five Dead in Train Wreck| page=2| via=Google News}} The trains concerned were the No. 21 St Louis-Twin Cities and No. 19 Chicago-Twin Cities; which had been combined into an 11 car train with the two locomotives traveling backwards, tender first.{{citation needed|date=April 2022}}Board of Railroad Commissioners, Thirty-Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissions, Rep. No. 4389-1910 at 147 (1911). The new combined train now had two wooden cars sandwiched between the locomotives, a steel Pullman car, and other steel cars.

Between Green Mountain and Gladbrook, just east of the Marshall County border, the lead engine left the tracks and hit a clay embankment coming to a sudden stop. The two wooden coaches: a smoking car and a ladies' day coach containing many children were crushed against the back of the Pullman Sleeper. There were fatalities in the Pullman cars.{{cite news| url=https://www.gendisasters.com/iowa/8060/gladbrook-ia-train-wreck-mar-1910-horrifying-disaster| newspaper=Lincoln Evening News| location=Lincoln, NE| date=March 22, 1910| via=GenDisasters| title=Gladbrook, IA Train Wreck, Mar 1910 - Horrifying Disaster| access-date=June 22, 2010| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120609054311/http://www3.gendisasters.com/iowa/8060/gladbrook-ia-train-wreck-mar-1910-horrifying-disaster| archive-date=June 9, 2012}} One of the uninjured passengers said, "I saw women in the coach crushed into a bleeding mass, their bodies twisted out of human shape. I have seen what I shall see all my life when I dream." A relief train arrived two hours after the accident. It was later reported, "The sight was one of horribly crushed, mutilated, and dismembered bodies."{{cite book| title=Railroad Wrecks| first=Edgar A.| last=Haine| pages=74–78| year=1993| isbn=0-8453-4844-2}}