The westbound Olympian that night was hauled by steam locomotive Engine 220, manufactured by the Baldwin Steam Works, from back east, Philadelphia, I think, I found out about all of this later, obviously, and it included eleven cars. It was travelling from Chicago to Tacoma and carrying 155 passengers when it neared Custer Creek at a speed of 50 miles per hour. There was no water on the track to warn the engineer that beneath was a torrent of water thirty feet high, pounding at the bridge foundations, and no brakes were applied.
As the Olympian crossed at 12:35 AM the bridge collapsed. Records show that the engine and seven passenger cars were thrown into the swollen creek. On the west bank the locomotive and five cars were ‘piled in a shambles of crumpled steel,’ killing the engineer and
