The railroad that served Golden had several serious accidents over the years. Ever the local booster, the Colorado Transcript focused on the fact that that they hadn't been even worse. The paper ascribed the could-have-been-worse results to “the legendary luck” of the Colorado & Southern railroad.
118 Years Ago
The January 10, 1907 Colorado Transcript describes another in their series of legendarily lucky accidents. The passenger shuttle train to Golden left Denver at 10AM. It was a foggy morning and the train was running at about 16 MPH when it collided head-on with a freight engine that was sitting on the track.
The article details the injuries. The most serious was Mrs. Osborne, Golden resident, who was hurled into a hot stove and may have incurred internal injuries. The conductor’s head went through a window and he was badly cut. Other passengers incurred sprains, “bad bruises,” and “severe cuts.”
The railroad attributed the accident to the heavy fog. They said it was impossible for the engineer to see more than a short distance. They were curiously silent as to why there was a freight engine sitting on the track when a passenger train was scheduled to come through.
The shuttle trains between this city and Denver always make a good time, making the run in thirty minutes. The train was going about sixteen miles an hour when the crash came, and it is the proverbial luck of this division of the Colorado & Southern that more people were not injured.
