This site requires Javascript to be turned on. Please enable Javascript and reload the page.

Shoofly

A shoofly is a temporary track used to avoid an obstacle that blocks movement on the normal track section. They often are constructed to allow temporary passage around mudslides during track reconstruction. The term derives from the word “shoo,” which means go away, and presumably to do so “on the fly,” indicating the temporary nature of the track.

This page is referenced by:

Option Three: Derailment in Oxford, Iowa 74 plain 2021-01-05T07:33:35-08:00
5:00   p.m.       Train 81 Arrives Davenport

Paperwork with train identification, engine numbers, cargo, etc. are put into a torpedo cone and tossed underhanded out the train window to the depot door. The agent at Davenport picks up the paperwork, records it, and teletypes the information to Des Moines to let them know what is coming.

Pass Walcott, Stockton, Durant, Wilton, Atalissa
7:00 p.m.   Arrive Iowa City
Pick up orders.

Pass Vernon and Tiffin

Train has traveled approximately 68 miles

As Train 81 approaches Oxford, the town is off to the right, with a vacant lot between the town and the siding.  "Train 81 comes into Oxford, Iowa one night around 50 miles an hour. The operator at the office said, 'I've got orders for both ends of the train and you'd better take 'em.' As the train comes out of a curve and straightens out on the flat track, the engineer slows the train down to about 30 miles an hour, and the station agent is standing there holding up the orders. Approximately 425 feet before the train gets to the depot, it comes off the rail and goes into emergency. When the station agent heard it, [the air go] she took off running.  [listen to audio clip here 1:20:47]

When a train goes into emergency the brakes are automatically activated. An extremely loud whooshing sound is heard when the air hoses, which are located between each car, come apart. Once the hoses separate, the train automatically goes into emergency.

The engineer is on the right front side facing west. The fireman is on the left side, with the brakeman in the middle seat. The conductor is on the caboose. In this particular derailment, the first four cars, as well as the caboose, are not affected so the crew is safe. On the fourth car back from the front of the train, the knuckles come apart detaching the first four cars from the rest of the train. The rear end crew remains in place hanging on until the train comes to a complete stop. The train, which is traveling at 40 to 45 mph, will travel approximately a mile before it comes to a complete stop.

As the knuckle breaks and the four cars in front separate and continue to roll away from the depot, the rest of the cars start piling up on top of the depot, obliterating it. This wooden structure does not stand a chance against this massive leviathan as 60 foot cars begin to pile on top of it, car after car after car. The noise is deafening, sounding like sonic booms with each car weighing as much as 100 tons crashing into, and on top of, each other. These thunderous booms are accompanied by the sound of earsplitting screeches of metal fiercely scraping against metal with sparks, and possibly fire, spewing in all directions from the friction. The cars continue to pile up - boom, boom, boom - completely destroying the depot and the siding. In a matter of seconds, the entire train of 60+ cars, with the exception of the first four cars and a few rear cars attached to the caboose, are completely destroyed. The cars looked like someone had taken a can opener and just peeled the side off the car.  The entire area looks like a war zone.

Once everything stops, and it is safe to get off the train, the brakemen start walking. The silence is deafening. Train cars are folded onto each other like an accordion. Debris is everywhere. There are no radio signals at this time. There is no way to contact anyone except by phone. The engineer maneuvers his way past the debris to the phone box at the other end of the siding, which is nearly a mile away, to call the dispatcher. This would normally be done by the station agent, who would have reported the arrival and passing of Train 81, but the depot is destroyed, and the station agent is nowhere to be found.

When the engineer reaches the phone box at the end of the siding you'd unlock the box, take a stick and gently lift the box lid up. If there was a big bee’s nest, which there was a lot of them in there, you’d take a fuzee, [put the fuzee in the box] and you’d just lay the box lid down, you had a little metal plate in every one of those things. The sulphur coming out of the fuzee would kill the bees. Then you’d open the lid, and the bees that were still alive, you’d take your gloved hand and throw the nest away. You knock the fuzee out on the ground and then call the dispatcher. [listen to audio clip here 1:05:05]

The engineer tells the dispatcher, 'We are in a ditch in Oxford all over the depot and the main line is shut down. The chief dispatcher then calls the division superintendent and manager, who alerts all the VIP's, and all will immediately report to the derailment. Wreck crews are needed from both sides, Des Moines and Silvis. The alert goes out to all stations to HOLD ALL TRAINS!

When it got stopped, we couldn’t find the station agent. The whole thing was piled up on the depot. I mean the thing [depot] was destroyed. So, there was nobody to get hold of the dispatchers or anything like that, so we walked. The only thing that was open was a bar, about two blocks up on the left hand side. So we got in there, and here’s the station agent, and she’s got a shot of whiskey, both hands on a shot of whiskey, and she can’t get either one to her mouth. So, the conductor takes the drink from the station agent's hand, and she was so shook, she said, ‘There’s nothin’ left!’ The depot was completely destroyed, but nobody got hurt. [listen to audio clip here 1:21:08]

The crew had to wait for pickup after briefing. Then they were taken to Des Moines to fill out derailment reports. Each member of the crew would be interviewed individually, with each one giving their description of what happened.

There are many possible causes of derailment: damaged track, damaged wheel, car collisions, signal errors, movement at a critical rate of speed. It was determined that this particular derailment was caused by a flange on the third car back of the engine which had worn thin and caused the wheel to climb over the rail.

The wrecking crew, approximately 40 workers, will not arrive until the next morning. Wrecking crews consist of a foreman and workers from individual stations who take care of the tracks. Each station is notified to send track crews to the site of the wreck.

The next morning around 8 or 9:00 a.m., the wrecking crew brought a train with ten plus cars, got off, and when they got down to the wreck, the first thing - they were looking for the foreman, who wears the only white hat. [The foreman is the only person authorized to give directives. He assesses the situation and tells each person what to do.] He [the foreman] said 'Swing that crane over here and we’ll dig that up.' We dig up the siding, pulled the tracks out, and dug a hole.

We must have had a hole 30 feet deep and 40 or 50 feet long [using a] big CAT [caterpillar]. We went out and put two 50-foot cars down in there and buried it back over. I said, What did we just bury? and he said, ‘Two car loads of Heinz ketchup and all the bottles are broken.' And he said, 'I don’t wanna live with those flies!’ and to this day that ketchup is still there.  [listen to audio clip here 1:22:07]

Clean up could take as much as five or six days, with hours and hours of grueling, painstakingly slow and backbreaking work. Cats, or Sideboom Caterpillars, with massive hooks lifted debris onto the flatcars for transport. Wreck crews physically cleaned up smaller debris by hand. All spillage from the cars, as well as damaged cars and tracks, had to be cleared.

The crews change every 16 hours, sleeping in bunk cars – three bunks on both sides. A cook provided meals in the dining car.

After burying the cars, we created a shoofly so other trains could pass. Then, the cars would be picked up with a hook and placed on the other side of the siding to clear a path for trains to run through the shoofly.

The flatcars brought by the wreck crew would be loaded with debris. These would be taken 80 miles to the wrecking yard at Kelly Yard Terminal in Silvis at a speed of 25 mph.

More information on derailments may be found in the Archives of Appalachia's extensive railroad collections that include thousands of photographs dating back to the 1800s; over 300 ledgers; and over 700 boxes of research materials containing correspondence, daybooks, journals, timetables, day-to-day operational documents, financial statements, reports, engineering drawings, blueprints, maps, posters, motion pictures, songs and more.

Specific items of note include:
- film clips 349 and 352, dealing with the 1975 L&N train wreck from the Virgil Q. Wacks Collection
- Box 122 Folder 19 of the Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio Railway Collection.