The Wreck of the ‘Snowflake Limited’ on February 26, 1927

This photo was taken shortly after the wreck of the ‘Snowflake Limited’ on the C&NW branch line between Manitowoc and Two Rivers on February 26, 1927. The train crew escaped serious injury.

COURTESY HUBERT R. WENTORF PHOTO COLLECTION, LESTER PUBLIC LIBRARY, TWO RIVERS

On Saturday morning, February 26, 1927, four men were injured and considerable damage was done when the ‘Snowflake Limited’ derailed a mile south of Two Rivers on the branch line of the Chicago & North Western Railway Co. The Chronicle reported, “The wreck was a bad one and caused considerable loss and delay.”

The steam locomotive left the track, plunged into a ditch and turned over on its side. The force of the impact caused the tender (the car behind the engine that carried the coal and a tank of water) to swing around the locomotive, crushing in the left side of the cab.

The large steel baggage car tipped over on its side and was damaged. The combination baggage car and coach remained upright on the track, but sustained damage, with the steps broken off. Fortunately, the train carried no passengers and little freight that day.

The track was torn up for a distance of fifty to one hundred feet. A wrecking crew arrived on the scene to remove the locomotive and cars and repair the track. The wreck was cleared up on Sunday and service on the branch run from Manitowoc to Two Rivers resumed on Monday.

Four crew members were injured and bruised. David Langlois, engineer, bruised his left leg and A. P. Hansen, fireman, broke a shoulder bone, when they jumped to safety from the engine cab. Francis Eggener, express messenger, had cuts and bruises. John Herman, American Railway Express messenger, was thrown against the side of the baggage car, in which he was traveling, when it tipped over. He was rescued within a few minutes of the crash by members of the crew and was taken by automobile to Holy Family Hospital. Thought to have been seriously hurt, he suffered an injury to the nose and returned home later that day.

Conductor Charles McDermand and brakemen Andrew Sobush and L. D. Sheehan luckily had only minor scrapes and bruises, which did not require medical care.

Hundreds of people from both cities went to the scene of the wreck to watch the work of the wrecking crew, which was visible from Highway 17 (present-day Memorial Drive).

During the 1920s, the Snowflake Limited, also nicknamed the ‘Scoot,’ experienced other interesting, but less damaging, events on the local C&NW branch line.

On November 15, 1923, the train was held up for a short time by a team of horses that were “unwilling captives” on the small wooden trestle between Manitowoc and Two Rivers. The horses, belonging to Ignatz Pankratz, were in pasture, then wandered onto the trestle where they fell through the wooden ties. After much delay, they were finally rescued by members of the section crew.

On another occasion, January 20, 1929, the Snowflake Limited left the station at Manitowoc and got stuck in high snow drifts that blocked the track, arriving five hours late at the Two Rivers depot. A snow plow and a couple of extra engines from Manitowoc were needed to clear the track.