Crashing and Crushing

Uncertainty rules the world

Most guy event ever conceived

Pugsley had it best. He got to do, with the full connivance and approval of his dad, what me and my friends in the electric train owning set could only dream of — deliberately crash his trains. We loved to crash our trains, but we had to work deniability into our crashes. They had to be explainable as simple mishaps. Thus, they compared to Pugsley’s masterwrecks as a sparkler to a fireworks display.

As I have explained elsewhere, as a child, I also had real trains to play with.

I do not recommend obtaining actual trains for your children to play with, even if in the service of their intellectual development. However, no one wonders at it if a railroad company has actual trains to play with. It’s part of what it means to be a railroad company.

The Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Company — aka M-K-T or “Katy” had a few disused, out-of-date locomotives lying about. Katy Passenger Agent William George Crush had an idea: What could be more American than squeezing out one last dollar before casting them into eternal damnation in the scrapyard?

People have always loved spectacle — otherwise we’d miss out on movies like Ben Hur — and will always love spectacle. Late 19th century Americans were no exception. Crush proposed crashing two locomotives into each other at full speed. Attendance would be free, but the train ride to the event would cost. There was no other way to get to the site of the event — the specially created town of Crush, Texas — than the M-K-T railroad. It would be a good way to promote the M-K-T equivalent of the Ameripass.

The 40,000 spectators — 15,000 more than anticipated — would require food and amusement. Good old American enterprise provided eateries, cigar stands, medicine shows, game booths, and a carnival midway.

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