Naperville native tells story of Loomis Street Crossing train accident
Chuck Spinner was in his mother’s womb on the day a passenger train plowed into the back of another, killing 45 people and injuring more than 100 others, just one block from his family’s Naperville home.
It was April 25, 1946, and, at the time, it was the worst train accident in Burlington Railroad history.
His uncle was one of those who raced to the Loomis Street crossing to help with the rescue and, in all likelihood, so did Spinner’s father.
When it was over, few wanted to talk about what they had seen.
“I heard about it in high school,” Spinner said. “A lot of people apparently thought it was better off to be forgotten.”
Years later, after retiring from a 33-year teaching career and pursuing his interest in writing, Spinner came across a picture in his files that his mother had sent him. It was a photograph of the wreck that a local newspaper published on the 40th anniversary of the accident.
Spinner wondered why no memorial was ever erected, why no book was ever written about the accident. He knew he had to change that.
This weekend he’ll be at two DuPage County locations signing copies of his new book, “The Tragedy at the Loomis Street Crossing.”
His first appearance is at 2 p.m. Saturday, June 2, at Anderson’s Bookshop, 123 W. Jefferson Ave., in downtown Naperville. His second will be at 11:30 a.m. Sunday, June 3, at the Great Midwest Train Show at the DuPage County Fairgrounds on Manchester Road near County Farm Road in Wheaton.
“Hopefully, my book will create a mental marker or monument in the conscious history of Naperville that was never there before,” said Spinner, now a resident of western New York state.
Intensive research
Spinner spent five years researching the book — talking to two surviving eyewitness, family members of those who died, survivors and helpers on the scene. He contacted libraries, newspapers and chambers of commerce in the hometowns of those who had perished to piece together their stories.
“Nobody from Naperville was killed in the train wreck,” he said, which may be why so few locals continued to talk about it.
It was right after World War II and returning soldiers, some of whom were on the train, had had their fill of horror.
“There were horrors of the train wreck also,” Spinner said. “People, I think, just wanted to forget about it.”
Jim Christen, a former Burlington employee who lives in Naperville, researched technical aspects of the crash for years before Spinner knocked on his door. Christen willingly shared all he knew.
“I did not have the ability to write the book,” Christen said. “I was delighted that the book was written.”
The two Burlington trains, the 13-car Advance Flyer and the nine-car Exposition Flyer, both left Chicago’s Union Station at 12:35 p.m. on adjacent tracks. About four miles from the station, the California-bound Exposition Flyer merged behind the Advance Flyer on the same track. They were traveling 80 mph to 85 mph two to three minutes apart.
“That’s kind of an accident waiting to happen,” Spinner said.
The Advance Flyer rounded the curve east of the Loomis Street crossing and the conductor ordered the train stopped after someone reported seeing something fly up from underneath the train. A yellow signal light went on, warning the Exposition Flyer that the other train had stopped, but the Exposition’s engineer didn’t brake in time, Christen said. Spinner estimated the Exposition Flyer hit the Advance Flyer at 50 to 55 mph, with the engine ramming three-fourths of the way into the last car of the other train.
“The back end of that last car was crushed and there were a lot of atrocities, horrible things that were seen there,” Spinner said.
Seeming quirks of fate saved some and doomed others.
Passenger Hiram Stebbins was supposed to be riding in the last car of the Advance Flyer because he was getting out at Burlington, Iowa, instead of going on to Omaha or Lincoln, Neb., with the rest of the train. But Stebbins was uncomfortable in the last car, and when he moved forward to another car, the conductor agreed to let him stay.
“His life was spared,” Spinner said.
Marine Sgt. Ray Jeager, freshly back from fighting in the South Pacific and on crutches, also was in the last car, but got up and walked to the back of the car to get a drink of water. Out the window, he saw the Exposition Flyer coming toward his train; he screamed and ran to the front of the car. He was one of the few survivors in the last car.
A mother and baby who had been in the seat ahead of him were crushed.
Employees from the nearby Kroehler Manufacturing Co. rushed to help and part of the factory was transformed into a makeshift hospital and morgue. Students from North Central College hauled lifeless bodies out of the wreckage and passed stretchers over their heads to a makeshift first-aid station.
In the panic and confusion, different numbers of dead were reported. A metal marker outside of Nichols Library in Naperville remembers 47 dead. But when the varying versions of names were reconciled and accounted for, 45 were killed in the crash, Spinner said.
“There were 44 that were killed on the train that was hit but there was only one person killed on the Exposition Flyer,” he said.
The Exposition Flyer’s sole causality was the fireman who had jumped off the train when he saw the impending crash.
Personal stories
Ron Keller, director of the Naperville Municipal Band, was in his first-grade classroom at Ellsworth Elementary School when he saw his father appear in the door. Not wanting his son to walk past the wreck, Keller’s father had come to take him home. On the way, his father tried to explain what had happened. Thinking of his Lionel trains, the first-grader wondered why the train hadn’t just been set back on the track.
“Until I saw; it was just devastating,” he said.
Spinner tracked down stories of those who had died. A librarian sent him a newspaper article about Arthur “Ray” Abbott. The owner of a malt shop and by all accounts a nice guy, Abbott had been forced out of business because he had so many bills.
“Just after that, he became a steward on the Burlington Railroad. That’s how he met his death,” Spinner said.
Spinner’s own uncle, Dick Rechenmacher, did such an outstanding job helping out at the crash site that the Naperville fire chief asked him to become a volunteer fireman. Rechenmacher rose to lieutenant and was one of three firefighters killed in 1970 while responding to a house fire. They are honored at Firemen’s Memorial Park at Jefferson Avenue and the bridge over the DuPage River. Spinner’s father, an employee at Kroehler’s, also probably helped out at the crash, he said.
The Interstate Commerce Commission investigated the train wreck and published a report, included in the back of Spinner’s book along with the Naperville police report. The engineer of the Exposition Flyer was charged with manslaughter, but not convicted because it couldn’t be proved he was negligent.
“There was enough fault to go around to a lot of people,” Spinner said.
The Loomis Street Crossing wreck resulted in changes to make rail travel safer. Within 30 days, the Burlington made sure the departure times of trains traveling on the same track were at least 15 minutes apart, Christen said. Nationwide, the railroad signal system was changed to add a flashing yellow light to yellow and red signals to give more time for stopping.
Roughly six months after the crash, Spinner was born in St. Charles Hospital in Aurora on Oct. 22, 1946. Thomas Chaney, the last injured train passenger in that hospital, was released Dec. 18, 1946, nearly two months later. Whether Chaney ever saw the baby who would later write the history of the tragedy is unknown, but Spinner is eager to bring the story to his hometown.
“How often did you get to add something to the town’s history from where you came?” he said. “I’m really excited about coming back to my hometown.”
Spinner can be reached at spinlake@yahoo.com.
If you go
Chuck Spinner, author of The Tragedy at the Loomis Street Crossing, will make two appearances in the local area.
Naperville: 2 p.m. Saturday, June 2, at Andersons Bookshop, 123 W. Jefferson Ave. Free. Info: (630) 355-2665
Wheaton: 11:30 a.m. Sunday, June 3, at the Great Midwest Train Show on the DuPage County Fairgrounds, 2015 Manchester Road. Admission: $7, free for kids 12 and younger. Info: greatmidwesttrainshow.com or (630) 290-1962