The Victorians' Weird Obsession With Crashing Trains...on purpose?

Honk Honk rattle rattle rattle crash beep beep... So the Victorians were REALLY into staged train collisions. What's up with that? Come learn with me!

Time Stamps:
0:00 Intro
0:34 The first staged collisions
2:24 Why were people into this?
5:55 The Crash at Crush
10:04 The end of staged collisions
10:53 Conclusion and Outro

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Sources:

Smithsonian Magazine, A Train Company Crashed Two Trains. You Will Believe What Happened Next https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/train-company-crashed-two-trains-you-will-believe-what-happened-next-180964237/

Atlas Obscura, For 40 Years, Crashing Trains Was One of America’s Favorite Pastimes https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/staged-train-wrecks

The Handbook of Texas Online, Crash at Crush https://web.archive.org/web/20080712111256/http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/CC/llc1.html

KWBU, At 120 Years, The Crash at Crush Remains Stranger than Fiction https://www.kwbu.org/post/120-years-crash-crush-remains-stranger-fiction#stream/0

Sean Braswell, STAGING A TEXAS-SIZE TRAIN DISASTER FOR FUN AND PROFIT https://www.ozy.com/true-and-stories/staging-a-texas-size-train-disaster-for-fun-and-profit/65401/

Blood on the Tracks: Sensation Drama, the Railway, and the Dark Face of Modernity, Nicholas Daly

The Man Who Wrecked 146 Locomotives: The Story of "Head-On Joe" Connolly, Chris Rasmussen

Fairgoers' delightful destruction, Mike Kilen http://www.southplattepress.com/news/sppdsmconnolly.html

Railway Novels: Sensation Fiction and the Modernization of the Senses, Nicholas Daly

Train Crash at Crush, Texas: America's Deadliest Publicity Stunt, Mike Cox

Images and Video:

Baylor University, Texas Collection

Getty Images

Denver and the Rio Grande

Hawkeyetrader on YouTube for the video of the 1932 collision

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