Reply To: Morley Bridge incident

[Bill Herbert]

I remember the September 1973 T & P wreck at Morley Bridge well. I was working at Dow Chemical at Plaquemine, La at the time. I got the news from my Dad who was Port Director at the Port of Baton Rouge. He had received a call from the T & P superintendent at Addis to inquire if he could make arrangements to have all the damaged equipment move across the Port of Baton Rouge dock. My dad was an old MP guy and under stood well the problem that the Morley Bridge accident presented to the T & P. He worked out a solution for the T & P. Cranes at the crash site lifted the two locomotives and all the cars and loaded them on barges. The barges were then towed to the Port Allen lock and after passing through into the Mississippi River proceeded to the dock at the Port of BR. There the locomotives and cars were again raised by cranes and loaded onto flat cars for movement by the T & P. Years later, (1989), when I transferred to the Dow Railroad Department I remember talking to (by then UP) crews who remembered the wreck. The story I remember was that there had been a power failure early that September morning that affected the movement of the lift bridge and the signals. The bridge was up and the counterweights were down and the bridge tender could not lower the span. The train crashed through the counter weight destroying the locomotives and putting a number of cars into the Intracoastal Canal, as well as killing the two crewmen in the cab of the lead locomotive. The story I got was that one of them was a young guy on his first official run. They also told me that the bridge tender blamed himself and never got over the incident. Looking back I wish I had gone to the port and photographed the equipment being transferred from the barges, up and over the Dock, and on to the flat cars. Would have made a great Eagle article! But a horrible tragedy.

Bill Herbert