Unless you are a railroad buff, you may not be familiar with a “cornfield meet.” Sounds innocuous enough, if you were talking about bodies meeting bodies comin’ through the rye, but when you are talking about trains traveling at high speeds… Hi, I’m Bryan Yeaton, and this is The Weather Notebook.

Often, human error was responsible for these head-on collisions, but in several, weather was also a factor. One of the most notable was a combination of both: the Marlboro Cornfield Meet of February, 1898.

By nightfall on the 3rd of that month, a blizzard was pounding New England, and Engineer George Fairbank was driving the massive Engine 823 from Fitchburg to Framingham, Massachusetts, with a heavy plow attached to clear the tracks. This was a busy line, and there were delays at trains had to be switched and organized to clear the way.

At the same time, a milk train, the 684, was heading north toward Fitchburg on the same single track New Haven Railroad line. As milk is an important commodity, this three-car chain took priority over the plowing operation. Dispatcher Perry White telegraphed the West Berlin office to hold up the 823, so engineer Charles Eaton could keep the milk moving upstate.

Here is where the human aspect comes into play. The telegraph operator was off on supper break, and the clicks of the telegraph echoed in an empty room. Neither train knew the other was coming. The milk train was traveling at around 40 miles per hour when it hit the plow at the front of the 823. The 684 rode up over the plow and onto the southbound engine, and came to rest on top of the bigger train. Even more spectacularly, no one was injured in the crash.

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