Tuesday, October 17, 2023

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, October 17, 1943. The Burma Railway completed.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, October 17, 1943. The Burma Railway comple...

Sunday, October 17, 1943. The Burma Railway completed.

The German surface raider Michel was torpedoed and sunk off of Japan by the USS Tarpon.  On the same day the German's lost the U-540, U-631 and U-841 in the Atlantic.

The Burma Railway, constructed with Asian slave labor and Allied POWs, was completed.

Tamils working on the bridge.

The railway may be best remembered today due to the fairly inaccurate movie, The Bridge On the River Kwai, which is nonetheless a great movie.

POW illustration of the construction of Bridge 227 across the Kwai.

A second concrete bridge replaced the original wooden bridge shortly after its construction. It was destroyed by the RAF in February 1945.  Shortly after the war, most of the original railway was dismantled and only the original 81 miles remains in use.

Chicago began running its subway for the first time.

Saturday, October 7, 2023

Friday, September 29, 2023

Lex Anteinternet: September 27, 1923. Disaster at Cole Creek.

Lex Anteinternet: September 27, 1923. Disaster at Cole Creek.

September 27, 1923. Disaster at Cole Creek.


Today In Wyoming's History: September 271923  Thirty railroad passengers were killed when a CB&Q train wrecked at the Cole Creek Bridge, which had been washed out due to a flood, in Natrona County.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.
It was a horrific event.

Flooding had taken out the railroad bridge over Cole Creek near Casper Wyoming, which was unknown to the railroad.   The night train to Denver approached the bridge on a blind curve, and the headlights detected its absence too late to stop the train.  Half of the people on the train were killed.

It's the worst disaster in Wyoming's railroad history.

Friday, September 28, 1923. The terrible news.


The news of the prior day was in the paper, much of it horrific locally.

Saturday, September 29, 1923. Mandates and Floods.

The British Mandate for Palestine went into effect, as did the French Mandate for Syria and Lebanon.

With this, the British Empire, and I'd guess French Empire reached their maximum territorial extents.

The grim news kept coming in on the recent Cole Creek disaster.


Apparently the floods occured almost everywhere in Wyoming, and into Nebraska.

Wednesday, September 13, 2023

Towns and Nature: Mandan, ND: NP Roundhouse

Towns and Nature: Mandan, ND: NP Roundhouse: ( Satellite ) Rick Shilling posted c1940's Northern Pacific Railway Roundhouse, Turntable, Shops and Yard, Mandan, North Dakota. Nancy H...

Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, August 30, 1943. The Lackawanna Limited wreck

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, August 30, 1943. Hornets

The Lackawanna Limited wreck occurred when a Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad passenger train, the New York-Buffalo Lackawanna Limited collided with a freight train. Twenty-seven people were killed in the collision, and about twice that number injured, many from steam that poured into the railroad cars.