Wreck on S Bridge Feb. 1904 [should be 1903], caused by snowslide coming down mountain side outting bridge in two while train was standing on same. S Bridge is on Coeur d'Alene branch of Northern Pacific Rail Road about seven miles from Mullan, Idaho.

Date: 1903 Source Type: Postcard Printer, Publisher, Photographer: Barnard Studio, M. Rieder (#49020) Postmark: None Collection: Steven R. Shook Remark: Note that the postcard was likely produced circa 1910. The date that this event took place was February 10, 1903, and not 1904 as printed on the postcard.

The following news item appeared in the Delphos Daily Herald on April 24, 1903:

REMARKABLE RAILWAY ACCIDENT. S-Bridge on Northern Pacific Wrecked by Snow Slide.

A remarkable railway accident, which resulted from a snow slide, occurred on February 10. The structure wrecked is the celebrated S-bridge, located on the Northern Pacific railway and crossing a small stream known as Willow creek, near Mullan, Idaho. This "bridge" is a single track timber trestle some 300 feet long and built on a reverse or ogee curve, the sinuous plan of the structure being necessitated by the loop which the railway makes at this point in its climb over the bitter Root summit. At the time of the accident the snow in the bottom of the gorge buried the trestle bents some thirty feet deep and had completely blocked the road ahead of the passenger train, which, with two extra locomotives and a broken-down rotary snow-plow, was retreating from an attack of the snow-blocked road to the shelter of the nearest station in the rear.

The train consisted of a rotary snow plow with its pushing engine; the passenger engine fellowed by two passenger cars; a freight train caboose, and a helping engine at the rear end, and was standing with the rear engine, the caboose, and the rearmost passenger car well over the trestle when the accident occurred. In the caboose were the crew of the rear engine and some others of the train crew, making eight persons in all, and in the rear passenger car there were some eight or nine persons. The accident was caused by a snow slide which started far up the mountain side and sweeping down the narrow gorge tore out the trestle structure for a short length directly under the standing train, the caboose and rear locomotive of which plunged into the gap and were almost completely buried in the deep snow. The rear passenger car hung with one end over the gap and tipping down at a considerable angle, but was prevented from falling by the coupling to the car ahead. Of the passengers in the caboose one was rendered unconscious by the fall of that car, but soon recovered, and the others were practically uninjured. The deep bed of snow into which the car fell had cushioned the fall and preserved the lives of those who underwent the 80-foot drop. The same agent also preserved the life of a frightened passenger in the car ahead who leaped from a window into the gorge below with no more serious consequence than a ducking in the soft snow. The other passengers in the rear car climbed into the car ahead with no injuries more serious that fright at their narrow escape.

Information Source: Delphos Daily Herald, Delphos, Allen County, Ohio; April 24, 1903; Volume 9, Number 266, Page 3, Column 2. Column titled "Remarkable Railway Accident. S-Bridge on Northern Pacific Wrecked by Snow Slide."