On May 21, 1891, the town of Buckley in Pierce County, Washington, experienced a train collision. At about 6:30 a.m., two Northern Pacific Railroad trains, No. 56 and No. 58, collided near a timber trestle over the White River. The engineers, W. E. Shipman and H. Ingalls, acted quickly. All crew members survived. The trains were badly damaged, and much of the cargo was lost.
The collision happened just south of Buckley. Shipman’s train was leaving town, and Ingalls’s freight train was crossing the bridge. Shipman used the emergency brakes and jumped from his cab. Ingalls tried to clear the trestle but could not stop in time. The trains crashed about 200 feet from the bridge’s east end. The accident did not cause the trains to fall from the trestle.
Several cars derailed in the wreck. One car carried sacked wheat, and another had pigs. A boxcar with 45 oak barrels of Napa Valley wine was destroyed. The wine spilled onto the ground. The pigs, now loose, ate the wheat and drank the wine…