Talk:Grand Crossing rail collision

Hmurovic

The majority of this narrative appears taken from Hmurovic's account. Unfortunately, I don't think Hmurovic is trustworthy. He's only interested in the story as it relates to the etymology of Whiting, IN; to that end, he's already (I think) mixed up Whiting's namesake with Whitney, the actual conductor on the LSS&MS train. There are other small errors (he says it was moonless when the trains departed, but a source at Chicagology says the the collision was lit by moonlight; he says the engineer on the emigrant train decided not to wait for a replacement headlamp, which would be inconsistent with the grand jury censure; etc.), so that I don't trust him on, e.g. whether the outbound LSS&MS express waited at Englewood or LaSalle for the Rock Island passengers, whether the emigrant train was passengers+baggage or a mixed train, etc. And his account has no inline citations.

He claims his sources are:

• Edgar A. Haine, Railroad Wrecks (New York: Cornwall Books, 1993), 33
• "The Chicago collision," New York Times, May 3, 1853
• "The railroad catastrophe," Daily Chicago Journal, April 27, 1853
• "Terrible accident!" Chicago Democratic Press, April 27, 1853
• "Conclusion of testimony before the coroner," Daily Chicago Journal, April 28, 1853
• "Verdict of the jury," Daily Chicago Journal, April 28, 1853
• "The railroad calamity," Chicago Democratic Press, April 28, 1853
• "The late collision," Chicago Democratic Press, April 28, 1853
• "The late railroad collision," Chicago Democratic Press, April 29, 1853
• "The late railroad murder," Daily Chicago Journal, April 29, 1853.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to the book, and I don't know how or where to start looking for the old newspapers. Hopefully someone else can double-check his work? Bernanke's Crossbow (talk) 19:46, 15 June 2026 (UTC)