Nightmare At Custer Creek

The Billings Gazette remembered the worst train wreck in Montana's history this week.

On the night of June 19, 1938, the Milwaukee Road's crack Olympian (its first-class Chicago-Seattle/Tacoma passenger train) was running westward through eastern Montana, along the Yellowstone River. Unbeknownst to anyone on the railroad, a thunderstorm unleashed a flash flood down Custer Creek, a minor tributary the Milwaukee crossed.

The flash flood came fast and sudden, washing out the foundations of the bridge which had been inspected not a half-hour before. The train started crossing the bridge, causing its collapse; the momentum of the locomotive carried it to the other bank, but it also dragged two sleeper cars into the flood-swollen creek.

Before the waters receded, they took 48 lives. For a railroad that had prided itself on a great safety record, especially where passengers were involved, the tragedy was unthinkable.

If you wanted to visit the site today, you could, but there won't be much to see. The bridge was rebuilt, and the name of the place changed. The Milwaukee Road doesn't even exist anymore; it retreated from the west in 1980.