"Rosie Clown" Ghost, OOAK Halloween Art doll is now appearing on Ebay until Sunday Oct 20th. She was inspired by the June 22, 1918 Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus train wreck. It occurred only a few miles from where I currently live. At approximately 4:00 am the country's second largest circus had stopped on the tracks to check overheated axle bearings on one of the flat cars. Behind them was the Michigan Central rail road troop train pulling 20 empty cars. The engineer was ill and with lack of sleep had dozed off, missing all the warning signals and flares along the way. At the location between Gary and Hammond, Indiana the troop train plowed into the caboose and the four rear wooden sleeper cars of the circus train at the speed of 35 mph. The victims died in their sleep.
After the collision, the kerosene lanterns on board ignited the wooden cars, making it difficult for any survivors to escape the flames. There were 86 deaths and 127 were injuries.
To read more of the story and see more of Rosie CLICK here.
