A collision between railroad maintenance crews killed 11 Southern Pacific workers near Roseville, California, amid post-flood track repair during the Great Depression.
Key Facts
- Deaths
- 11 Southern Pacific Railroad workers
- Date of crash
- April 8, 1935
- Crew size dispatched
- 14 men
- Collision time
- approximately 8:30 p.m.
- Distance of track damage
- 11 miles between Roseville and Lincoln
- Memorial installed
- 2005, Roseville Amtrak station
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Torrential rain on April 6–7, 1935 caused severe flooding in California's Sacramento Valley, exacerbated by snowmelt from an unusually heavy Sierra Nevada snowpack. The flooding washed out Southern Pacific Railroad tracks at multiple locations along the 11-mile branch line between Roseville and Lincoln, prompting emergency repair operations.
On April 8, 1935, a 14-man Southern Pacific maintenance crew traveling in two open railcars collided head-on at about 8:30 p.m. with a gravel car being pushed by a locomotive moving in the opposite direction. Darkness, poor weather, and the locomotive's position behind the gravel car meant neither crew was aware of the other. Eleven workers were killed, some thrown up to 50 feet into a steep ravine near the Andora underpass in Roseville.
The deaths of 11 workers devastated the small city of Roseville, population roughly 5,500, where railroad employment was especially prized during the Great Depression. The men—seven of Mexican ancestry and four of Greek ancestry—were buried in Roseville Public Cemetery. Seventy years later, the Roseville Historical Society erected a memorial plaque at the Roseville Amtrak station titled "Lest We Forget."