Portal:Trains/Anniversaries/December 24

Memorial for the Tangiwai disaster victims

1910 – The Hawes Junction rail crash occurs when a busy signalman forgets about a pair of bank engines waiting at his starting signal and he then allows two trains into the one block section.
1953 – In the Tangiwai disaster (memorial pictured), the Tangiwai Railway Bridge collapses as the overnight express train between Wellington and Auckland, New Zealand, passes over it; the bridge supports had been weakened by a lahar (a volcanic ash and debris-filled flash flood) a few minutes before the train passed.
2006 – Osaka Municipal Subway in Japan opens the Imazatosuji Line (今里筋線, Imazatosuji-sen) running from Itakano Station in Higashiyodogawa-ku to Imazato Station in Higashinari-ku.
2007 – George Warrington, president of Amtrak 1998–2002, executive director of NJ Transit 2002-2007, dies (b. 1952).

See also