Qualla: Custer Creek Train Wreck

Custer Creek Train Wreck: Introduction

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Custer Creek runs dry nine months of the year. It had never been known to rise more than a few feet, a minor drainage crossing that demanded no particular attention from the Milwaukee Road engineers who maintained the line between Chicago and Tacoma. Bridge AA-438, built in 1913, had passed its inspection earlier that year with good marks, its concrete piers protected by sufficient riprap to prevent scouring. Twenty minutes before midnight on June 18, 1938, the section foreman checked the track during heavy rain and found water several feet below the bridge girders. There was no warning of what was coming. At 12:35 a.m., the Olympian reached the crossing at 50 miles per hour, and the bridge that had stood for twenty-five years ceased to exist. The engine and seven passenger cars plunged into a torrent that had risen from nothing to a wall of destruction in less than an hour.

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Custer Creek Train Wreck: The Cloudburst

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The high plains of eastern Montana are prone to violent weather, but what descended on the Custer Creek drainage that night exceeded all recorded experience. A cloudburst dumped massive amounts of rain on the watershed in a concentrated period. The creek, normally a dusty scar ac...

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Custer Creek Train Wreck: The Sealed Windows

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Olympian was a modern train, one of the Milwaukee Road's flagship passenger services on its transcontinental route. It carried 155 passengers in eleven cars, including air-conditioned coaches with sealed windows and shatterproof glass, the latest in comfort and safety enginee...

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Custer Creek Train Wreck: Forty-Seven Names

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The official count stands at forty-seven dead, though some contemporary sources reported as many as forty-nine. Seventy-five passengers suffered injuries. For Montana, it remains the worst rail disaster in state history. The victims had boarded in Chicago, bound for Tacoma and po...

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Custer Creek Train Wreck: What the Water Took

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Near Saugus, Montana, southwest of Terry, the Milwaukee Road rebuilt and continued operating for decades before the company's 1980 bankruptcy ended passenger service across these plains. The Olympian Hiawatha, successor to the original Olympian, made its last run in 1961. Custer ...

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