Here's some anecdotal information that relates to the head-on collision of the O1a and the motorcar on the Fox River branch in 1943.
The details of the cause and effect of the human errors (there were several) are covered in several publications so I'll not include them here.
Mom, Dad and I were in a grocery store in Oswego on the day of the collision. As we were paying our bill the owner/clerk of the store (Denny's Grocery) abruptly ended a conversation with my Dad and RAN out of the store without finishing the conversation. He was a member of the Oswego Volunteer Fire Dept. and had been called to an emergency. Not one to "chase" emergency vehicles Dad later decided to drive north on IL. 25, on the east side of the Fox River, to see what caused the fire trucks to be dispatched. Approaching the current location of Boulder Hill, and south of the RR bridge over Rt. 25 and the river, we saw the trucks and smoke and fire. We stopped alongside the highway and watched as Firemen and rescue personnel dealt with situation before us. It became clear that a steam locomotive had buried itself in th e front of the motorcar and had caused great damage to the car. As I found out much later this was a waycar light movement to Yeagan Pit to pick up a gravel train.
Two of the details connected to the collision that have always remained with me seem to have portended certain, future events that very much impacted me. The first deals with the mailing of a letter at the Oswego Post Office. Mom had mailed a letter to her brother, stationed in France, the previous day. The letter never made it and, fourteen months later, her Brother was killed on Omaha beach. Years later a strange envelope was received address to Mom. It was a special mailing by the Postal Service which contained the badly burned remains of that letter. Not ALL of the mail had been reduced to ashes in the wreck. The second important item was that, again, years later, I worked with an Engineer named Robert Lewis (Red) Parker. He and I formed a close bond and were friends for years. As it turned out he was the Fireman on that O1a engine at Montgomery. In 1966 (?), once again, on the Fox River branch and working as an Engineer/Pilot, Red Parker was killed in the head-on collision of the Rock Island detour and the Q passenger train at Montgomery.
These might be small, possibly insignificant details to most people but, to someone so closely tied to them, they are VERY significant. Some ancillary details of this event were provided to me by my Parents in order that I could corroborate my recollections of the events with those of someone a bit senior to me. I was, after all, 3 years and one month old at the time of the collision.
Karl