According to the historian James J. Reisdorff’s book 'The Man Who Wrecked 146 Locomotives', the most infamous one was north of Waco, Texas, known as the “Crash at Crush.”
The wreck near Waco was the brainchild of William George Crush, a passenger agent for the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad, better known as the “Katy Railroad.”
The Katy tasked Crush with finding a way to attract new passengers to the railroad. Crush offered a deal where people could pay two dollars to ride the Katy to a staged wreck, from anywhere in Texas.
Crush secured two old steam locomotives, Nos. 999 and 1001, and painted them red and green. Railroad employees then built a stretch of track between three hillsides that formed a natural amphitheater, perfect for viewing the wreck.
Crush got the two old steam locomotives and put them at either end of the track facing each other, hired two brave locomotive engineers to wait for a signal to pull the throttles back as far as they could to get the locomotives up to speed. They would then jump from the locomotive before the two trains crashed in front of a crowd who had paid a few dollars to see the spectacle.
Excitement reached fever pitch around 4 p.m. as the two trains steamed slowly together and touched cowcatchers, the locomotive equivalent of the dueling handshake. Then each engine backed up one mile.
Crush expected a crowd of 20,000 people to come to the event, so he built a temporary town and called it “Crush.” To support the thousands of spectators he drilled water wells, set up a borrowed circus tent to house a restaurant, and built a wooden jail in case people got out of hand. He even hired 200 constables to keep the peace.
More than 40,000 people had arrived, far more than Crush’s original estimate, making Crush the second-largest city in Texas, at least for a few hours.
At approximately 5:10 p.m., Crush climbed on his horse and rode to a spot between the two locomotives. At the wave of Crush’s hat, the two trains began to barrel toward each other.
The locomotives reached 50 miles per hour before they collided, crunching into a mass of bent steel and shattered wood before exploding. One witness described the terror: “There was a swift instance of silence, and then, as if controlled by a single impulse, both boilers exploded simultaneously and the air was filled with flying missiles of iron and steel varying in size from a postage stamp to half a driving wheel.” A Civil War veteran who was there said it was more terrifying than the Battle of Gettysburg.
Crush was fired immediately after the crash, but after realizing that most people in attendance had a great time, the railroad rehired Crush the next day and he worked for the Katy until he retired.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/staged-train-wrecks
https://www.texascooppower.com/texas-stories/history/the-deadly-crash-at-crush
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