Lehigh Valley station at Levanna
"Philadelphia Day Express" Wreck at Manchester, Aug. 25, 1911
Shortly before noon on Aug. 25, 1911, two cars connected to a Lehigh Valley Railroad's Train No. 4, the "Philadelphia Day Express," derailed near a bridge in Manchester, N.Y., about 16 miles from Geneva, causing what one reporter called "one of the worst wrecks in the history of the state."
Train No. 4 was running 40 minutes behind schedule when it sped past the Geneva station. Among the passengers was a large number of Civil War veterans and their families returning from the national Grand Army of the Republic encampment being held in Rochester.
At the time of the accident, there were 14 cars in the train, including an express car, mail car, baggage car, six coaches, a Pullman sleeper, a dining car, and parlor car. The majority of the fatalities were in coaches 237 and 293, both of which were of wooden construction. Behind two locomotives, the train reduced its speed to 25 miles per hour as it approached the 400-foot spam across the Canandaigua Outlet just s…
