1933, 5:54pm, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit Long Beach. Imagine what the result of that catastrophe would be today in LA rush hour?

for a photo gallery, or to read about it: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-longbeach_1933earthquake-pg,0,3546233.photogallery

Everybody looks at train wrecks, only some train wrecks make us wonder how they happened!

Wonder how these two happened!

from http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=428585&page=477

the most famous was the French train that plowed out of the 2nd story of a building to the street below http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2010/02/one-of-most-impressive-photos-ive-seen.html

restored tourist attraction steam locomotive was heavily damaged by derailing and falling on it's side because thieves removed the railroad ties

The locomotive – which dedicated volunteers spent many years restoring to working order – was substantially damaged.

The railroad ties are wood planks about 8 inches tall by 12 inches wide and “tie” the rails to the trackbed. Without sleepers, the rails would spread and topple under the weight of a train – which is what happened (interesting to me for the breadth of information about the variety of railroad ties: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_tie and for an intriguing photo and information about railroad ties being baked in creosote http://www.shorpy.com/node/7900?size=_original )

The stolen ties were made from hard Australian yarra wood, and are highly prized for making furniture – and sometimes for firewood – and in recent years, railway lines all over South Africa have been targeted by sleeper thieves. Some lines have lost so many sleepers that they have been closed since the cost of replacement has been deemed uneconomic.

Yesterday’s derailment happened on a line that sees many tourist trains during the year. The thieves don’t really care about the consequences, either for innocent passengers or for tourism as a whole. The cost of repairing the locomotive will be a heavy burden for the club which receives no funding other than what it earns from running tourist trains. The cost of repairing the damaged track will run into many thousands of rand – and Transnet is not keen to spend money looking after lines that are not part of its core network.

http://blogs.timeslive.co.za/wanderer/2010/06/21/thieves-derail-train-and-give-sa-tourism-a-kick-in-the-head/
via http://tukkers.blogspot.com/ which is NSFW (not safe for work)

Bad train wreck, great photo

I don't know the source

Black and white and cool all over

Sophia Loren on the hood of a 300sl

Nixon in Paris 1957

Bumper cars at a British carnival

The concept car Ford Seattle

Dizzy Dean trying to start a 2nd career

Daytona Beach racing 1953

Train wreck Palatine Illinois 1950

Cincinatti 1950

Looks like James Dean's Porsche

Brooklyn 1955, maybe a Packard taxi

From "If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger,There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats" a blog about all pre-1970 American culture via photography http://tsutpen.blogspot.com/

One of the most impressive photos I've seen, the Oct 1895 Granville-Paris Express wreck

The engine careened across almost 98 ft of the station concourse, crashed through a 2 foot thick wall, shot across a terrace and sailed out of the station, plummeting onto the Place de Rennes 33 ft below, where it stood on its nose. All on board the train survived, five sustaining injuries: two passengers (out of 131), the fireman and two conductors; however, one woman on the street below was killed by falling masonry. The accident was caused by a faulty Westinghouse brake and the engine drivers who were trying to make up for lost time. A conductor incurred a 25 franc penalty and the engine driver a 50 franc penalty.
Via: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Train_wreck_at_Montparnasse_1895.jpg