Most trains wrecked

The most trains wrecked over the course of a career is 146, achieved by Joseph S Connolly (USA), better known as "Head-on Joe". Between 9 September 1896 and 27 August 1932, Joe Connolly staged 73 deliberate head-on collisions between locomotives for large crowds at state fairs and on-off events across America.

Details about the life of Joe Connolly are hard to come by, and he was an unreliable narrator on the few known occasions he spoke to the press about himself. According to surviving records, it seems that he was a native of Iowa, USA, and started his career as theatrical manager and/or carnival barker. He was seemingly inspired to try his hand at train wrecking after witnessing a deliberate wreck in Columbus, Ohio, on 30 May 1896 (amazingly, this was not an uncommon spectacle at the time).

In a 1933 interview with the magazine Railroad Stories head-on Joe said, "I believed that somewhere in the makeup of every normal person there lurks the suppressed desire to smash things up. So I was convinced that thousands of others would be just as curious as I was to see what actually would take place when two speeding locomotives come together."

Joe Connolly's first deliberate train-wrecking took place in Des Moines, Iowa, on 9 September 1896. It established the basic premise he would use for all his future events, which was more safety conscious (given late-19th century standards of what constituted "safety") than those of his rivals. A length of track was laid down adjacent to the grounds of the Iowa State Fair and two near-obsolete locomotives were acquired from the local railroad company. The crowds were charged 50 cents to enter the viewing area, but were kept in a fenced off area a "safe" distance from the tracks. Railroad engineers backed their locomotives up to the farthest extent of the track, built up the steam pressure and then set them in motion, jumping clear as they picked up speed.

The Iowa train-wrecking drew around 20,000 paying customers, and boosted attendance to the state fair considerably (between 50,000 and 70,000 attended the fair that day). It cost a reported $8,500 to stage the wreck (around $260,000, adjusted for inflation to 2020), but netted more than $10,000 (c.$310,000) in direct gate receipts. Connolly was paid $3,558 (c.$110,000) for his work.

Over the next 36 years, Connolly would repeat this basic format all over the United States. He would often spice things up by writing the names of opposing political or social positions on the two locomotives (Wilson vs Taft; Gold Standard vs Silver Standard, Evolution vs Creation, etc.), with supporters cheering their chosen train towards its destruction. The speed of the collisions fell between 30 and 60 mph (48–96 km/h), depending on the locomotives Connolly was about to source, and the length of the track he was permitted to build.

Tired from years of cross-country travel, Connolly decided to put on one last wreck in Des Moines, Iowa, on 27 August 1932. Here he brought all the stagecraft he'd learned from his years of wrecking to bear. The two locomotives were accompanied by an old wooden passenger cars, labelled "Hoover" and "Roosevelt", each packed with incendiary devices. The trains screamed towards each other, their whistles jammed open, as small explosive charges placed on the track went off faster and faster as the trains picked up speed. As the trains met, in a cloud of flying debris and screeching metal, Joe calmly said "Well, that's that" and walked away.

The age of the professional train wrecker ended shortly after. With the great depression ravaging America, state fairs could not draw the crowds they once did, and the spectacle of such wanton destruction rubbed people the wrong way. The last deliberate wreck, held on 30 June 1935, was a disappointing failure and what little press attention it garnered was negative.