heavy snow. Initial collapse and survival of the "Socrates" The No. 5 was due to arrive in Cleveland at 7:05 PM, but at about 7:30 PM it was just reaching Ashtabula—an hour and 53 minutes behind schedule. About half an hour earlier, the No. 8 passenger train of the LS&MS passed over the Ashtabula River bridge without incident, heading east. The bridge over the Ashtabula River was about east of the Ashtabula station, and the locomotives shut off their steam (cutting off power to the drive) about east of the bridge to allow the train to glide into the station. As the Pacific Express crossed the bridge, it was doing (according to the locomotive engineers). Visibility was practically nonexistent, at most one or two car lengths. As the "Socrates" neared the western abutment, engineer Daniel McGuire heard a crack and felt his locomotive drop slowly downward. Realizing the bridge was collapsing beneath him, he opened the throttle to maximum. The "Socrates" lurched ahead, just as the weight of the 11 cars began to pull on the "Columbia" behind it. The connection between the two locomotives snapped, enabling the "Socrates" to make it off the bridge. The rear trucks on his tender hung in the air, but the forward movement of the "Socrates" pulled the tender forward and it regained the rails and solid ground. McGuire brought the "Socrates" to a halt about down the track, and began repeatedly sounding his whistle and ringing the train bell in alarm. Collapse of the remaining bridge The "Columbia" and the 11 cars behind it acted like a linked chain load. The bridge's collapse was therefore not sudden, but rather somewhat slow and piecemeal. The "Columbia" struck the abutment, the engine supported by the stonework while the tender hung downward toward the river valley. The first express car fell into the ravine, crashing nose-first into the ground at the base of the abutment. The "Columbia" slipped backward off the abutment, landing upside-down and backward atop the first express car. It then fell onto its side, its trucks pointing north. The second express car and the two baggage cars landed largely upright, slightly south of the bridge. The second baggage car was slightly askew, its nose resting against the western abutment and its rear pointing southeast. Most of the bridge's upper chord (the bottom of the bridge) crashed to the ground north of the bridge.