The Naperville train disaster occurred April 25, 1946, on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad at Loomis Street in Naperville, Illinois, when the railroad's Exposition Flyer rammed into the Advance Flyer, which had made an unscheduled stop to check its running gear.

Both trains were scheduled to leave Chicago's Union Station at 12:35 PM, the Advance Flyer took a two-minute lead as they both sped west.

[2][3][4][5] Naperville is a suburb in DuPage County, Illinois, 28 miles (45 km) west of Union Station along the CB&Q's main line from Chicago to Aurora.

[8][9] According to engineer W. W. Blaine of the Exposition Flyer, he immediately applied brakes upon seeing Signal 227.1, showing Approach (yellow), but it was still too close to the first train to stop in time.

[10] The Kroehler Furniture company was next to the crash scene; hundreds of employees rushed to help, and an aid station was set up in their warehouse.

It was 27 hours before trains started to slowly move through the crash site and three days before all wreckage was cleared.

In the first, a DuPage County Coroner's inquest recommended that manslaughter charges be filed against the engineer of the Exposition Flyer.

[7][13] An Interstate Commerce Commission report dated July 30, 1946, made recommendations that would affect railroads across the country.

It also compared older heavyweight cars to newer lightweight ones (the Advance Flyer had a mixed consist).

[14] In October a DuPage County grand jury found that though the railroad and some employees were negligent, no single act caused the wreck.

[16] There were questions about the conductor of the Advance Flyer stopping the train just beyond the curve, and whether the flagman did his job effectively.

[17] As for the equipment involved, the rear end passenger car was most likely scrapped, due to being split in half.

The two leading units of the Exposition Flyer, 9910A and 9910B, were badly damaged but not beyond repair; they did run into the end of the decade.

[20][21][self-published source][22][page needed] The CB&Q, Milwaukee Road, and Illinois Central were among railroads in the region running passenger trains up to and above 100 miles per hour (160 km/h) in the 1930s and 1940s.

All units in both trains would return to service except the Advance Flyer's last coach and the dining car; both were total losses.

Because of the interest generated by the book, a Naperville committee selected Paul Kuhn to create a sculpture at the crash site.