High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Ashtabula River Railroad Disaster (also called the Ashtabula Horror or the Ashtabula Bridge Disaster) was a train disaster caused by bridge failure. It was, at the time, the worst rail accident in American history (succeeded by the Great Train Wreck of 1918) when it occurred in far northeastern Ohio on December 29, 1876, at 7:28 p.m.