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Tennessee Train Wrecks sights for coin serches possible gold coins lost.
June 26, 1889
Frightful Accident on the Chesapeake & Nashville.
Nashville, Tenn., June 27. -- Quite a serious accident occurred on the Chesapeake & Nashville Railroad yesterday at Bledsoe. The morning train due at Gallatin at ten o'clock was skimming along for its destination, when the baggage car, freight and postal cars jumped the track and fell down an embankment, about fifty feet. Henry Peacock, postal clerk, and Conductor E. B. Buck jumped and escaped without injury. Peacock Jumped, and managed to crawl back toward the track when the coach with fourteen passengers passed over him without touching him.
The car turned over three times before landing at the bottom. The passenger coach contained about fourteen passengers, and all were hurt more or less.
When the bottom was reached the roof of the car was torn off, and women, children and seats were piled in one common mass. No one was killed outright, but it is feared two or three are so badly injured they will die. Several of the wounded were brought to Gallatin last evening, and medical aid summoned. None of the employes at the road were hurt. The accident was caused from carelessness on the part of the road.
Among the injured are Mrs. Sis Clayborne, of West Moreland, also four children, on of which is dying. Mrs. Clayborne received bruises about the head and face. Mrs. A. L. Grant, of Westmoreland, had her collar bone broken, and her two children were injured, Henry Crabtree, of Westmoreland, was badly injured and his physician, Dr. J. B. Hanna, thinks he will die. Mrs. Whiteside, W. E. Bryant, of Scottsville, Ky., had several ribs broken. C. B. Coe and S. B. Smith, of Washington, Ky., were both slightly injured.
Daily Republican, Decatur, IL 27 Jun 1889
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Train Wreck
May 1890
A FATAL BLUNDER
Five Lives Lost, Two Engines Wrecked, and Freight Ruined.
The most disastrous railroad wreck the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Road has known for years occurred at a long siding some miles east of Chattanooga, Tenn.
The engineer of a fast freight who had been ordered to take incoming freight at that point had misunderstood his orders, and, coming on at a high rate of speed, with terrific force the two engines came together. The shock shattered twenty-five or thirty cars and piled them in a huge mass on the track. Nearly every car on the two trains was derailed, both engines are a total loss, and much of the freight is ruined. The losses to property will not fall far short of $100,000.
As quickly as possible the conductors of both trains and the rear brakemen, who escaped with slight injuries, hurried forward. On the wreck of the east-bound engine they found the mangled remains of JOHN BAILEY, the fireman. He was crushed almost beyond recognition, his head being flattened like a board. By the side of the engine lay SCOTT PRICE, a colored brakeman, cut in two. A few feet further back was the body of J. M. CLIFFORD. He was still breathing, but died before he could be taken from the debris piled above him. AALF HARRIS, a colored tramp, was standing between the cars stealing a ride when the crash came. Every bone in his body was broken. All these were on the north-bound train.
In the cab of the south-bound engine Engineer GREGORY was found unconscious. His chest was crushed in and nose cut off. He died that evening. R. F. WHITTLESY and JEROME NOLAN, brakemen thought there were three or four more dead men in the ruins, as a number of tramps were on the east-bound train.
The Cranbury Press New Jersey 1890-05-16
Nashville, Tennessee Train Wreck
May 30, 1899
NINE HURT IN A COLLISION.
NASHVILLE, TENN., May 31. � Nine people were injured, two of them seriously, in a head-end collision of local passenger trains on the Louisville & Nashville road twenty-five miles south of here at 6 o�clock last evening. Both engines and the baggage cars were smashed, while Engineers Burns and Shugart received serious internal injuries.
Seven passengers were slightly hurt, as follows:
Pickens, W. H. Chicago.
Howard, J. E., Thompson Station, Tenn.
Sowell, W. J., Columbia, Tenn.
Lawrence, J. W., Burwood, Tenn.
Bowers, J. H., Macon, Ga.
Coles, Henry, and daughter, Nashville.
The trains came together on the main track, half way between West Harpeth and Thompson Station, but who is at fault has not been determined.
Fort Wayne News, Fort Wayne, IN 31 May 1899
Nashville, Tennessee
Train Wreck
July 9, 1918
COLLISION TOLL IS 75
TWO PASSENGER TRAINS CRASH NEAR NASHVILLE.
INJURED LIST MAY TOTAL 75
FIRE BROKE OUT IN THE DEBRIS OF THE WRECK>
Details Lacking and the Cause of the Accident Not Made Plain � Most of the Victims are Negroes.
NASHVILLE, Tenn., July 9. � May persons were killed and seventy-five injured when two Nashville Chattanooga and St. Louis passenger trains crashed together near Bosley Springs, at 7 a. m. today. Early this afternoon railroad officials estimated the dead at between seventy-five and one hundred. A misunderstanding of orders is believed to be responsible for the wreck.
Fire immediately broke out and many of the passengers who were not killed outright in the collision were burned to death or suffered injury from the flames.
A relief train was immediately rushed to the scene from Nashville, manned with doctors, nurses, firemen and first aid equipment.
The mangled and charred bodies brought here were distributed among local morgues.
No effort has been made to estimate the dead as it has been impossible to enter some of the splintered and burning coaches.
Both trains were running at a high speed when the crash occurred, the engines being telescoped and the coaches reduced to kindling wood.
The greatest loss of life occurred in the coaches occupied by negroes which were crowded.
Every ambulance in the city was pressed into service. Later, as the rescue work progressed, St. Thomas infirmary became overtaxed and a great number was removed to the city hospital.
Attendants at the hospitals were so overburdened with operations that they were unable to supply an accuarte [sic] list of the injured.
The Evening State Journal and Lincoln Daily News, Lincoln, NE 9 Jul 1918
100 DIE IN TRAIN CRASH
100 Others Injured in Head-On Collision Near Nashville.
CROWDED COACHES SMASHED
Impact of Engines on Sharp Curve Telescopes Smoking Car � Bodies Buried in Ruins � Five Members of Train Crew Dead � Many Negroes Among Wreck Victims.
Nashville, Tenn., July 9. � At least a hundred persons were killed and as many more injured shortly after seven o�clock this morning when Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway fast passenger trains No. 1, from Memphis, and No. 4, from Nashville, crashed head-on together just around the sharp curve at Dutchman�s Bend, about five miles from here.
Both engines reared and fell on either side of the track, while the impact drove the express car of the north bound train through the flimsy wooden coaches loaded with human freight, telescoping the smoking car in front and piling high in air the two cars behind it, both packed to the aisles with negroes en route to the powder plant, and some 150 others regular passengers.
Partial List of Dead.
The identified dead include:
ROBERT LOHG, United Stated aviation corps, Nashville: WILLIAM FARRIS, Nashville; DAVE GARDNER, Nashville; JOHN T. WHITEFIELD, Nashville; NEWTON M. VANDERBROOK, Jackson, Tenn.; S. J. VAUGHAN, Greenville, S. C.; Private JOHN P. HUSSEY, Uhlian, NH.; WILSON B. HARRIS, naval reserves; ______ ALEXANDER, United States marine corps; JOSEPH SHAFFER, J. W. Kelly, fireman, LUTHER MEADORS, fireman, DAVID GARDNER, J. J. NOLAN, _____ Mayes, W. M. Ferris, ar.,[sic] FRANK HAMMOND, JOE HAMMOND, W. H. ROGERS, WILLIAM KNOCH, Nashville; J. T. ARMOR, Trenton, Tenn; LOUIS WOODS, Marvel, Ark.; OTTO WOLFE, Nashville; OLIVER PACK, colored, Craggie Hope, Tenn. B. C. TIMMONS, rodman, Brentwood, Tenn.; MILTON LOWENSTEIN, Nashville, THOMAS DICKINSON, baggage master, Nashville; JOHN H. PEEBLES, engineer, Nashville, Private DANIEL W. JOHHNSON, Silver Lake, Tenn,; MAT WILSON, FRANK HUNTER, addresses unknown; MARSHALL WHITE, Pegram, Tenn.; BESSIE DUNN, Kingston Springs, Tenn,; SUSAN MILLER, Nashville; GEORGE HALL, train porter, Nashville; GEORGE TURNER, Burns, Tenn.; J. B. MURPHY, Kingston Springs, Tenn.; JOHN REID, Jackson, Tenn.; LEM HUDSON, Memphis, Tenn.; JOSEPH MORSE, address unknown, HUBERT FREELING, Newsom Station, Tenn.; ARBEL BECK, Kingston Springs, Tenn.; ROGER STONE, Whitlock, Tenn.; W. ERNEST BECK, Kingston Springs, Tenn.; ANDY ROBINSON, Nashville; J. J. HALL, Nashville.
Many Unidentified.
Nine unidentified white women and twenty-two unidentified white men, three unidentified soldiers, thirty unidentified colored men and two colored women.
F. E. Pell, Y. M. C. A. secretary, Nashville; Melville Chadwell, Nashville, George Turner, Burns, Tenn; _____ White, address unknown; Ligh McClanahan, Caruthersville, Miss.; Floyd Richards, New Bern, Tenn. (United States marine): Douglas T. Bated, Centerville, Tenn.; W. W. Lwarence, address unknown; W. A. Scamerhorn, Jackson, Tenn.; Alexander H. Ash, address unknown; Ed. Williams, Memphis, Tenn.; F. T. Payne, Nashville.
White Passengers Injured.
Among the white passengers injured are:
A. C. Musser, Octavia, Pa.; R. A. Davis, Hickman, Ky.; Lieut Don Long, Nashville, Cecil Grimes, Hohenwald, Tenn.; D. M. Heath, Nashville, Radley Gaskin, Hickman, Ky.; ______ Carter, Nashville, B. Corbett; ______ Martin, engineer _____ Kennedy, mail clerk, _____ Moore, J. T. Simmons, Jackson, Tenn.; Russell Pollack, Carruthersville, Mo.; Elton Cook, Centerville, Ark.; Bert Pierce, Ola, Ark.; J. H. Brown, express messenger, Benjamin D. Knight, baggagemaster, Nashville.
38 Injured Negroes.
At the city hospital are 38 injured, another hospital are four negroes seri-negroes, 28 being from Memphis. At ously injured and 17 with minor injuries. [At the city hospital are 38 injured negroes, 28 being from Memphis. At another hospital are four negroes seriously injured and 17 with minor injuries] (Twenty-two white, and negro persons are at St. Thomas� Hospital, mostly seriously injured.
Of the train crews five are dead � Engineer WILLIAM F. LLOYD and Fireman THOMAS KELLEY, of Train No. 4, and Engineer DAVID C. KENNEDY, Fireman LUTHER L. MEADOWS and Baggagemaster TOM DICKINSON, of Train No, 1. The first four reside in Nashville.
Of the known dead at least 80 percent are negroes. Only when the work of the wreckers is completed and the mass of ruins removed, can the full toll of death be taken. Corpses are everywhere beneath the high piles of iron and shattered wood of the fragile cars.
Many of the dead are mangled beyond the possibility of recognition. The bodies of six negroes, all fearfully mutilated, were discovered beneath a pile of debris thought to be merely a scrap heap from the demolished engines.
Thirty Bodies Under Express Car.
The train crew worked hard to raise the heavy express coach, beneath which were pinioned or crushed most of the white victims. In one of the seats sat one of the passengers, still conscious but with three of the dead crushed against him. The side of the car was chopped away and the man was released, apparently in a dying condition.
From beneath the express car, some 30 men were later removed, only the last of their number being alive.
Just where lies the blame it is impossible now to say. That the engineer of No. 4 knew the Memphis train to be a little late leads to the conjecture that he was attempting to reach the switch at Harding Station, a short distance beyond the scene of the wreck, before the inbound train arrived at that point.
The Washington Post, Washington D. C. 10 Jul 1918
Articles transcribed by Jenni Lanham. Thank you, Jenni!
From other reports: "July 9, 1918 101 killed and 171 injured in worst U.S. train wreck, Nashville, Tennessee"
Nashville Train Wreck from the Tennessean.com
Nashville, Tennessee
Train Wreck
July 9, 1918
COLLISION TOLL IS 75
TWO PASSENGER TRAINS CRASH NEAR NASHVILLE.
INJURED LIST MAY TOTAL 75
FIRE BROKE OUT IN THE DEBRIS OF THE WRECK>
Details Lacking and the Cause of the Accident Not Made Plain � Most of the Victims are Negroes.
NASHVILLE, Tenn., July 9. � May persons were killed and seventy-five injured when two Nashville Chattanooga and St. Louis passenger trains crashed together near Bosley Springs, at 7 a. m. today. Early this afternoon railroad officials estimated the dead at between seventy-five and one hundred. A misunderstanding of orders is believed to be responsible for the wreck.
Fire immediately broke out and many of the passengers who were not killed outright in the collision were burned to death or suffered injury from the flames.
A relief train was immediately rushed to the scene from Nashville, manned with doctors, nurses, firemen and first aid equipment.
The mangled and charred bodies brought here were distributed among local morgues.
No effort has been made to estimate the dead as it has been impossible to enter some of the splintered and burning coaches.
Both trains were running at a high speed when the crash occurred, the engines being telescoped and the coaches reduced to kindling wood.
The greatest loss of life occurred in the coaches occupied by negroes which were crowded.
Every ambulance in the city was pressed into service. Later, as the rescue work progressed, St. Thomas infirmary became overtaxed and a great number was removed to the city hospital.
Attendants at the hospitals were so overburdened with operations that they were unable to supply an accuarte [sic] list of the injured.
The Evening State Journal and Lincoln Daily News, Lincoln, NE 9 Jul 1918
100 DIE IN TRAIN CRASH
100 Others Injured in Head-On Collision Near Nashville.
CROWDED COACHES SMASHED
Impact of Engines on Sharp Curve Telescopes Smoking Car � Bodies Buried in Ruins � Five Members of Train Crew Dead � Many Negroes Among Wreck Victims.
Nashville, Tenn., July 9. � At least a hundred persons were killed and as many more injured shortly after seven o�clock this morning when Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway fast passenger trains No. 1, from Memphis, and No. 4, from Nashville, crashed head-on together just around the sharp curve at Dutchman�s Bend, about five miles from here.
Both engines reared and fell on either side of the track, while the impact drove the express car of the north bound train through the flimsy wooden coaches loaded with human freight, telescoping the smoking car in front and piling high in air the two cars behind it, both packed to the aisles with negroes en route to the powder plant, and some 150 others regular passengers.
Partial List of Dead.
The identified dead include:
ROBERT LOHG, United Stated aviation corps, Nashville: WILLIAM FARRIS, Nashville; DAVE GARDNER, Nashville; JOHN T. WHITEFIELD, Nashville; NEWTON M. VANDERBROOK, Jackson, Tenn.; S. J. VAUGHAN, Greenville, S. C.; Private JOHN P. HUSSEY, Uhlian, NH.; WILSON B. HARRIS, naval reserves; ______ ALEXANDER, United States marine corps; JOSEPH SHAFFER, J. W. Kelly, fireman, LUTHER MEADORS, fireman, DAVID GARDNER, J. J. NOLAN, _____ Mayes, W. M. Ferris, ar.,[sic] FRANK HAMMOND, JOE HAMMOND, W. H. ROGERS, WILLIAM KNOCH, Nashville; J. T. ARMOR, Trenton, Tenn; LOUIS WOODS, Marvel, Ark.; OTTO WOLFE, Nashville; OLIVER PACK, colored, Craggie Hope, Tenn. B. C. TIMMONS, rodman, Brentwood, Tenn.; MILTON LOWENSTEIN, Nashville, THOMAS DICKINSON, baggage master, Nashville; JOHN H. PEEBLES, engineer, Nashville, Private DANIEL W. JOHHNSON, Silver Lake, Tenn,; MAT WILSON, FRANK HUNTER, addresses unknown; MARSHALL WHITE, Pegram, Tenn.; BESSIE DUNN, Kingston Springs, Tenn,; SUSAN MILLER, Nashville; GEORGE HALL, train porter, Nashville; GEORGE TURNER, Burns, Tenn.; J. B. MURPHY, Kingston Springs, Tenn.; JOHN REID, Jackson, Tenn.; LEM HUDSON, Memphis, Tenn.; JOSEPH MORSE, address unknown, HUBERT FREELING, Newsom Station, Tenn.; ARBEL BECK, Kingston Springs, Tenn.; ROGER STONE, Whitlock, Tenn.; W. ERNEST BECK, Kingston Springs, Tenn.; ANDY ROBINSON, Nashville; J. J. HALL, Nashville.
Many Unidentified.
Nine unidentified white women and twenty-two unidentified white men, three unidentified soldiers, thirty unidentified colored men and two colored women.
F. E. Pell, Y. M. C. A. secretary, Nashville; Melville Chadwell, Nashville, George Turner, Burns, Tenn; _____ White, address unknown; Ligh McClanahan, Caruthersville, Miss.; Floyd Richards, New Bern, Tenn. (United States marine): Douglas T. Bated, Centerville, Tenn.; W. W. Lwarence, address unknown; W. A. Scamerhorn, Jackson, Tenn.; Alexander H. Ash, address unknown; Ed. Williams, Memphis, Tenn.; F. T. Payne, Nashville.
White Passengers Injured.
Among the white passengers injured are:
A. C. Musser, Octavia, Pa.; R. A. Davis, Hickman, Ky.; Lieut Don Long, Nashville, Cecil Grimes, Hohenwald, Tenn.; D. M. Heath, Nashville, Radley Gaskin, Hickman, Ky.; ______ Carter, Nashville, B. Corbett; ______ Martin, engineer _____ Kennedy, mail clerk, _____ Moore, J. T. Simmons, Jackson, Tenn.; Russell Pollack, Carruthersville, Mo.; Elton Cook, Centerville, Ark.; Bert Pierce, Ola, Ark.; J. H. Brown, express messenger, Benjamin D. Knight, baggagemaster, Nashville.
38 Injured Negroes.
At the city hospital are 38 injured, another hospital are four negroes seri-negroes, 28 being from Memphis. At ously injured and 17 with minor injuries. [At the city hospital are 38 injured negroes, 28 being from Memphis. At another hospital are four negroes seriously injured and 17 with minor injuries] (Twenty-two white, and negro persons are at St. Thomas� Hospital, mostly seriously injured.
Of the train crews five are dead � Engineer WILLIAM F. LLOYD and Fireman THOMAS KELLEY, of Train No. 4, and Engineer DAVID C. KENNEDY, Fireman LUTHER L. MEADOWS and Baggagemaster TOM DICKINSON, of Train No, 1. The first four reside in Nashville.
Of the known dead at least 80 percent are negroes. Only when the work of the wreckers is completed and the mass of ruins removed, can the full toll of death be taken. Corpses are everywhere beneath the high piles of iron and shattered wood of the fragile cars.
Many of the dead are mangled beyond the possibility of recognition. The bodies of six negroes, all fearfully mutilated, were discovered beneath a pile of debris thought to be merely a scrap heap from the demolished engines.
Thirty Bodies Under Express Car.
The train crew worked hard to raise the heavy express coach, beneath which were pinioned or crushed most of the white victims. In one of the seats sat one of the passengers, still conscious but with three of the dead crushed against him. The side of the car was chopped away and the man was released, apparently in a dying condition.
From beneath the express car, some 30 men were later removed, only the last of their number being alive.
Just where lies the blame it is impossible now to say. That the engineer of No. 4 knew the Memphis train to be a little late leads to the conjecture that he was attempting to reach the switch at Harding Station, a short distance beyond the scene of the wreck, before the inbound train arrived at that point.
The Washington Post, Washington D. C. 10 Jul 1918
Articles transcribed by Jenni Lanham. Thank you, Jenni!
From other reports: "July 9, 1918 101 killed and 171 injured in worst U.S. train wreck, Nashville, Tennessee"
Nashville Train Wreck from the Tennessean.com
Great Train Wreck of 1918 from nashvillewebreview.com
Great train wreck of 1918 from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll ... PECIAL0902
Great Train Wreck of 1918 from nashvillewebreview.com
http://www.nashvillewebreview.com/autom ... hville.htm
Great train wreck of 1918 from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_train_wreck_of_1918
'That mournful sound'
80 years ago, two trains collided, changing the face of Nashville
From The TENNESSEAN
Sunday, July 5, 1998
By Mike Kilen Staff Writer
The railroad track hides in the armpit of Nashville, beneath the bustling traffic and behind the office towers and strip malls.
The used-but-forgotten tracks parallel West End behind Centennial Park, cross Murphy Road and take a sudden turn south by McCabe Park.
That curve, Dutchman's Curve, still evokes memories of a horrible day in Nashville history.
A bit farther south behind Belle Meade Plaza at White Bridge Road and Harding is an old, crumbling bridge where Frank Fletcher of Nashville stood that day 80 years ago, looking down on the bloody tracks.
Descend the wooden and weedy embankment and the smell of oil on railroad ties and an eerie quiet and heat suffocate you. Colorful graffiti on a bridge support says: Welcome to the Line Yard.
In the distance you can hear a train chugging, coming down the tracks with force and speed and purpose.
And you imagine a mighty collision.
"Every time I drive over White Bridge Road I think of it," says the 94-year old Fletcher. "The scene has occurred to me time after time... The horror of it."
July 9, 1918
The Union Station was crowded on the early Tuesday morning. Most railroad stations were during World War I, transporting soldiers and workers to plants geared up for war.
The Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis train No. 4 was preparing for its trip toward Memphis.
Willis M. Farris, an honored Nashville citizen who had made the lumber industry here famous the world over, went to take a seat.
A young bookkeeper, seeing the older man, offered Farris his seat, which he graciously took in the crowded car.
At the same time, Robert D. Corbitt, the brakeman for the east-bound No. 1 heading to Nashville from Memphis, decided for no particular reason to check out the rear of the train. That train was packed with passengers, many of them workers traveling to the DuPont plant in Old Hickory.
Among them was 18-year-old George Scott, scared of the large, bustling crowd of strangers on his first trip away from home. He was headed to Nashville to play his part in the war effort, producing powder at DuPont.
An irritating vision kept awakening him on that night train. from Memphis. Something horrible was going to happen. At 6 a.m. he left his seat and went to the passenger car behind his and, for no reason he could recall, he pulled the shade and waited.
The decisions made that morning would be played out for generations by survivors of the dead and descendents of the living.
Running late
The veteran engineers on both those trains were running late that morning. Engineer David Kennedy pulled his No. 4 out of Union Station at 7:07 a.m., seven minutes late, while No. 1 was chugging in from the west, 35 minutes late.
No. 1 had the right of way so it was the trainmen of No. 4 who had to keep a lookout for No. 1 running past them on the double tracks heading into Union Station. If they didn't see No. 1 before hitting a 10-mile stretch of single track west of the city's center, they must stop.
Once passing that track fork, there was no going back.
As the trains rumbled forward, tower operator J. S. Johnson showed train No. 4 a green sign from the tall, wooden tower, which meant all was clear. As he stopped to record it, "No. 4 passed tower 7:15 a.m." his hand froze. He could find no entry that No. 1 had passed.
Johnson reported to the dispatcher who telegraphed back. "He meets No. 1 there, can you stop him?" Johnson blew the emergency whistle but no one stood at the rear of the doomed No. 4 to hear it.
"Along about 6 that morning something kept telling me that something bad was going to happen," Scott told Nashville songwriter Bobby Braddock in 1983. Braddock had become fascinated with the event on Dutchman's curve and interviewed survivors, such as Scott, on tape.
"So about 6 that morning I came out of that coach, into the front end of this coach. Instead of leaning over trying to get a little rest, I pulled the shade down over the glass."
Train No. 4 snaked around the curve, blind to what was ahead, as No. 1 approached the White Bridge Road area.
"He told me that he was riding in the engine like he normally did," says Thomas Vester of Nashville, a nephew who was raised by Robert Corbitt, brakeman on No. 1 that morning. "But he went to the rear of the train. Something just told him to go back there."
The end of the curve approached and the trains each chugged upwards of 60 miles per hour. A horrible site appeared around the blind corner.
Two trains, one track.
Kennedy wildly pulled the brake lever.
It was too late.
Oh my God!
The two 80-ton engines met, causing an explosive sound heard two miles away. The ground quaked and the waters of nearby Richland Creek trembled. The wooden cars crumbled and hurled sideways, hanging over the embankment. One train telescoped the other.
Scott was hurled across the train car. He got up shaken and saw people laying about, "blood running everywhere."
"I had to raise up the window and the glass was falling all over everywhere," he said through sobs, "and finally I got out of there."
"And I wandered out past a cornfield, best I can remember, and I run across one of the trainmen laying there. Every time he was breathing, blood run out of his mouth. It done knocked me down...
"It wasn't long and here come a truck full of 10 tubs to pick up the body parts. You couldn't tell one part of the bodies from another. They were just all cut to pieces."
Scott could barely be heard on Braddock's recorded tape as he described the fate of the young woman and child he sat across from on the first train car. The woman's arm had been ripped off and had stuck into the baby.
For the next three days he was in shock, walking around Nashville with blood covering his clothing.
Frank Fletcher heard the explosion from his home in West Nashville. The 14-year-old was summoned by his father to check out what had happened.
Together, they arrived early on the scene.
Fletcher talks slowly over the telephone from his Nashville home, gathering up the memory of what happened next.
His father ran down the bank to the wreck, while he stayed perched on the bridge.
"My father was horrified. He went down there and attempted to raise the car to relieve some of the victims who were under pressure."
Many were dead or dying. Willis Farris had died and the young bookkeeper who surrendered his seat survived, according to Rachel Farris of Nashville, Willis Farris' granddaughter.
In the years to follow, the faces of those trapped in cars haunted many, included Fletcher.
"One of the cars was standing at an angle. This man must have been standing in the door and all that I could see was his legs hanging out of the doorway," Fletcher says.
"The other thing I remember was a hand pinched under the car. The man was stuck there with two dead men on his laps. He was hollering, 'Oh my God! Oh my God!' Nobody could do anything to help him."
Fletcher vomited and would look no more.
Among the bodies was Robert Corbitt, who lay motionless.
"They took him to the morgue," says Vester, Corbitt's nephew. "They were ready to embalm him. Then he moved."
Corbitt was transported to the hospital, swamped with the injured and near dying. Doctors were set to cut his leg off.
"But mama said it was better than no leg at all," Vester recalls.
Corbitt lived out his life, working on the railroad until retirement. Doctors managed to fix his leg so he even walked without a limp. Only a metal plate in his head marked the wreck.
He survived another train accident in 1951 by jumping from the train.
The aftermath
As many as 50,000 "spectators" came to the track throughout that day, hearing the moans of the dying and watching horse-drawn "dead wagons" stacked with bodies head for overcrowded funeral homes. Coffins, wrote the newspaper accounts then, were "stacked like cordwood."
The final death tolls are still disputed. Officially, the Interstate Commerce Commission, in those days the investigative body for railroad accidents, listed the dead at 101. At least as many were wounded.
"Embalmers," it was written, were brought in from surrounding towns. African-American family members from points west descended on Nashville to find their loved ones.
It was first reported that almost 80% of the victims were black workers from Memphis and Arkansas, crammed into the wooden cars, but that figure was later disputed as too large.
The catastrophe, the worst in U.S. railroad history, fell off the front page within three days..
Some writers have since speculated that World War I was too dominant a story for much of the nation to bother over a train wreck and racism may have kept others from caring.
The question still remains: Just what happened?
ICC officials questioned railway workers afterward. The proceeding's notes were taken by the late Ernest Jones Sr., who supplied them to The Tennessean in 1983.
Jones said the early morning confusion at the Union Station caused Kennedy to think train No. 1 had passed when it was simply another switch engine hauling empty cars.
Kennedy was found at the wreck with the train schedule folded under his body.
William Floyd, the engineer of No. 1, died on his last day before retirement.
Soldiers were found with notes to their mothers, grandfathers with pictures of their grandchildren. The scattered letters from the mail car were sorted among bits of flesh and bone.
Scott was sent back to Memphis with $50 from the railroad.
He never could remember what happened the three days following the wreck. And he felt guilt over his survival while the little baby died.
Farris' sons received money from a settlement from the death of their father, whose body they carried up the railroad bank that day in agony.
Out of the bleak tragedy, one son's life course was changed.
Frank Farris Sr., used his settlement as seed money to start Third National Bank, according to Frank Farris Jr., his son.
Farris Sr. became a leader in the banking business in the south and the bank later merged with SunTrust Bank.
For others, it meant a lifetime of nightmares.
"You never forget it," says Fletcher. "Every time I cross that bridge I recollect the sight."
Down the quiet tracks, in view of the electronic signal posts, which prevent such accidents today, you can look toward Dutchman's Curve and listen...
Songwriter Bobby Braddock did -- and helped write The Great Nashville Train Wreck:
"Now every July 9, a few miles west of town, to this day you can hear that mournful sound...
June 26, 1889
Frightful Accident on the Chesapeake & Nashville.
Nashville, Tenn., June 27. -- Quite a serious accident occurred on the Chesapeake & Nashville Railroad yesterday at Bledsoe. The morning train due at Gallatin at ten o'clock was skimming along for its destination, when the baggage car, freight and postal cars jumped the track and fell down an embankment, about fifty feet. Henry Peacock, postal clerk, and Conductor E. B. Buck jumped and escaped without injury. Peacock Jumped, and managed to crawl back toward the track when the coach with fourteen passengers passed over him without touching him.
The car turned over three times before landing at the bottom. The passenger coach contained about fourteen passengers, and all were hurt more or less.
When the bottom was reached the roof of the car was torn off, and women, children and seats were piled in one common mass. No one was killed outright, but it is feared two or three are so badly injured they will die. Several of the wounded were brought to Gallatin last evening, and medical aid summoned. None of the employes at the road were hurt. The accident was caused from carelessness on the part of the road.
Among the injured are Mrs. Sis Clayborne, of West Moreland, also four children, on of which is dying. Mrs. Clayborne received bruises about the head and face. Mrs. A. L. Grant, of Westmoreland, had her collar bone broken, and her two children were injured, Henry Crabtree, of Westmoreland, was badly injured and his physician, Dr. J. B. Hanna, thinks he will die. Mrs. Whiteside, W. E. Bryant, of Scottsville, Ky., had several ribs broken. C. B. Coe and S. B. Smith, of Washington, Ky., were both slightly injured.
Daily Republican, Decatur, IL 27 Jun 1889
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Train Wreck
May 1890
A FATAL BLUNDER
Five Lives Lost, Two Engines Wrecked, and Freight Ruined.
The most disastrous railroad wreck the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Road has known for years occurred at a long siding some miles east of Chattanooga, Tenn.
The engineer of a fast freight who had been ordered to take incoming freight at that point had misunderstood his orders, and, coming on at a high rate of speed, with terrific force the two engines came together. The shock shattered twenty-five or thirty cars and piled them in a huge mass on the track. Nearly every car on the two trains was derailed, both engines are a total loss, and much of the freight is ruined. The losses to property will not fall far short of $100,000.
As quickly as possible the conductors of both trains and the rear brakemen, who escaped with slight injuries, hurried forward. On the wreck of the east-bound engine they found the mangled remains of JOHN BAILEY, the fireman. He was crushed almost beyond recognition, his head being flattened like a board. By the side of the engine lay SCOTT PRICE, a colored brakeman, cut in two. A few feet further back was the body of J. M. CLIFFORD. He was still breathing, but died before he could be taken from the debris piled above him. AALF HARRIS, a colored tramp, was standing between the cars stealing a ride when the crash came. Every bone in his body was broken. All these were on the north-bound train.
In the cab of the south-bound engine Engineer GREGORY was found unconscious. His chest was crushed in and nose cut off. He died that evening. R. F. WHITTLESY and JEROME NOLAN, brakemen thought there were three or four more dead men in the ruins, as a number of tramps were on the east-bound train.
The Cranbury Press New Jersey 1890-05-16
Nashville, Tennessee Train Wreck
May 30, 1899
NINE HURT IN A COLLISION.
NASHVILLE, TENN., May 31. � Nine people were injured, two of them seriously, in a head-end collision of local passenger trains on the Louisville & Nashville road twenty-five miles south of here at 6 o�clock last evening. Both engines and the baggage cars were smashed, while Engineers Burns and Shugart received serious internal injuries.
Seven passengers were slightly hurt, as follows:
Pickens, W. H. Chicago.
Howard, J. E., Thompson Station, Tenn.
Sowell, W. J., Columbia, Tenn.
Lawrence, J. W., Burwood, Tenn.
Bowers, J. H., Macon, Ga.
Coles, Henry, and daughter, Nashville.
The trains came together on the main track, half way between West Harpeth and Thompson Station, but who is at fault has not been determined.
Fort Wayne News, Fort Wayne, IN 31 May 1899
Nashville, Tennessee
Train Wreck
July 9, 1918
COLLISION TOLL IS 75
TWO PASSENGER TRAINS CRASH NEAR NASHVILLE.
INJURED LIST MAY TOTAL 75
FIRE BROKE OUT IN THE DEBRIS OF THE WRECK>
Details Lacking and the Cause of the Accident Not Made Plain � Most of the Victims are Negroes.
NASHVILLE, Tenn., July 9. � May persons were killed and seventy-five injured when two Nashville Chattanooga and St. Louis passenger trains crashed together near Bosley Springs, at 7 a. m. today. Early this afternoon railroad officials estimated the dead at between seventy-five and one hundred. A misunderstanding of orders is believed to be responsible for the wreck.
Fire immediately broke out and many of the passengers who were not killed outright in the collision were burned to death or suffered injury from the flames.
A relief train was immediately rushed to the scene from Nashville, manned with doctors, nurses, firemen and first aid equipment.
The mangled and charred bodies brought here were distributed among local morgues.
No effort has been made to estimate the dead as it has been impossible to enter some of the splintered and burning coaches.
Both trains were running at a high speed when the crash occurred, the engines being telescoped and the coaches reduced to kindling wood.
The greatest loss of life occurred in the coaches occupied by negroes which were crowded.
Every ambulance in the city was pressed into service. Later, as the rescue work progressed, St. Thomas infirmary became overtaxed and a great number was removed to the city hospital.
Attendants at the hospitals were so overburdened with operations that they were unable to supply an accuarte [sic] list of the injured.
The Evening State Journal and Lincoln Daily News, Lincoln, NE 9 Jul 1918
100 DIE IN TRAIN CRASH
100 Others Injured in Head-On Collision Near Nashville.
CROWDED COACHES SMASHED
Impact of Engines on Sharp Curve Telescopes Smoking Car � Bodies Buried in Ruins � Five Members of Train Crew Dead � Many Negroes Among Wreck Victims.
Nashville, Tenn., July 9. � At least a hundred persons were killed and as many more injured shortly after seven o�clock this morning when Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway fast passenger trains No. 1, from Memphis, and No. 4, from Nashville, crashed head-on together just around the sharp curve at Dutchman�s Bend, about five miles from here.
Both engines reared and fell on either side of the track, while the impact drove the express car of the north bound train through the flimsy wooden coaches loaded with human freight, telescoping the smoking car in front and piling high in air the two cars behind it, both packed to the aisles with negroes en route to the powder plant, and some 150 others regular passengers.
Partial List of Dead.
The identified dead include:
ROBERT LOHG, United Stated aviation corps, Nashville: WILLIAM FARRIS, Nashville; DAVE GARDNER, Nashville; JOHN T. WHITEFIELD, Nashville; NEWTON M. VANDERBROOK, Jackson, Tenn.; S. J. VAUGHAN, Greenville, S. C.; Private JOHN P. HUSSEY, Uhlian, NH.; WILSON B. HARRIS, naval reserves; ______ ALEXANDER, United States marine corps; JOSEPH SHAFFER, J. W. Kelly, fireman, LUTHER MEADORS, fireman, DAVID GARDNER, J. J. NOLAN, _____ Mayes, W. M. Ferris, ar.,[sic] FRANK HAMMOND, JOE HAMMOND, W. H. ROGERS, WILLIAM KNOCH, Nashville; J. T. ARMOR, Trenton, Tenn; LOUIS WOODS, Marvel, Ark.; OTTO WOLFE, Nashville; OLIVER PACK, colored, Craggie Hope, Tenn. B. C. TIMMONS, rodman, Brentwood, Tenn.; MILTON LOWENSTEIN, Nashville, THOMAS DICKINSON, baggage master, Nashville; JOHN H. PEEBLES, engineer, Nashville, Private DANIEL W. JOHHNSON, Silver Lake, Tenn,; MAT WILSON, FRANK HUNTER, addresses unknown; MARSHALL WHITE, Pegram, Tenn.; BESSIE DUNN, Kingston Springs, Tenn,; SUSAN MILLER, Nashville; GEORGE HALL, train porter, Nashville; GEORGE TURNER, Burns, Tenn.; J. B. MURPHY, Kingston Springs, Tenn.; JOHN REID, Jackson, Tenn.; LEM HUDSON, Memphis, Tenn.; JOSEPH MORSE, address unknown, HUBERT FREELING, Newsom Station, Tenn.; ARBEL BECK, Kingston Springs, Tenn.; ROGER STONE, Whitlock, Tenn.; W. ERNEST BECK, Kingston Springs, Tenn.; ANDY ROBINSON, Nashville; J. J. HALL, Nashville.
Many Unidentified.
Nine unidentified white women and twenty-two unidentified white men, three unidentified soldiers, thirty unidentified colored men and two colored women.
F. E. Pell, Y. M. C. A. secretary, Nashville; Melville Chadwell, Nashville, George Turner, Burns, Tenn; _____ White, address unknown; Ligh McClanahan, Caruthersville, Miss.; Floyd Richards, New Bern, Tenn. (United States marine): Douglas T. Bated, Centerville, Tenn.; W. W. Lwarence, address unknown; W. A. Scamerhorn, Jackson, Tenn.; Alexander H. Ash, address unknown; Ed. Williams, Memphis, Tenn.; F. T. Payne, Nashville.
White Passengers Injured.
Among the white passengers injured are:
A. C. Musser, Octavia, Pa.; R. A. Davis, Hickman, Ky.; Lieut Don Long, Nashville, Cecil Grimes, Hohenwald, Tenn.; D. M. Heath, Nashville, Radley Gaskin, Hickman, Ky.; ______ Carter, Nashville, B. Corbett; ______ Martin, engineer _____ Kennedy, mail clerk, _____ Moore, J. T. Simmons, Jackson, Tenn.; Russell Pollack, Carruthersville, Mo.; Elton Cook, Centerville, Ark.; Bert Pierce, Ola, Ark.; J. H. Brown, express messenger, Benjamin D. Knight, baggagemaster, Nashville.
38 Injured Negroes.
At the city hospital are 38 injured, another hospital are four negroes seri-negroes, 28 being from Memphis. At ously injured and 17 with minor injuries. [At the city hospital are 38 injured negroes, 28 being from Memphis. At another hospital are four negroes seriously injured and 17 with minor injuries] (Twenty-two white, and negro persons are at St. Thomas� Hospital, mostly seriously injured.
Of the train crews five are dead � Engineer WILLIAM F. LLOYD and Fireman THOMAS KELLEY, of Train No. 4, and Engineer DAVID C. KENNEDY, Fireman LUTHER L. MEADOWS and Baggagemaster TOM DICKINSON, of Train No, 1. The first four reside in Nashville.
Of the known dead at least 80 percent are negroes. Only when the work of the wreckers is completed and the mass of ruins removed, can the full toll of death be taken. Corpses are everywhere beneath the high piles of iron and shattered wood of the fragile cars.
Many of the dead are mangled beyond the possibility of recognition. The bodies of six negroes, all fearfully mutilated, were discovered beneath a pile of debris thought to be merely a scrap heap from the demolished engines.
Thirty Bodies Under Express Car.
The train crew worked hard to raise the heavy express coach, beneath which were pinioned or crushed most of the white victims. In one of the seats sat one of the passengers, still conscious but with three of the dead crushed against him. The side of the car was chopped away and the man was released, apparently in a dying condition.
From beneath the express car, some 30 men were later removed, only the last of their number being alive.
Just where lies the blame it is impossible now to say. That the engineer of No. 4 knew the Memphis train to be a little late leads to the conjecture that he was attempting to reach the switch at Harding Station, a short distance beyond the scene of the wreck, before the inbound train arrived at that point.
The Washington Post, Washington D. C. 10 Jul 1918
Articles transcribed by Jenni Lanham. Thank you, Jenni!
From other reports: "July 9, 1918 101 killed and 171 injured in worst U.S. train wreck, Nashville, Tennessee"
Nashville Train Wreck from the Tennessean.com
Nashville, Tennessee
Train Wreck
July 9, 1918
COLLISION TOLL IS 75
TWO PASSENGER TRAINS CRASH NEAR NASHVILLE.
INJURED LIST MAY TOTAL 75
FIRE BROKE OUT IN THE DEBRIS OF THE WRECK>
Details Lacking and the Cause of the Accident Not Made Plain � Most of the Victims are Negroes.
NASHVILLE, Tenn., July 9. � May persons were killed and seventy-five injured when two Nashville Chattanooga and St. Louis passenger trains crashed together near Bosley Springs, at 7 a. m. today. Early this afternoon railroad officials estimated the dead at between seventy-five and one hundred. A misunderstanding of orders is believed to be responsible for the wreck.
Fire immediately broke out and many of the passengers who were not killed outright in the collision were burned to death or suffered injury from the flames.
A relief train was immediately rushed to the scene from Nashville, manned with doctors, nurses, firemen and first aid equipment.
The mangled and charred bodies brought here were distributed among local morgues.
No effort has been made to estimate the dead as it has been impossible to enter some of the splintered and burning coaches.
Both trains were running at a high speed when the crash occurred, the engines being telescoped and the coaches reduced to kindling wood.
The greatest loss of life occurred in the coaches occupied by negroes which were crowded.
Every ambulance in the city was pressed into service. Later, as the rescue work progressed, St. Thomas infirmary became overtaxed and a great number was removed to the city hospital.
Attendants at the hospitals were so overburdened with operations that they were unable to supply an accuarte [sic] list of the injured.
The Evening State Journal and Lincoln Daily News, Lincoln, NE 9 Jul 1918
100 DIE IN TRAIN CRASH
100 Others Injured in Head-On Collision Near Nashville.
CROWDED COACHES SMASHED
Impact of Engines on Sharp Curve Telescopes Smoking Car � Bodies Buried in Ruins � Five Members of Train Crew Dead � Many Negroes Among Wreck Victims.
Nashville, Tenn., July 9. � At least a hundred persons were killed and as many more injured shortly after seven o�clock this morning when Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway fast passenger trains No. 1, from Memphis, and No. 4, from Nashville, crashed head-on together just around the sharp curve at Dutchman�s Bend, about five miles from here.
Both engines reared and fell on either side of the track, while the impact drove the express car of the north bound train through the flimsy wooden coaches loaded with human freight, telescoping the smoking car in front and piling high in air the two cars behind it, both packed to the aisles with negroes en route to the powder plant, and some 150 others regular passengers.
Partial List of Dead.
The identified dead include:
ROBERT LOHG, United Stated aviation corps, Nashville: WILLIAM FARRIS, Nashville; DAVE GARDNER, Nashville; JOHN T. WHITEFIELD, Nashville; NEWTON M. VANDERBROOK, Jackson, Tenn.; S. J. VAUGHAN, Greenville, S. C.; Private JOHN P. HUSSEY, Uhlian, NH.; WILSON B. HARRIS, naval reserves; ______ ALEXANDER, United States marine corps; JOSEPH SHAFFER, J. W. Kelly, fireman, LUTHER MEADORS, fireman, DAVID GARDNER, J. J. NOLAN, _____ Mayes, W. M. Ferris, ar.,[sic] FRANK HAMMOND, JOE HAMMOND, W. H. ROGERS, WILLIAM KNOCH, Nashville; J. T. ARMOR, Trenton, Tenn; LOUIS WOODS, Marvel, Ark.; OTTO WOLFE, Nashville; OLIVER PACK, colored, Craggie Hope, Tenn. B. C. TIMMONS, rodman, Brentwood, Tenn.; MILTON LOWENSTEIN, Nashville, THOMAS DICKINSON, baggage master, Nashville; JOHN H. PEEBLES, engineer, Nashville, Private DANIEL W. JOHHNSON, Silver Lake, Tenn,; MAT WILSON, FRANK HUNTER, addresses unknown; MARSHALL WHITE, Pegram, Tenn.; BESSIE DUNN, Kingston Springs, Tenn,; SUSAN MILLER, Nashville; GEORGE HALL, train porter, Nashville; GEORGE TURNER, Burns, Tenn.; J. B. MURPHY, Kingston Springs, Tenn.; JOHN REID, Jackson, Tenn.; LEM HUDSON, Memphis, Tenn.; JOSEPH MORSE, address unknown, HUBERT FREELING, Newsom Station, Tenn.; ARBEL BECK, Kingston Springs, Tenn.; ROGER STONE, Whitlock, Tenn.; W. ERNEST BECK, Kingston Springs, Tenn.; ANDY ROBINSON, Nashville; J. J. HALL, Nashville.
Many Unidentified.
Nine unidentified white women and twenty-two unidentified white men, three unidentified soldiers, thirty unidentified colored men and two colored women.
F. E. Pell, Y. M. C. A. secretary, Nashville; Melville Chadwell, Nashville, George Turner, Burns, Tenn; _____ White, address unknown; Ligh McClanahan, Caruthersville, Miss.; Floyd Richards, New Bern, Tenn. (United States marine): Douglas T. Bated, Centerville, Tenn.; W. W. Lwarence, address unknown; W. A. Scamerhorn, Jackson, Tenn.; Alexander H. Ash, address unknown; Ed. Williams, Memphis, Tenn.; F. T. Payne, Nashville.
White Passengers Injured.
Among the white passengers injured are:
A. C. Musser, Octavia, Pa.; R. A. Davis, Hickman, Ky.; Lieut Don Long, Nashville, Cecil Grimes, Hohenwald, Tenn.; D. M. Heath, Nashville, Radley Gaskin, Hickman, Ky.; ______ Carter, Nashville, B. Corbett; ______ Martin, engineer _____ Kennedy, mail clerk, _____ Moore, J. T. Simmons, Jackson, Tenn.; Russell Pollack, Carruthersville, Mo.; Elton Cook, Centerville, Ark.; Bert Pierce, Ola, Ark.; J. H. Brown, express messenger, Benjamin D. Knight, baggagemaster, Nashville.
38 Injured Negroes.
At the city hospital are 38 injured, another hospital are four negroes seri-negroes, 28 being from Memphis. At ously injured and 17 with minor injuries. [At the city hospital are 38 injured negroes, 28 being from Memphis. At another hospital are four negroes seriously injured and 17 with minor injuries] (Twenty-two white, and negro persons are at St. Thomas� Hospital, mostly seriously injured.
Of the train crews five are dead � Engineer WILLIAM F. LLOYD and Fireman THOMAS KELLEY, of Train No. 4, and Engineer DAVID C. KENNEDY, Fireman LUTHER L. MEADOWS and Baggagemaster TOM DICKINSON, of Train No, 1. The first four reside in Nashville.
Of the known dead at least 80 percent are negroes. Only when the work of the wreckers is completed and the mass of ruins removed, can the full toll of death be taken. Corpses are everywhere beneath the high piles of iron and shattered wood of the fragile cars.
Many of the dead are mangled beyond the possibility of recognition. The bodies of six negroes, all fearfully mutilated, were discovered beneath a pile of debris thought to be merely a scrap heap from the demolished engines.
Thirty Bodies Under Express Car.
The train crew worked hard to raise the heavy express coach, beneath which were pinioned or crushed most of the white victims. In one of the seats sat one of the passengers, still conscious but with three of the dead crushed against him. The side of the car was chopped away and the man was released, apparently in a dying condition.
From beneath the express car, some 30 men were later removed, only the last of their number being alive.
Just where lies the blame it is impossible now to say. That the engineer of No. 4 knew the Memphis train to be a little late leads to the conjecture that he was attempting to reach the switch at Harding Station, a short distance beyond the scene of the wreck, before the inbound train arrived at that point.
The Washington Post, Washington D. C. 10 Jul 1918
Articles transcribed by Jenni Lanham. Thank you, Jenni!
From other reports: "July 9, 1918 101 killed and 171 injured in worst U.S. train wreck, Nashville, Tennessee"
Nashville Train Wreck from the Tennessean.com
Great Train Wreck of 1918 from nashvillewebreview.com
Great train wreck of 1918 from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll ... PECIAL0902
Great Train Wreck of 1918 from nashvillewebreview.com
http://www.nashvillewebreview.com/autom ... hville.htm
Great train wreck of 1918 from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_train_wreck_of_1918
'That mournful sound'
80 years ago, two trains collided, changing the face of Nashville
From The TENNESSEAN
Sunday, July 5, 1998
By Mike Kilen Staff Writer
The railroad track hides in the armpit of Nashville, beneath the bustling traffic and behind the office towers and strip malls.
The used-but-forgotten tracks parallel West End behind Centennial Park, cross Murphy Road and take a sudden turn south by McCabe Park.
That curve, Dutchman's Curve, still evokes memories of a horrible day in Nashville history.
A bit farther south behind Belle Meade Plaza at White Bridge Road and Harding is an old, crumbling bridge where Frank Fletcher of Nashville stood that day 80 years ago, looking down on the bloody tracks.
Descend the wooden and weedy embankment and the smell of oil on railroad ties and an eerie quiet and heat suffocate you. Colorful graffiti on a bridge support says: Welcome to the Line Yard.
In the distance you can hear a train chugging, coming down the tracks with force and speed and purpose.
And you imagine a mighty collision.
"Every time I drive over White Bridge Road I think of it," says the 94-year old Fletcher. "The scene has occurred to me time after time... The horror of it."
July 9, 1918
The Union Station was crowded on the early Tuesday morning. Most railroad stations were during World War I, transporting soldiers and workers to plants geared up for war.
The Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis train No. 4 was preparing for its trip toward Memphis.
Willis M. Farris, an honored Nashville citizen who had made the lumber industry here famous the world over, went to take a seat.
A young bookkeeper, seeing the older man, offered Farris his seat, which he graciously took in the crowded car.
At the same time, Robert D. Corbitt, the brakeman for the east-bound No. 1 heading to Nashville from Memphis, decided for no particular reason to check out the rear of the train. That train was packed with passengers, many of them workers traveling to the DuPont plant in Old Hickory.
Among them was 18-year-old George Scott, scared of the large, bustling crowd of strangers on his first trip away from home. He was headed to Nashville to play his part in the war effort, producing powder at DuPont.
An irritating vision kept awakening him on that night train. from Memphis. Something horrible was going to happen. At 6 a.m. he left his seat and went to the passenger car behind his and, for no reason he could recall, he pulled the shade and waited.
The decisions made that morning would be played out for generations by survivors of the dead and descendents of the living.
Running late
The veteran engineers on both those trains were running late that morning. Engineer David Kennedy pulled his No. 4 out of Union Station at 7:07 a.m., seven minutes late, while No. 1 was chugging in from the west, 35 minutes late.
No. 1 had the right of way so it was the trainmen of No. 4 who had to keep a lookout for No. 1 running past them on the double tracks heading into Union Station. If they didn't see No. 1 before hitting a 10-mile stretch of single track west of the city's center, they must stop.
Once passing that track fork, there was no going back.
As the trains rumbled forward, tower operator J. S. Johnson showed train No. 4 a green sign from the tall, wooden tower, which meant all was clear. As he stopped to record it, "No. 4 passed tower 7:15 a.m." his hand froze. He could find no entry that No. 1 had passed.
Johnson reported to the dispatcher who telegraphed back. "He meets No. 1 there, can you stop him?" Johnson blew the emergency whistle but no one stood at the rear of the doomed No. 4 to hear it.
"Along about 6 that morning something kept telling me that something bad was going to happen," Scott told Nashville songwriter Bobby Braddock in 1983. Braddock had become fascinated with the event on Dutchman's curve and interviewed survivors, such as Scott, on tape.
"So about 6 that morning I came out of that coach, into the front end of this coach. Instead of leaning over trying to get a little rest, I pulled the shade down over the glass."
Train No. 4 snaked around the curve, blind to what was ahead, as No. 1 approached the White Bridge Road area.
"He told me that he was riding in the engine like he normally did," says Thomas Vester of Nashville, a nephew who was raised by Robert Corbitt, brakeman on No. 1 that morning. "But he went to the rear of the train. Something just told him to go back there."
The end of the curve approached and the trains each chugged upwards of 60 miles per hour. A horrible site appeared around the blind corner.
Two trains, one track.
Kennedy wildly pulled the brake lever.
It was too late.
Oh my God!
The two 80-ton engines met, causing an explosive sound heard two miles away. The ground quaked and the waters of nearby Richland Creek trembled. The wooden cars crumbled and hurled sideways, hanging over the embankment. One train telescoped the other.
Scott was hurled across the train car. He got up shaken and saw people laying about, "blood running everywhere."
"I had to raise up the window and the glass was falling all over everywhere," he said through sobs, "and finally I got out of there."
"And I wandered out past a cornfield, best I can remember, and I run across one of the trainmen laying there. Every time he was breathing, blood run out of his mouth. It done knocked me down...
"It wasn't long and here come a truck full of 10 tubs to pick up the body parts. You couldn't tell one part of the bodies from another. They were just all cut to pieces."
Scott could barely be heard on Braddock's recorded tape as he described the fate of the young woman and child he sat across from on the first train car. The woman's arm had been ripped off and had stuck into the baby.
For the next three days he was in shock, walking around Nashville with blood covering his clothing.
Frank Fletcher heard the explosion from his home in West Nashville. The 14-year-old was summoned by his father to check out what had happened.
Together, they arrived early on the scene.
Fletcher talks slowly over the telephone from his Nashville home, gathering up the memory of what happened next.
His father ran down the bank to the wreck, while he stayed perched on the bridge.
"My father was horrified. He went down there and attempted to raise the car to relieve some of the victims who were under pressure."
Many were dead or dying. Willis Farris had died and the young bookkeeper who surrendered his seat survived, according to Rachel Farris of Nashville, Willis Farris' granddaughter.
In the years to follow, the faces of those trapped in cars haunted many, included Fletcher.
"One of the cars was standing at an angle. This man must have been standing in the door and all that I could see was his legs hanging out of the doorway," Fletcher says.
"The other thing I remember was a hand pinched under the car. The man was stuck there with two dead men on his laps. He was hollering, 'Oh my God! Oh my God!' Nobody could do anything to help him."
Fletcher vomited and would look no more.
Among the bodies was Robert Corbitt, who lay motionless.
"They took him to the morgue," says Vester, Corbitt's nephew. "They were ready to embalm him. Then he moved."
Corbitt was transported to the hospital, swamped with the injured and near dying. Doctors were set to cut his leg off.
"But mama said it was better than no leg at all," Vester recalls.
Corbitt lived out his life, working on the railroad until retirement. Doctors managed to fix his leg so he even walked without a limp. Only a metal plate in his head marked the wreck.
He survived another train accident in 1951 by jumping from the train.
The aftermath
As many as 50,000 "spectators" came to the track throughout that day, hearing the moans of the dying and watching horse-drawn "dead wagons" stacked with bodies head for overcrowded funeral homes. Coffins, wrote the newspaper accounts then, were "stacked like cordwood."
The final death tolls are still disputed. Officially, the Interstate Commerce Commission, in those days the investigative body for railroad accidents, listed the dead at 101. At least as many were wounded.
"Embalmers," it was written, were brought in from surrounding towns. African-American family members from points west descended on Nashville to find their loved ones.
It was first reported that almost 80% of the victims were black workers from Memphis and Arkansas, crammed into the wooden cars, but that figure was later disputed as too large.
The catastrophe, the worst in U.S. railroad history, fell off the front page within three days..
Some writers have since speculated that World War I was too dominant a story for much of the nation to bother over a train wreck and racism may have kept others from caring.
The question still remains: Just what happened?
ICC officials questioned railway workers afterward. The proceeding's notes were taken by the late Ernest Jones Sr., who supplied them to The Tennessean in 1983.
Jones said the early morning confusion at the Union Station caused Kennedy to think train No. 1 had passed when it was simply another switch engine hauling empty cars.
Kennedy was found at the wreck with the train schedule folded under his body.
William Floyd, the engineer of No. 1, died on his last day before retirement.
Soldiers were found with notes to their mothers, grandfathers with pictures of their grandchildren. The scattered letters from the mail car were sorted among bits of flesh and bone.
Scott was sent back to Memphis with $50 from the railroad.
He never could remember what happened the three days following the wreck. And he felt guilt over his survival while the little baby died.
Farris' sons received money from a settlement from the death of their father, whose body they carried up the railroad bank that day in agony.
Out of the bleak tragedy, one son's life course was changed.
Frank Farris Sr., used his settlement as seed money to start Third National Bank, according to Frank Farris Jr., his son.
Farris Sr. became a leader in the banking business in the south and the bank later merged with SunTrust Bank.
For others, it meant a lifetime of nightmares.
"You never forget it," says Fletcher. "Every time I cross that bridge I recollect the sight."
Down the quiet tracks, in view of the electronic signal posts, which prevent such accidents today, you can look toward Dutchman's Curve and listen...
Songwriter Bobby Braddock did -- and helped write The Great Nashville Train Wreck:
"Now every July 9, a few miles west of town, to this day you can hear that mournful sound...
