Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 October 1903 — NINE DEAD IN RAIL DISASTER. [ARTICLE]

NINE DEAD IN RAIL DISASTER.

Train Fall* Seventy-five Feet from a Tree tie in Virginia. While running at a high rate of speed the south-bound fast mail train on the Southern Railway jumped from a trestle seventy-five feet high half a mile north of Danville, Va., and was demolished. Of the crew of sixteen men, including mail carriers, nine were killed and seven injured. The trestle where the accident happened is 500 feet long and is located on a sharp curve. Engineer Brodie was a new man on that division and it is said he came to the curve at a high rato of speed. The engine had gone only about fifty feet on the trestle when it jumped from the track, carrying -with it four mail cars and an express car. The treetie gave way for a space of fifty feet. At the foot of the trestle is a shallow stream, with a rocky bottom. Striking this the engine and the care were reduced to a mass of twisted iron and steel and pieces of splintered wood. Each car falling with the engine bounded from it and collapsed after striking the rocks at the foot of the trertie.