Greeneville, TN Train Wreck, Oct 1872

DREADFUL RAILROAD DISASTER.

Terrible Accident on the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Road.

Two Persons Killed and Twenty-seven Wounded.

“Behind Time” the Cause of the Casualty.

MORRISTOWN, Tenn., Oct. 3, 1872.
The most fearful accident that has occurred on the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railroad since the war took place to-day. The Southern bound express left Greenville [sic], seventy-four miles east of Knoxville, an hour and sixteen minutes behind time. It reached the top of a heavy grade three miles west of that place at twenty minutes past nine, and as the heavy train, composed of locomotive, tender, two baggage cars, one express smoking car, three passenger coaches and one sleeper, came sweeping

AROUND A SHARP CURVE,
running down grade at from thirty to thirty-five miles an hour, the trucks of the mail car jumped the track. Down brakes was sounded, but such was the momentum of the train that it could not be checked up until the trucks that had jumped the track struck the timbers of a high trestle 185 yards from the point they left the track. The trestle gave way at once, and the front of the smoking car was upset and went down a bank. The second coach fell through the trestle and was

TELESCOPED
by the one following. The locomotive and baggage and express cars passed the trestle in safety, and the last passenger coach and sleeper remained on the track. The train was crowded with passengers, most of them being persons returning from the Virginia Springs. Your correspondent, immediately on the news reaching Knoxville, repaired to the scene of the disaster, on a special train. The wreck was fearful, and the escape from death of the passengers, seems miraculous. The injured number twenty-seven, three or four of whom will probably die; two of them certainly, a colored breakman [sic] and a MRS. SMITHSON, from Memphis. Many of them are injured seriously. The three coaches were a total wreck. The railroad officials spared no efforts to provide for the suffering, and the passengers who escaped vied with each other in ministering to the necessities of the sufferers.

The New York Herald New York 1872-10-04
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!