OVER $1 MILLION DAMAGES

24 Cars Derailed at Miles

MILES - Workmen were attempting late Friday to unsnarl the 24-car derailment of a 66-car Santa Fe freight train near Miles, described by Santa Fe spokesmen as the worst derailment the company had sufferd in 20 years in the San Angelo area.

The cars were crushed into a compressed mass of metal, some piled four deep and several cars almost buried in the trackside dirt by the impact.

Santa Fe officials said only about three of the 66 cars could be salvaged. Each car cost $200,000 officials said, estimating total damage would run into the millions of dollars.

The derailment occurred about 4:30 a.m. Friday, and Santa Fe officials at mid-morning called for emergency crews and wrecker trains from Fort Worth and Brownwood. Officials said it would take one to two days to clear the tracks.

Liquid sulphur from one car spilled into a ditch of the roadway of U.S. Hwy. 67, and one car carrying bales of cotton burst into flames. The fire was extinguished by Ballinger and Miles firemen before the blaze spread to other cars.

Two sulphur tank cars landed less than 50 feet from U.S. 67, spilling liquid fluid in the barrow ditch. One flat car came to rest less than six feet from the highway road bed. Another flat car loaded with American Telephone and Telegraph and Telegraph [sic] microwave transmission complex, landed at the edge of a field about 20 yards from the track.

The accident was about three miles west of Miles on track paralleling U.S. 67. The train was enroute from San Angelo to Brownwood.

Santa Fe spokesmen said that the derailment might have been caused by one of the car's [sic] dragging an object which caught on the tracks' crossties. Cars in the middle of the train suffered the worst damage.

The middle cars began spilling off the track and the engine and about six other lead cars were disconnected. The engine and the six lead cars were able to continue to Ballinger and on to Brownwood.

Bulldozers were summoned from a San Angelo contractor, Reece Albert, to help unsnarl the tangled wreckage.

A brakeman, C. F. England, told Radio Station KEAN in Brownwood that the train had been out of San Angelo about 35 minutes.

"The train went into emergency, and we thought we had broken in two," England said. "Sure enough we had." He said at first the indication wasn't that it was a bad derailment, but that he and the other brakeman, J. A. McCluskey, both of Brownwood, began walking back to the rear of the train and "when we got back there they were scattered all over the country."

The engineer was T. F. Alexander and conductor Alex Bradshaw, both of Brownwood.

All of the trainmen escaped injury.

The train was loaded with cotton, zinc, sulphur and sand.

The Abilene Reporter News, Abilene, TX 9 Mar 1968
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Transcribed by Tim Taugher. Thanks, Tim!