1908 - Freight Wreck on the N. & W.

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Roanoke Times - March 29, 1908

FREIGHT WRECK ON THE N. & W.

Smash-Up Near Salem Yesterday Morning Delays Traffic For Hours

   Salem was the scene at an early hour yesterday morning of a 
serious freight wreck. The accident happened at fifty minutes past 2 
o'clock, and it was noon before traffic at that point could be 
resumed. All of the passenger trains that arrived here yesterday 
morning were held in the yard at this place.
   A train loaded with ballast was on its way east and was making 
about twenty miles an hour. It was moving along the middle track. On 
the westbound track there was a train of empty coal cars. The ballast 
train was moving at the rate of six miles an hour.
   A journal box on the eighth car of the ballast train broke, and 
sixteen of the cars of this train were wrecked. Most of the wreckage 
was thrown up against the westbound freight, and five empties were 
added to the debris.
   The track were piled up with ballast and broken cars, and 
presented a picture of utmost confusion.
   No one was hurt.
   A wrecking force was soon hard at work clearing the tracks. The 
task was not, however, and easy one, and it was noon before the was 
open for traffic.
   Neither one of the engines of the train was damaged.
   The passenger trains held up in the yard here were No. 15 from 
Norfolk; No. 41 from the North; No. 29 which is made up here; No. 1 
from Lynchburg, and No. 1 from Hagerstown, which are consolidated 
here. All of these trains, together with the train for Winston-Salem, 
which, however, left at its usual hour, were standing on the tracks 
at the same time and it gave things a busy appearance.

[Some confusion in the print on how fast the ballast train was going....]

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- Ron Davis, Roger Link