N&W in 1907 -- Tunnel Collapse

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Tunnel Caved in on Train Passing Through
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    About three o'clock Sunday afternoon a rather unique wreck occurred at the tunnel near Eggleston on the Radford division.  A heavy train of loaded coal cars for the east was making full time on its way around New River, but when it reached the tunnel at Eggleston and darted into the bowels of the earth the entire train did not emerge from the east side of the tunnel.  Tons of rock and earth, as a result of the concussion created by the passing train, fell from the tunnel's top and submerged several cars.  As a result fifteen loaded coal cars were jammed into the tunnel, five of them being entirely demolished.
    A wreck train was dispatched from both sides of the wreck and with a large force of hands at work the debris was cleared away in about six hours, enabling delayed trains to go on their way.
    The wreck occurred in the old tunnel at Eggleston, the new one being not quite completed.  This old tunnel had for some time been considered unsafe and until the new tunnel could be constructed the top had been timbered up, but it seems those timbers had partially decayed, with the result that a wreck occurred.

Bluefield Daily Telegraph
June 26, 1907

Gordon Hamilton
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