May 18, 1986- N&W 611: The Great Dismal Swamp Derailment Footage

[NW Mailing List]

Anyone wanting the accident report in a PDF just send me a note

Larry Evans
Kenova, WV 
lsevans at zoominternet.net

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: NW Mailing List 
  To: NW Mailing List 
  Sent: Monday, February 03, 2014 3:51 PM
  Subject: FW: May 18, 1986- N&W 611: The Great Dismal Swamp Derailment Footage


  For those of you that may be too young to remember this accident,  
  This video courtesy of the NWHS Mailing List. I Googled this info about this accident. According to Wikipedia this is the story. With Robert Claytor, president of The Norfolk and Western, at the throttle of the N&W J611 there was a massive derailment in the Great Dismal Swamp at milepost N16. Milepost N16 is clearly shown in the video. It was coming from Norfolk, Va. The date was Sunday May 18, 1986.  The Employee Appreciation passenger train had nearly 1,000 employees and their families on board. Thankfully there were no fatalities but the seriously injured were airlifted to nearby hospitals in Norfolk for treatment. This video is 17.02 minutes long with no sound. That's unfortunate since it would have been very interesting to hear what was being said. Thankfully we do have the video. Thirteen of the twenty-three passenger cars were derailed. I don't know which passenger cars survived to ride the rails again. I'm sure that information is available . After you view this video I'm sure that you'll have to agree that it was a miracle that there were no fatalities! It proves that traveling by rail is one of the safest modes of transportation! In September 1994, while switching, there was another derailment in Lynchburg, Va. involving the passenger cars of an excursion consist that the J611 was to pull the next day. This damaged several cars causing a shortage and the consequent need for more cars. Only one month later, the announcement was made that many had expected after the Great Dismal Swamp derailment, NS executives terminated the steam program. It appears that the N&W J611, the "Queen Of The Fleet" will pull excursion trains again in the not too distant future due to the current "Fire Up 611" campaign. If you have not made a contribution to this campaign please consider doing so. More information can be found about this at www.fireup611.org. In 2013 members of the Blue Ridge Chapter, NRHS made a contribution to "Fire Up 611". We feel that it was money well spent. Hopefully you will agree!           
  Norris Deyerle 
  Blue Ridge Chapter, NRHS Chairman Of Virginia's Rail Heritage Region Partners 
  Lynchburg, Va. 


------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  ________________________________________
  NW-Mailing-List at nwhs.org
  To change your subscription go to
  http://list.nwhs.org/mailman/options/nw-mailing-list
  Browse the NW-Mailing-List archives at
  http://list.nwhs.org/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20140225/44b7c2af/attachment.htm>