Wreck of Old 97

Danville, VA (not Danville PA)

It was a serious wreck of the Old 97 Locomotive on a trestle bridge.

The Wreck of the Old 97 was an American rail disaster involving the Southern Railway mail train, officially known as the Fast Mail, while en route from Monroe, Virginia, to Spencer, North Carolina, on September 27, 1903.

Due to excessive speed in an attempt to maintain schedule, the train derailed at the Stillhouse Trestle near Danville, Virginia, where it careened off the side of the bridge, killing 11 men.

Only a fraction of the mail had survived, including a large case filled with canaries that managed to escape and fly to safety.

It was Locomotive 1102, a ten-wheeler 4-6-0 engine built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, had rolled out of the factory in early 1903, less than a year before the wreck.

The event launched many a song about the tragedy.https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wreck_of_the_Old_97#Ballad

The full story

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wreck_of_the_Old_97 

The lesson from this is

HASTE MAKES WASTE