Nostalgia & History > Crescent derailment 12/3/1978

On a yahoo group we began talking about the Crescent derailment that occurred at ELma Va in 1978. Yesterday a friend and I visited the site of the accident that killed six people. Does anyone have or know where I can get information about the derailment?

Thanks
Gary

Was this the accident which killed the chef who had appeared in the SR ads for the Crescent? If so, I seem to remember there being a discussion about that wreck on TO a year or so back.

Jay

Can't find how to bring up the NTSB report which is RAR-79-04. Here is a link I found. http://www3.gendisasters.com/virginia/2660/shipman,-va-train-wreck,-dec-1978

Here is the link to the NTSB pages

http://ntl1.specialcollection.net/scripts/ws.dll?websearch&site=dot_railroads

Tom Daspit
Morgan Hill, CA
Tom's Trains

garr Wrote:
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> Was this the accident which killed the chef who
> had appeared in the SR ads for the Crescent? If
> so, I seem to remember there being a discussion
> about that wreck on TO a year or so back.
>
> Jay

Yes that was the chef, cant think of his name off hand.

GN599 Wrote:
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> garr Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Was this the accident which killed the chef who
> > had appeared in the SR ads for the Crescent? If
> > so, I seem to remember there being a discussion
> > about that wreck on TO a year or so back.
> >
> > Jay
>
> Yes that was the chef, cant think of his name off
> hand.


Louis Price was the gentleman's name.

Art House
Gettysburg, Pa.

Art House is correct. The chef was Louis Price. The Cook was seriously wounded, losing an arm, I believe, when he was pinned by the wood-fired stove coming loose from its mount, but he lived. The Flagman was in the dining car at the time of the derailment and survived the derailment itself but had a heart attack and died. The sleeper/lounge attendant was injured by being flung into a mirror, with glass shards in her face. The Conductor, too, was in a roomette in a sleeper, doing his paperwork, having just boarded in Monroe, VA, and had stood up just before the derailment, and was flung forward into the mirror, and there's a newspaper picture of him with a towel wrapped around his forehead to stanch the bleeding, but he's in his complete uniform, Southern Conductor's cap and all; I think his name was Leo Bailey. The other four fatalities were passengers in the front part of the train, including a deadhead employee in the crew car, who'd just boarded at the crew change at Monroe, Va. Southern Railway's medical officer, Max Young, was in an office car on the rear of the train, and provided medical attention to injured passengers until local emergency services could reach the isolated location.

The NTSB report covers it thoroughly. The Engineer was distracted trying to reset a ground-fault relay, and the Fireman was back in a trailing unit, trying to restart a steam generator. That was one of the reasons that Southern operated four E-8s on The Southern Crescent each night, to try to ensure its reliability. The Engineer had crested a grade and started down the downgrade, and failed to notice that he was approaching a 45-mph S curve at a little more than 80 mph.

A few years later, the fireman who was working the night of the derailment was working Amtrak Train 20, the northbound Crescent, as an Assistant Conductor when the train stopped on Wells Viaduct, a very high double-track concrete bridge in northeast Georgia. I don't remember the exact reason, whether it was a defect detector or the train went into emergency, or why. He stepped down from the baggage car and fell more than 100 feet to his death. The crew found him on the slope of the embankment. They believe he thought he was stepping down between the tracks to walk the train when, actually, he was on an outside rail.

This photo from the west end of Well's Viaduct started my belated interest in steam in late 1986. I doubt anyone could survive a free fall from this viaduct which is some 200' high in the center.

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