This week brought me to Danville VA site of the most famous wreck in American rail history. On September 27, 1903, “Old 97.” The Southern Railway’s crack express mail train, was running behind schedule. Its engineer “gave her full throttle,” but the speed of the train caused it to jump the tracks on a high trestle overlooking the valley of the Dan. The engine and five cars plunged into the ravine below, killing nine and injuring seven, but immortalizing the locomotive and its engineer, Steve Broady, in a now well-known song. Marker is located on U.S. 58 between Locust Lane and North Main Street at the train crash site.
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