On a November evening in 1891, tragedy struck when a Western & Atlantic passenger train was derailed between Atlanta and Smyrna, and sabotage was likely to blame for the wreck.
Passenger Train No. 4 departed Atlanta at 6:40 p.m. on Nov. 8, 1891, bound for Chattanooga, Tennessee. The train carried 53 passengers, including members of Salvini’s theatrical troupe.
The locomotive veered from the tracks as the train approached a sharp curve eight miles from Atlanta near the Western & Atlantic’s junction with the Georgia Pacific Railway near Bolton.
Engineer Charlie Barrett — a long-time Western & Atlantic engineer who was involved in wrecks in Dalton earlier that year and Kingston a week earlier — sensed trouble just before the engine leaped from the rails. He went to apply the train’s air brakes but wasn’t quick enough.
The engine crashed through the curve, spun sideways across the track, and stopped. The tender slammed into it, with cars piling behind, slamming into an embankment and sending passengers hurtling through the aisles.
Eyewitnesses spoke of chaos following the derailment — lamps were extinguished, passengers screamed, and the silence was broken only by the groans of the injured. Thanks to the discipline and swift action of the train crew, including Conductor John C. Moore, most on board escaped with their lives. Barrett was thrown 15 or 20 feet.
Initial reports indicated he might not survive, but he did. Moore and Fireman John Green were hurt, and according to one report, only one man, reportedly a tramp hitching a ride, was killed.
An investigation revealed that several rails on the outer side of the curve had been removed. Spikes were pulled, and the rails were stacked beside the track.
One rail was loosened and set diagonally across the ties. It was a calculated act designed to derail the train into the valley below.
Following the wreck, dogs were reportedly dispatched to follow any scents left behind by the perpetrators, and the area was scoured by lamplight.
Though the full motives behind the wreck remain a mystery, and the culprits were never publicly identified, the act of sabotage sent shockwaves throughout the South. Fortunately, despite the scale of destruction, the loss of life was limited.
The wreck was cleared by the following morning.
“It is horrible to think that when you go on a railroad you are liable to be hurled into eternity by such miscreants,” The Atlanta Constitution said in an editorial after the mishap. “We trust our railroad managers will ferret out these men, and we are satisfied the courts and juries of the state will punish them as they deserve.
“They are worse than savages,” the newspaper added.
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