Roanoke NG in 1908

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FATAL WRECK ON NARROW GAUGE ROAD
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Three Killed by Little Train Carrying Laborers to the Rorer Mines
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SEVERAL OTHERS ARE SERIOUSLY INJURED
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Train Was Moving at Rapid Rate When Car Jumped the Track Rolling to One Side and Pulling Engine After It
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CAUSE OF ACCIDENT NOT YET DETERMINED
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     Roanoke, Va., Aug. 7 --(Special)--As the result of an accident to the little work train on the narrow gauge road that runs from the Roanoke & Southern to the Rorer mines about six miles south of the city this morning about 7 o'clock three are dead and several others are more or less seriously injured.  The dead are:
    JAMES TYREE
    JAMES L. WIRTZ
    HARRY BROWN, a colored youth.
    The injured are:
    John Long, thigh broken; Fireman Frank Richardson, slightly injured; George W. Tyree, father of the young man who was killed, bruised about the head and injured internally; Engineer William Dyer, slightly injured.
    The train was made up of the engine and three cars on which were about thirty miners and laborers going to the mines for their day's work.
    The train from all accounts was moving at a fair rate of speed, although it was on a steep up grade when the car next to the engine jumped the track and rolled to one side drawing the engine after it.  The engine was completely turned over and young Tyree was caught under it and crushed to death.
    Wirtz and the negro boy received injuries from which they died later in the day.  The engineer and fireman escaped with their lives by jumping.
    Just what caused the accident has not yet been determined.
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[The Rorer Iron Company was chartered late 1882 or early 1883, and constructed a five-mile narrow gauge railroad to haul the ore from the Rorer mine at Gail (back of the present-day Franklin Road Wal-Mart) to a transfer facility on the south side of the N&W yard near 13th St., SW, crossing present-day Salem Ave. about seven blocks from the present location of the NWHS Archives.  One of the attached pictures shows the inclined narrow gauge bridge over the Roanoke River and the Virginian Railway.  The other shows the bridge after being converted to a walkway and after the portion over the Virginian had collapsed.  After the R&S was built in 1892 the narrow gauge was abandoned north of the R&S where a new transfer facility apparently was established.]

Gordon Hamilton
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