N&W in 1911--Tunnel mishap

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Bluefield Daily Telegraph
September 13, 1911

PASSENGER TRAIN SIDESWIPED IN TUNNEL
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No. 3 Reaches Here Over Three Hours Late With Every Car Damaged But No Person Hurt

    Train No. 3 did not arrive in this city last night until nearly midnight, due to an accident in the Eggleston tunnel which came near being very serious, but fortunately no one was injured.
    The train, plunging along at the rate of forty or more miles an hour, was speeding into the double tracked tunnel when a box car about twenty car lengths from the engine on an eastbound extra freight jumped the track in the tunnel, the trucks turning crossways and throwing the edge of the car out of line with the other cars in the moving freight.
    Just at the moment the accident occurred train No. 3, west bound, crashed into the car, and every car on the passenger train was sideswiped, while the tank on the engine was punctured, the water pouring out of the tender in a flood.  The accident occurred so quickly that passengers on the train did not have time to cross to the other side of the car before the next car was being sideswiped, and so on until the nine or ten cars on the train had been damaged.  Several windows were broken.  The cars all continued on to Columbus.  The train was delayed until a freight engine could be brought from East Radford, and this engine pulled the train into this city, about three and a half hours late.
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Gordon Hamilton
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