30 years ago today---9-22-23--the most deadly RR accident in Alabama History happened.

 The worst Alabama train wreck----also the worst Amtrak accident ever--- happened on September 22nd 1993. 

Amtrak's Sunset Limited, en route to Miami, jumped rails on a weakened bridge and plunged into Big Bayou Canot, near Mobile, killing 47 people.

 

Other terrible accidents:

January 6, 1853 –United States – A train carrying President-elect Franklin Pierce, his wife Jane and their son Benjamin derailed and toppled off an embankment near Andover, MA. Franklin and Jane suffered minor injuries, but their son Benjamin was killed.

February 19, 1863 – United States – Chunky Creek Train Wreck of 1863 - A Mississippi Southern train headed for the battlefield at Vicksburg, where the Confederate forces are in desperate need of reinforcements in the defense of the city against the assault of Sherman and the Union Army, derails on a damaged bridge and falls into an icy creek. At least 40 passengers killed, others drowned, some rescued from the water by soldiers of the First Battalion of Choctaw Indians, stationed nearby.

July 15, 1864 – United States – Shohola train wreck - An Erie Railroad passenger train carrying Confederate prisoners-of-war is in a head-on collision with a coal train near Shohola, Pennsylvania due to a dispatcher's error. Between 60 and 72 people are killed (official toll is 65 killed).

 

Other earlier train accidents with great loss of life are HERE