N&W 611 Dismal Swamp film footage

Wow! Incredible footage Chris! Its amazing how "relatively calm" folks appear, the one lady at 1:25 even made sure she grabbed her drink when she got off.

I was surprised by that also.

My dad and I were standing at the Yadkin Road crossing the day of the 611 accident.  We could see the headlight as she came off bridge 7 on the Elizabeth River, had a full head of steam from the way it was moving.  Had no idea of the accident until we got back home and saw it on the news.

A little back ground please? A very brief Google search led to an article relating the accident to older couplers but didn't describe the accident itself.

The trip was an employee special with the 611 from Norfolk to Petersburg, VA.  Officially, the accident was blamed on a switch.  611 and the first few cars got through, most of the remainder of the train derailed, and a couple of the cars without tightlock couplers jacknifed.  There were many injuries and a couple of cars destroyed, but fortunately no loss of life.  The only thing that stopped the Steam Program from ending that day was that it was an employee special as opposed to a public excursion, so all claims were dealt with in-house.

The end results were as follows....

1) all cars without tightlock couplers were banned from the trips (this basically meant all heavyweights)

2) a 40mph speed restriction on all steam excursions.  Prior to this, the excursions were allowed to run track speed, or whatever the timetable rated the engines at.

That's the short version...

Kevin

The 611 was restricted to 10mph below the maximum because of her higher center of gravity from day 1 after her restoration, and following the accident the 40mph speed restriction was put into place.  All of the cars had tightlock couplers except 3 ex-Southern heavy weights and 2 of those jackknifed. On that day (May 18, 1986) she had 23 cars in total.

My Family and I were on the derailment, I was working as a Car Host on the last car. We helped rescue passengers that were trappend in some of the cars. My Dad broke some ribs when a stack of drinks fell on him when the car derailed and went into the swamp. (he was working the snack car, an old SRR baggage car,  w/o tighe lock couplers.) 

A few of the cars behind the tool car stayed on the track and were used to evacuate passengers to Suffolk with the 611. The other cars behind the derailed cars were towed back to Lambert's Point in Norfolk with diesel power with evacuated passengers  

For the full story go to the NTSB web site and read the accident report:

Railroad Accident Report-"Derailment of Steam Excursion Train Norfolk and Western Railway Company Train Extra 611 West, Suffolk, Virginia, May18,1986"

(NTSB/RAR-87/05)

BTW that's my Dad in the striped shirt seen walking just after the derailment.

Interesting…  My family and I were staying at the Chattanooga Choo-Choo overnight back in the late 1980s I think it was when 611 had backed into the yard there for the night. I met a fireman who invited me up into the cab as they were working. I counted 23 cars behind her as I headed back to the hotel. I remember that the consist was 'mixed' passenger cars. We watched her pull out and across the TN River the next morning.

I didn't realize until now that there was a loss of cars, let alone ending up on it's side. I do hope the 40mph limit is raised. I hear it's being discussed.

I had never seen the amount of damage, I also was surprised by the scene.  Just an unbelievable sight.