The Reynolds Station train wreck was a major tragedy. It was the first incident with major casualties in Tennessee. A Chattanooga & Alabama RR trestle collapsed & sent the passenger train plunging into Richland Creek. The New York Times reported that a boxcar with thirty-three black convicts locked inside was submerged & all of them drowned. "It is one of the most direful ever known in Tennessee."
New York Times
Buffalo Creek Trestle March 1815 Giles Co. TN. The collapse of the Richland Creek Trestle would have looked like this.
Looking Back At Tennessee Photographic Collection TN Library & Archives
I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ecuador, South America in the 1970's. There were buses that were wooden structures like 1860's passenger cars built onto truck frames. On our first day of training in country we were forbidden to ride on one of them at any time for any reason. Metal Blue Bird school buses had all but replaced the wooden buses that would be outlawed during the next year. Unfortunately, I was a witness to why we were forbidden to ride on wooden buses.
While driving to a meeting, I was amongst a Chevy Suburban full of PC Volunteers came down a long steep switchback grade to a bridge across a roaring mountain stream from our vantage point. A wooden bus had gone off one to the last switchback before the bridge & plunged down into the water. The metal frame, engine & wheels had made it all the way down to where swift water foaming around it. The wooden structure of the bus that had been crammed with Indians on their way home from market day had left a trail of shattered wood on the steep grade. Very best colorful going to market hats, embroidered shirts, ponchos & shawls fluttered from where they had been snagged on the brightly painted wooden splinters.
The wreck had just occurred. Traffic was stopped, & people were pouring off other buses cambering down the 45 degree bank to aid the survivors. The effect of the collapsing, splintering wooden structure of the bus on the highly packed passengers beggars description. Fortunately, there was no fire. It was the stuff of nightmares.