The Wreck of the Old '97

By Don Ross ---  Eye Witness 11  News ---  North Carolina

Saturday September 27th, 2003   is the centennial of the famous "Wreck of the Old 97" in Danville Virginia. And while there's often talk of building a museum on the train crash site  it's a song that keeps the legend alive. Thick brush covers the spot where nine (some reports say 11) men were killed when Southern Railroad's mail express train number 97 careened off a wooden trestle dropping 45 feet (some reports say 75 feet) into Still House Creek. The trestle no longer exists. A spur line built to remove the wreckage, a few photographs of the crash scene and a very popular song about it, are all that remain. The accident might be forgotten were it not for the ballad "The Wreck of the Old 97" recorded scores of times by numerous country artists.    "You can go into practically any state in the union," says Danville historian Lawrence McFall, "and if you mention the wreck of the Old 97, someone in the crowd will say 'Danville, Virginia!'"      The 1924 version by Vernon Dahlhart sold more than six million copies (the first country song to ever sell more than a million) and claims over it's authorship went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.   It was the first song The Statler Brothers recorded.  It tells how #97, engineered by Steve Brady, was running an hour behind schedule on the leg from Monroe, Virginia to Spencer, North Carolina

Well they handed him his orders in Monroe, Virginia,
Saying Steve, you're way behind time.
This is not 38, it is Old 97
You must put her into Spencer on time.

Southern was under contract with the US Government and fined for late delivery of the mail.

Well, the engineer he said to his black, greasy fireman
"Shovel on a little more coal,
And when we cross that White Oak Mountain
You can watch Old 97 roll."

Excessive speed was blamed although other reports claim an airbrake failure. The speed at the trestle was supposed to be 10 miles per hour. Reports vary the Old 97's speed on approach from 35 to 90.

He was going down the grade making 90 miles an hour,
When his whistle broke into a scream,
He was found in the wreck with his hand on the throttle,
He was scalded to death by the steam.

Eyewitnesses told of hundreds of canaries chirping and fluttering around the wreckage having escaped from their cages in a baggage car. McFall's grandmother, who was 11 in 1903, told him there were so many canaries "that you could almost reach out into the air and catch them."  A Centennial Commemoration of the event will be held Saturday September 27th in the tobacco warehouse district in Danville with tours provided to the wreck site.       Activities will also include a concert by Ricky Skaggs who'll perform the song.

Now the telegram came into Washington Station
And this is what it said:
That brave engineer that drove Old 97
Is layin' down in Danville, dead.
 
Now listen, all you ladies, you must all take a warning,
From this story a lesson learn:
Never speak harsh words to your true lovin' husband,
He may leave you and never return.