It was the last major wreck of a steam-powered revenue passenger train in the United States.

611, a class J 4-8-4 steam locomotive, which received extensive repairs after the accident and was returned to revenue service.

[3][5] The train stopped at Welch, West Virginia, to pick up mail, producing more delays.

[2][3] It flew off the curved tracks and slid down the embankment of the Tug River, where it toppled onto its left side along with its tender and the first six cars.

1727 was upright but at a right angle next to the track with the front end near the rear of the third car and the edge of the river.

[7] The eight other crew members also sustained injuries: conductor Edward N. Camden, porter J.O.

[5] Because the accident damaged the rails in Cedar, the N&W trains took a detour over the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) tracks between Gilbert and Kenova, West Virginia.

[9] The MOW crew quickly repaired the eastbound track and it reopened that same day at 1:30 p.m.[9] About 10:10 p.m., they began to rerail the six damaged cars and towed all of them to Williamson for inspection.

[9] The MOW crew had to disconnect the locomotive from its tender and rerail it one set of wheels at a time.

[9] Other expenses such as the wages of the wreck car forces, section men, and train crews totaled another $23,866.21.

611 was retired from revenue service and donated to the Roanoke City Council, who put it on display at the Virginia Museum of Transportation (VMT), thanks to the efforts of Washington, D.C. lawyer W. Graham Claytor Jr., who convinced the N&W that No.

[11][12] In 1981–1982, N&W's successor, Norfolk Southern (NS) restored the locomotive to operating condition for use in pulling excursion trains on their steam program until it returned to the VMT in 1995.

611 to operation again with $3.5 million donated from nearly 3,000 donors all over the United States and 18 foreign countries.

[18] In 1982, it was acquired by NS for use in their steam program until it was donated to the Watauga Valley Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society (NRHS) ten years later, where it was now use for lease in public and private excursions by Amtrak and some various heritage railroads and railroad museums.

[4]: 28  One of the undamaged cars, the Ohio State University was preserved and currently owned by the Florida-Georgia Railway Heritage Museum, which operated it in excursion service on their Georgia Coastal Railway in Kingsland, Georgia.

[1][21] Hoback said Willard had applied the brakes and closed the locomotive's throttle to slow the train down before it hits the curve.

[3][9] One N&W official said that Willard had been a "careful" engineer with 30 years of experience on the Pocahontas Division.

[11] The Williamson Daily News newspaper said that Willard suffered a heart attack and was unable to slow the train down.

[9][22] The Roanoke Times newspaper reported on February 3 that Willard had been scalded to death by the steam.