A night operator named Clough admitted that he did not deliver a second order to Conductor Parker which instructed him to pull the Crescent City Express (No.

[3] The Arizona Daily Star reported on January 30:[3] Out on the desert, sixteen miles from the city, is the charred and smoking mass of debris which marks the spot of the fearful wreck of Wednesday morning.

On the tablets of memory, anguish, suffering and death was written ineffacably the horrors of the worst railroad disaster that has ever occurred in the Territory of Arizona.According to one account, the westbound Pacific Coast Express was running about two hours late and stopped at the Vail Station for orders.

[3] Newspaper reports attributed the crash to night operator E.F. Clough, who admitted that he had not delivered a second order to Conductor Parker that instructed him to allow train No.

[3][4] The Arizona Daily Star reported, "The bodies of two women were found under the wreckage of the middle car.

The Pacific Coast Express stopped at the Vail Station to pick up orders, but the Conductor failed to learn of a change that directed them to pull into the Esmond siding.

The impact of the collision was so great that the last car of the eastbound train was decoupled and rolled downhill 15 miles (24 km) into Tucson.

Portions of the original structures still remain, and the possibility of designating Esmond Station as a historic site is being investigated.They also found a reference to it in “Railroads of Arizona: Vol.

1 The Roads of Southern Arizona" (1975),[7] which referred to a "famous head-on collision took place about three in the morning of January 28, 1903, just west of Esmond, a station about 15 miles east of Tucson.

Douglas Maus found a large, heavy metal strut embedded in the dirt that appeared to have been torn from one of the train engines.

The researchers received input from Richard Jones who directed them to a number of photos of the wreck at the Arizona Historical Society Library.

In September, 2002, the Pyramid Credit Union sought help from the researchers to help create a memorial for the train wreck that occurred at the location of their building.

Donated by Lewis Wagoner, Pyramid Credit Union And members of the Rita Ranch community.Songwriter Michael Crownheart composed and recorded Wreck of Esmond.