The Great Train Wreck of 1918 occurred on July 9, 1918, in Nashville, Tennessee, United States.

Two passenger trains, operated by the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway ("NC&StL"), collided head-on, costing at least 101 lives and injuring an additional 171.

1 from Memphis, about half an hour late for a scheduled arrival in Nashville at 7:10 a.m. At about 7:20 a.m., the two trains collided while traversing a section of single track line known as "Dutchman's Curve" west of downtown Nashville, in the present-day neighborhood of Belle Meade.

An investigation by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) attributed the cause of the accident to several factors, notably serious errors by the crew of train No.

The ICC also pointed to a lack of a proper system for the accurate determination of train positions and noted that the wooden construction of the cars greatly increased the number of fatalities.

[3] At 7:07 a.m. on the day of the accident, the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway ("NC&StL") train No.

282, a G8a class 4-6-0 ten-wheeler built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1905, consisted of two mail and baggage cars and six wooden coaches.

Both trains required the use of a single-track section approximately 10 miles (16 km) long in the western portion of Davidson County.

While collecting tickets, the conductor mistook the sound of a passing switch engine with empty passenger cars as No. 1.

Also, the engineman and conductor failed to visually inspect the train register at Shops Junction to ascertain as to whether No.

[citation needed] The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) listed the dead at 101, though some reports had the death toll as high as 121.

Many of the victims were Black laborers from Arkansas and Memphis who were coming to work at a gunpowder plant in Old Hickory, outside of Nashville.

As many as 50,000 people came to the track that day to help rescue survivors, search for loved ones, or simply witness the tragic scene.