"The Wreck of the Virginian" (Roud 14019) is an American folk song by Blind Alfred Reed recorded on July 28, 1927.
The song describes a train wreck in Ingleside, West Virginia.
The lyrics, which are essentially documentary, describe how, on "a bright Spring morning on the twenty-fourth of May," 1927, the engineer, E. G. Aldrich of Roanoke, Virginia, known as "Dad," and his fireman, Frank M. O'Neill of Pax, West Virginia, running train number three, "left Roanoke en route for Huntington."
Then, "at eleven fifty-two that day, they just left Ingleside," when "an east-bound freight crushed into them."
None of the cars of either train derailed, but due to the sudden stop, 20 passengers were injured, none of them seriously.