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. It is considered the worst rail accident in U.S. history, though estimates of the death toll of this accident overlap with that of the Malbone Street Wreck in Brooklyn, New York, the same year. The two trains involved were the No. 4, scheduled to depart Nashville for Memphis, Tennessee, at 7:00 a.m.; and the No. 1 from Memphis, about a half-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. The trains were each traveling at an estimated . The impact derailed them both, and destroyed several wooden cars. 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. 4 and interlocking tower operators, all of whom failed to properly account for the presence of train No. 1 on the line. 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. Incident Departures At 7:07 a.m. on the day of the accident, the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway ("NC&StL") train No. 4 departed Union Station in Nashville, bound for Memphis. The train, pulled by locomotive 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. Meanwhile, train No. 1, pulled by locomotive No. 281, also a G8a class 4-6-0 ten-wheeler built by Baldwin in 1905, was heading into Nashville from Memphis. Containing one baggage car, six wooden coaches, and two Pullman sleeping cars of steel construction, train No. 1 had departed McKenzie four hours earlier, and passed Bellevue at 7:09 a.m., thirty-five minutes behind schedule. Approach Both trains required the use of a single-track section approximately long in the western portion of Nashville. According to contemporary practices, the inbound train (No. 1) retained the right-of-way. Thus, the railroad dispatch informed the crew