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Ron’s Amazing Stories is a weekly podcast. We play classic short stories, old-time radio and much more. Do you have a story that you want to tell? Ron will read it on the show or you can tell it for yourself! Also, we do interviews with authors, radio personalities, actors and even an NBA all-star

Jun 18, 2013

On this week’s program, we have a train wreck……. No really it is true an actual famous train wreck that occurred on September 27, 1903.

The Old 97 was a Southern Railway train officially known as the Fast Mail. The train started its career in December of 1902. It ran mail from Washington DC to Atlanta, Georgia and had the reputation of never being late. On September 27, 1903, it would be late because the train derailed at Stillhouse Trestle near Danville, Virginia. The wreck inspired a famous railroad ballad called “The old 97”.

Our tale comes from the OTR series Suspense, gives a possible reason for the disaster and makes use of that famous song throughout the production. While this story is a departure for the Suspense series it does manage to keep you guessing until the final outcome is revealed. Whether any of the events in our story are true is anyone’s guess, but it is still is a good tale. The episode is called The Wreck of The Old 97 and first aired on March 17, 1952.