page_title: List of rail accidents (before 1880)
section_title: 1837
hierarchical_section_title: List of rail accidents (before 1880) / 1830s / 1837
caption_attribution_description: Suffolk accident
context_page_description: 1650, – United Kingdom – Whickham, County Durham. Two boys die when they are run down by a wagon on a wooden coal train way. While such tramway accidents are not generally listed as rail accidents this is sometimes cited as the earliest known railway accident.
context_section_description: August 11, 1837 – United States – The first head-on collision to result in passenger fatalities occurs on the Portsmouth and Roanoke Railroad near Suffolk, Virginia, when an eastbound lumber train coming down a grade at speed rounds a sharp curve and smashes into the morning passenger train from Portsmouth, Virginia. The first three of the thirteen stagecoach-style cars are smashed, killing three daughters of the prominent Ely family and injuring dozens of the 200 on board. They are returning from a steamboat cruise when the accident happened. An engraving depicting the moment of impact was published in Howland's Steamboat Disasters and Railroad Accidents in 1840.
caption: Suffolk, Virginia collision
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