I hope no train ever goes off a track again, but there can’t be any harm in looking at these spectacular photos of train wrecks from days of yore, which can be found on Wikimedia. Clicking on the images will create larger versions.
Montparnasse: Brake failure caused a steam train to crash through the station in 1895. (Image by Studio Lévy and Sons.)
Indiana: The Hammond Circus Train Wreck of 1918 occurred due to a conductor falling asleep. There were eighty-six deaths. Fashionably dressed people examine the carnage.
Tennessee: "Nearly A Hundred Killed In A Wreck," read the headlines in Nashville after this 1918 head-on collision. (Image from "The Tennessean.")
Canaan, New Hampshire: The Quebec and Boston express crashed on a foggy 1907 morning. Twenty-five fatalities.
Garrison, New York: Twenty-one people died in 1897. It was never decided whether this wreck was caused by derailment or an embankment failure. (Image by George Eastman House Collection.)