Looking for further information.... Nothing found in the DOT library, any suggestions.
The negatives originated from Cumberland, MD

Only thing marked on the envelope is "Wreck, B&O, Diesel 3/14/48"

Here is a newspaper account of your wreck.

According to what I was told, the accident happened between Ellerslie and Hyndman.

Thank You Gentlemen.

Tim W.

These photos are a real treasure trove! Please share as many as you can. Obviously shot by a company photographer, with access to restricted areas. Priceless.

Couple of others from the wreck.

I will assume these are FT series locomotives... was the B&O's FT's drawbar coupled?

I haven't been able to ID a loco number.

Yes, the units are FT's, connected by drawbars between A and B units, and with couplers between adjacent B-units. I don't have a really good roster handy, but these units, built between 1943 and 1945, were originally numbered in a very low series (I believe 1-12), with the number being that of the 4-unit set. If a set became separated into two A and B pairs, then one of the sets became 1-X, or something similar. Later the units were renumbered to the 100 series (which likely would be in the era of the photographs), still with suffixes if the units were separated, and later (1954-1956) were renumbered again into the 5400 series, this time with individual numbers for all units. A B&O fan with handier information can fill this out better than I can right now.

The B&O was one of the few roads to roster second-hand FTs; these came from the abandoned New York, Ontario & Western.

B&O FT A-B set with a Geep, photo courtesy of Northeast Rails's B&O roster page, featuring B-unit 5409:

http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/bo5409.jpg

http://www.northeast.railfan.net/bo7.html

FT set No. 1:

http://carstens-publications.com/images ... der-02.jpg

Those are amazing pics! Must have been taken soon after the incident with the smoke/steam still wisping about. Thanks for sharing.
Bob D.

I wonder what the commodity in the containers in the gondola cars is?
Lionel sells them as Koppers coke bins in a Boston & Maine gon.

No way to tell for sure, but the light color of this spilled material could be sand from a sand mine at Berkeley Springs, W.Va., which is at the end of a branch that starts at Hancock, W. Va. (across the Potomac River from Hancock, Md., which was on the WM). This sand mine has been in operation since at least the 1920s, under what was then Pennsylvania Glass Sand Corporation, and is now under the operation of U.S. Silica Company. The commodity could be just what the company name said it was, sand of high purity for use in making glass. It once had a plant railroad, narrow gauge with Plymouth locomotives and 4-wheeled cars, to haul the sand from the mine to the plant for processing, sizing, and so on. One of the Plymouths and three dump cars are preserved right on US 522 in front of the plant.

That first link that J3a-614 posted shows a very unusual backup light on the B unit. I've never seen one like that before, at least as a backup light on a diesel. It looks like the adaptor used for converting a single beam headlight to dual sealed beams.

Those are great images that YeOldeEngine posted, very sharp, museum quality. Hopefully there are more?

Looks like major rebuilding to the side of that B unit. Wreck repair?

-Hudson

Took a closer look at the photo, looks like a lot of work on both units--stainless steel grills on both, like from an F-7, and the portholes gone on both units, too, and this is in addition to the light mentioned as well.

Lots of rebuilding on that set. . .

Photo of the fire damage to the units.

I love the razor sharp edge-of-ballast line visible in two of the photos. The section foreman was likely really torqued when the operating department tore up his nice pretty track.

/s/ Larry