Museum Newsletter - 18 Jan 2007

Friends of the Bullitt County History Museum E-Newsletter
January 18, 2007 (Volume 3, Number 2)

This newsletter is a special report on the recent train wreck in Bullitt County.

This particular newsletter is aimed mostly at our many museum Friends who live away from Bullitt County, and may not be getting much information about the recent train wreck..

Over the past couple of years, I have written on these pages about several dramatic train wrecks that have happened on the main rail line that goes down the center of Bullitt County. That rail line, first built around 1851, has been an important part of the development and life of the area. As you know, there have also been some dramatic wrecks, most notably in 1917 and 1888, as well as American Civil War battles.

This week there was another wreck that will be added to that history. Fortunately, this new wreck, though visually dramatic, seems to have caused no deaths or serious injuries. There also seems to be no serious material damage, other than to the train itself and some burned roadway. This wreck was marked by a huge fireball and a column of smoke that lasted for a couple of days and could be seen some twenty miles away. Very fortunately, the wreck occurred in a rather unpopulated area of northern Bullitt County. Also very fortunately, the county had in place a well trained group of emergency personnel that managed the situation quite well. The circle on the map shown below gives the general northern Bullitt County area of the wreck.

I will not try to write very much here. Rather, I refer you to several web sites that can show you photos, video, and comprehensive stories more accurately than can I.

For more information, try our local newspaper web site at www.pioneernews.net, one of our local TV stations at WAVE3, and the regional newspaper, the Courier-Journal, at www.courier-journal.com.

Things seem to be calming down a bit now as the cleanup and the search for causes begins. Let's all hope things continue to turn out OK.

Thank you for being a Friend of Bullitt County History.

David Strange
Bullitt County History Museum
Executive Director
Museum Phone: 502-921-0161
E-Mail address: David.Strange@BullittCountyHistory.org