Are you sure that's not a staged model? The glass around the car that's still on the second level loos a little too close for it it have crashed through it, there's a very straight cut in the second floor railing and there's no debris on the ground besides the bricks under the locomotive's pilot. I'd think that the errant smoke at this point would be coming out the firebox door rather than the stack. Neat photo, but there are too many clues that make me think it's staged.
For comparison, here's a photo of an accident that occurred at Gare Montparnasse, Paris, on October 22, 1895:
http://www.artofthestate.co.uk/Travel_Photos/Australian_train_crash.htm: "Walking down a residential street in Melbourne I was amazed to find this mocked up train crash in someones front garden. Just amazing." Now That's a garden railroad! Tim
OK, I have to drag out this oldy from my files. BNSF Distributed Power unit on its side West of Edgemont, South Dakota, Black Hills Subdivision.
this happened a couple of days ago, hope the link works http://us.f1.yahoofs.com/groups/g_9147142/AAAAFlemo/RIMG0420.jpg?bcaMLMDB0J6mNGje
There is track there, it's just a bad pic It's sitting next to the roundhouse at the old Milw shops in minneapolis. Tim
The French accident is recounted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gare_Montparnasse I don't know if it was a problem with the brakes like when the GG1 crashed through Washington Union Station, but this train ran through the bumper at the end of track and still had enough force to crash through a 2 foot thick wall 100 feet away. From the description it sounds like the engineer "fell asleep at the wheel" on the approach to the station.
