Vignette > Derailment

A serious railroad accident near the Mill Valley depot occurred shortly after midnight Sunday morning April 17, 1910.  A 3-car passenger train jumped the rails a few yards south of the freight station and plunged down the embankment into the creek. The wrecked train had left Mill Valley at 12:05 a. m. as scheduled to take passengers to Sausalito for the last ferry to the city. On this trip it carried a crew of three and only one passenger, John Brown, an employee of the Sequoia saloon.  He lived in Sausalito. The four men suffered only minor injuries. The accident occurred on the curve about two hundred yards from the depot, when the train had attained a speed of about twenty miles an hour. Without a moment’s warning the first car jumped the rails and plunged down the embankment, going directly between two big redwood trees were barely far enough apart to let it through. The other two cars remained on the track. A wrecking crew removed the car from the creek bed Sunday night. It was not badly damaged. It returned to service the next day.