Photograph of wreck of the Southern Railway train

August 15, 1930

Wreckage of a Southern railway train that crashed after striking a cow late at night near Chappels, South Carolina. The locomotive, two mail coaches and a Pullman passenger car were among the most heavily damaged cars. No passengers were injured, but the train's engineer and firemen were killed and the Railway Post Office clerks George Mulligan and D.A. Shealy of Columbia, South Carolina, were injured when tossed about in the mail car. Railroad companies usually placed the Railway Mail Service cars between the tender and rest of the train in order to protect passengers during train wrecks. As a result the railway mail cars, and the clerks aboard them, were at greater risk in accidents.