The special Trains edition on “Train Wrecks” which just came out has a piece on the staged train wreck organized by the aptly named Willliam Crush in 1896 on behalf of the MKT Railroad (which went horribly awry, killing 3 people).
There’s an interesting postcript to this event not mentioned in the article, which is known to some musicians, but probably not to many railfans. In those days, any famous or notorious event usually resulted in someone writing a piece of music about it, and this one was no exception. The piece was “Great Crush Collision March”, and was published later in 1896 (the cover says that it is “dedicated to MKT Ry” - apparently the publisher had more regard for the railroad than for its victims). Pieces like this were usually composed by unknown hacks and were quickly forgotten, What makes this piece stand out is that its composer was no hack. It was Scott Joplin, who went on to become the preeminent ragtime composer of the era. While the sheet music is not written as ragtime, it was undoubtedly played that way by Joplin and his contemporaries.