The Train Accident Of 1950 in Rowan County.

 I was searching for a story about a train wreck in Effingham County Georgia. And this was also talked about. I occasionally Train Spot. I love trains.

The Train Accident Of 1950 in Rowan County.

Early on the morning of July 13, 1950, Elbert W. Kluttz, a freight train conductor for Southern had finished a run in Greenville, S.C.

Rather than wait on the train he normally would have taken back home to Rowan County, Kluttz hopped on Engine 585, the lead of two locomotives that were pulling nine cars of rock. It was heading for Albemarle, which would require branching off onto the Yadkin line in Rowan County.

Kluttz planned to jump off during a stop in Rockwell.

In effect, Kluttz was hitching a ride and enjoying the conversation with Engine 585’s four-man crew. His fellow railroaders knew Kluttz by the nickname “Ebb.”

No one back home knew Ebb Kluttz would be getting back so early.

Ray Kluttz worked that morning at the family business, Kluttz Music and Furniture Co., which his musically inclined father had founded with his brothers in 1931 while continuing to work for the railroad.

The growing business was located along Highway 52 between Granite Quarry and Rockwell, eventually evolving into today’s Kluttz Piano, overseen by Banks’ brother Jonathan.

Ray, who had returned home from a couple of years at Owosso Bible College in Michigan, already was in love with Joyce, but any plans they had to marry would have to wait until Joyce finished nursing school in Cabarrus County.

With tensions increasing in China and Korea, military service also loomed ahead for Ray, whose brother Paul already was in the Army.

Even at 23, Ray walked on eggshells around the house when his dad was home from his railroad job.

Elbert Kluttz attended Christiana Lutheran Church with the rest of the family. “But he had a bit of the German temper and apparently liked to partake from the bottle perhaps a bit much at times,” Banks says.

“And from some of the stories that were told, he was not afraid to do a little brawling.”

More and more of the responsibilities at Kluttz Music and Furniture were falling to Ray Kluttz, but his dad still had the final word.

“He was a mystery man,” Banks Kluttz says today of the grandfather he never knew. “Some good things were said about him and some not-so-good things were said about him.”

Stone Road was a dirt road back in 1950. A lone motor-grader operator, Guerney Simpson, had spent the morning of July 13, 1950, scraping the road and filling in washed-out spots.

Summer rains often pushed dirt and gravel over the railroad tracks, and Simpson also spent time on the Stone Road crossing, trying to smooth things out.

A newspaper account would say the road scraper had “pushed a pile of dirt onto the tracks and did not have time to clean it off before the sound of the train whistle warned him to get off the tracks.”

Engine 585 came around the curve ahead of the Stone Road crossing and hit the mound of dirt at about 25 mph. About 30 feet from the crossing, the lead engine slipped off the tracks and down an embankment, turning onto its side.

Steam pipes in the engine cab burst, severely scalding four of the men. Brakeman O.M. Spratt of Greenville died, while Kluttz, engineer L.H. Heilig, and brakeman O.L. Crosby clung to life.

A fifth man, a fireman, had jumped off the engine as it headed down the embankment. The second locomotive with an engineer and brakeman derailed but stayed upright.

Back at the music and furniture store, Ray Kluttz decided to head home for lunch. As he drove on Stone Road toward the crossing, Ray came onto a chaotic scene.

Steam rose from the wreckage. The first passersby were out of their cars, and Ray raced to help those already trying to pull the injured men from the overturned engine.

Ray assisted in carrying the men to private cars so they could be rushed to the Salisbury hospital.

It was later, while he was still at the scene when Ray heard someone mention that one of the injured men was Ebb Kluttz, his father.

“He had unknowingly helped to lift his own dad from the wreckage of the train and carry him to a car,” Banks Kluttz says.

The grimy, scalded Elbert Kluttz had not been recognizable to his own son. Plus, he just wasn’t supposed to be on that train.

Ray Kluttz turned his car around and sped toward Rowan Memorial Hospital in Salisbury.

His mother, Addie Kluttz, was visiting a sister in the country that day, so Ray put off trying to get word to her for the moment. At the hospital, a nurse-led him down a hall and into his father’s room.

Ray figured his dad already was heavily sedated with morphine. As he recounted for Banks years later, Ray walked over to Elbert’s bed and still barely able to recognize him asked how he was doing.

Elbert opened his eyes and looked straight to the ceiling.

“Not too good, Son,” he said. “Not too good.”

Ray Kluttz told Banks those might have been the last words Elbert ever said.

He eventually slipped into a coma as Addie Kluttz stayed by his side through the night.

Elbert Kluttz died at 5:45 the next morning at age 53. Heilig, the engineer, died the previous night, making the total death count three at the small country crossing.