Seven Injured from Silver Dollar City Train Ride Derailment
(Branson, Missouri—October 26, 2022)
Six guests and one employee were transported by ambulance on Wednesday, October 26 after a tourist train derailed in Branson, Missouri. The Silver Dollar City theme park gave a statement confirming the accident. Only one person remained hospitalized by Thursday, but they did not entail the details of the injuries.
The Frisco Silver Dollar Line Steam Train takes the amusement park guests on a 20-minute ride through the countryside, including theatrical enhancements like a band of train robbers. The ride has been a key part of the park and has been in operation since 1962.
A rider, Gary Eldrige, and his family came to Silver Dollar City for the Halloween festival and were riding in the last car of the train when it derailed. In a statement to CNN, Gary said, “We had just passed the part of the ride where they gave the moonshine skit. We went around the next corner and the car in front of me acted like it hit a bump and started shaking real band. It derailed and took the cars in front of it with it.” He took a video of the train on its side with the wheels completely detached and sitting on the track. Thankfully, Eldrige’s family was not in one of the cars that flipped and remained unharmed.
The Missouri Division of Fire Safety has finished the first stage of its investigation of the derailment and plans to return later with an engineering firm. Silver Dollar City has not commented on a possible cause of the accident.
