Wake Up With Jim, December 13, 2021

It was never more than a remote desert railroad siding in northwestern Arizona. Today few even remember that it existed. Only a few concrete slabs, scattered trash piles and a scattering of graves marked with weathered wooden cross or rocks mark the site. 

It is a haunting place. And it is the site of not one, but two epic disasters. In November of 1901 two trains collided head on just west of Franconia, Arizona. The Santa Fe railroad said it was the most horrendous disaster in the company's history. And then in 1945, an express train collided with a passenger train at the siding. 

On this mornings program America's storyteller author Jim Hinckley shares the story of these disasters, and of the remote desert outpost that was Franconia. 

This program is sponsored in part by RouteTrip USA the road trip holiday professionals.