The San Francisco and North Pacific Railroad's No. 6 was a familiar sight on the evening run: a regularly scheduled passenger service from San Francisco to Santa Rosa, carrying commuters, families, and local notables home through the Marin hills. Among the passengers that evening were Antonio DeBorba, the engineer known for building many of Novato's levees, and James William Cain, who had secured the telephone franchise for Novato just two years earlier. The train had six cars -- one baggage car and five passenger coaches. The last of the coaches was a smoking car, crowded with men heading north after a day in the city. It departed San Rafael at 6:20 and was due at the Ignacio station by 6:40. Coming the other direction was a work train, No. 18, known by the nickname "Vichy." It hauled a caboose and two flatcars, one loaded with a steamroller. It was not on the published timetable. Its crew knew the rules: stop at Ignacio, wait for No. 6 to pass, then proceed south on the single track.

The work train reached Ignacio station at 6:32, a full eight minutes before the passenger train was scheduled to arrive. Eight minutes is an eternity in railroad operations -- more than enough time to wait. But Conductor George Flaherty made a decision that would haunt him. Another train had passed through the station shortly before, and Flaherty convinced himself it was No. 6. It was not. Without waiting for confirmation, without checking the schedule he knew by heart, Flaherty ordered the work train south onto the single-track section. The two trains were now barreling toward each other on the same line, around curves that hid them from each other until it was far too late. When the crew of No. 6 finally saw the work train ahead, they threw the locomotive into reverse and jumped. The three-man crew of the passenger train all survived. On the work train, only Flaherty himself managed to leap clear in time.

The collision was catastrophic but concentrated. The baggage car and the smoking car bore the full force of the impact, telescoping into each other with the floor of the baggage car slicing through the seating area of the crowded smoking car below. The passengers in the other four coaches survived with relatively minor injuries -- the coupling between the smoking car and the rest of the train absorbed enough force to spare them. But for the men in the smoking car, there was no such mercy. The aftermath was devastating. County physician Dr. John Henry Kuser, stationed at the nearby Novato train station, reached the wreck within twelve minutes. The telegraph at the Tiburon station immediately sent out the crash message, and rescue efforts began from both directions. The engineer and fireman of the work train, initially believed dead in the wreckage, were eventually found alive and taken to a hospital.

George Flaherty survived the crash he caused. He was the only crew member on the work train to jump free before impact. The railroad discharged him immediately, and he was subsequently arrested. His explanation -- that he had mistaken a passing train for No. 6 -- satisfied no one. The rules for single-track operations existed precisely to prevent this kind of error, and Flaherty had violated the most fundamental of them: never proceed without certainty. The wreck became a defining event for the communities along the line. Novato, Ignacio, and San Rafael had all sent passengers onto that evening train. The dead were neighbors, businessmen, and commuters whose daily routine had placed them in the smoking car at the worst possible moment. Today, the site near Ignacio bears no visible marker of the disaster. The single-track corridor was eventually improved, the railroad itself eventually abandoned. But for the families of sixteen people who did not come home on the evening of August 8, 1910, the memory of a conductor who did not wait those final eight minutes never faded.