Both trains belonged to the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway. Train No. 4 departed Union Station at 7:07 a.m., bound for Memphis, pulled by locomotive No. 282, a Baldwin-built 4-6-0 ten-wheeler from 1905. It hauled two mail cars and six wooden coaches. Train No. 1, pulled by the sister locomotive No. 281, was heading the opposite direction into Nashville -- one baggage car, six wooden coaches, and two steel Pullman sleeping cars. No. 1 had departed McKenzie hours earlier and was running thirty-five minutes behind schedule. Under the operating rules of the day, the inbound train held the right-of-way. The outbound No. 4 was required to stop in the double-track section and visually confirm that No. 1 had passed before entering the single-track stretch ahead. What happened next was a cascade of failures, each one survivable on its own, lethal in combination.

The conductor of Train No. 4 was supposed to watch for the inbound train. Instead, he delegated the task to his crew and went to collect tickets. Someone on the crew mistook the sound of a passing switch engine pulling empty passenger cars for Train No. 1. Nobody confirmed the identification. As No. 4 approached the interlocking tower at Shops Junction -- the gateway to the single track -- tower operator J. S. Johnson displayed a clear signal, indicating the line ahead was open. But when Johnson checked his logs, he found no entry showing Train No. 1 had passed. He telegraphed the dispatcher. The reply came back urgent: "He meets No. 1 there, can you stop him?" Johnson threw the emergency whistle, but there was no one at the rear of No. 4 to hear it. The train rolled past the tower and onto the single track. The engineman and conductor had also failed to inspect the train register at Shops Junction, a step required by the railroad's own operating instructions.

Shortly after 7:20 a.m., the two trains collided near White Bridge Road at Dutchman's Grade. The westbound train was traveling at full speed; the Nashville-bound train was also running fast. The impact derailed both locomotives and destroyed the wooden passenger cars, which crumpled and splintered on collision. The steel Pullman cars at the rear of Train No. 1 survived largely intact -- a detail that would later change the railroad industry. Many of the dead were Black laborers from Arkansas and Memphis, traveling to work at a gunpowder plant in Old Hickory, outside Nashville. The sound of the collision carried across the countryside. An estimated fifty thousand people came to the scene that day -- to rescue survivors, search for loved ones, or simply stand and witness what had happened on this quiet stretch of track west of the city.

The Interstate Commerce Commission's investigation was unsparing. The ICC placed responsibility squarely on the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway, citing a combination of poor operating practices, human error, and lax enforcement of safety rules. Had the tower operator left his signal at danger, the accident would not have happened. Had the conductor monitored his train's progress instead of delegating to a subordinate, it would not have happened. Had the crew inspected the train register as required, it would not have happened. Any single precaution, properly followed, would have been enough. The official death toll stood at 101, though some reports placed it as high as 121. The wreck became a turning point for American railroads: the survival of the steel Pullman cars amid the destruction of the wooden coaches provided the impetus for most railroads to switch entirely to all-steel passenger cars.

The two locomotives, No. 281 and No. 282, were rebuilt in 1919 and returned to service, running for nearly three more decades before their retirement in 1947 and 1948. Both were eventually scrapped. None of their sister engines survived either. The track at Dutchman's Curve, now located west of Saint Thomas West Hospital in the Belle Meade neighborhood, is still in active use under CSX Transportation. In the 1970s, songwriters Bobby Braddock and Rafe Van Hoy told the story in "The Great Nashville Railroad Disaster (A True Story)," recorded by David Allan Coe. The curve itself carries no monument visible from the road. The trains still run through. The track bends in the same place it bent on that July morning in 1918, when one man's last run became one hundred and one people's last ride.