The recent conversations re the railroads between Albia and Des Moines may
help me solve a little personal dilema.
In January 1933 there was a horrible head end collision between a northbound
Motor Train and its southbound counterpart pulled by a steam engine...The
affair occurred just north of Donnelly.
After the RITS meeting in Des Moines in September I drove down towards
Knoxville with the hope of finding Donnelly and hence locating the site of
the January 1933 affair. Robert Brown told me that there was a sign on Hwy 5
which would point the way to Donnelly, which doesn't show on any map, however
I could find neither the sign nor Donnelly.
It was a beautiful fall day, but after driving around on some country roads
and getting, I think, on both sides of Donnelly, I finally gave up....with a
little encouragement from my wife who is tolerant of this kind of thing, up
to a point, but we had a family visit scheduled at Mt. Ayr in the early
afternoon, so had to give up the search.
This part of the Q I am not familiar with at all, but the recent post by
someone indicated that because of the line relocation in the 50's or whenever
it was, may have relocated Donnelly.
Anybody have access to a county map, or otherwise which would show where
Donnelly was in 1933....If I could take a look at such an animal, perhaps
hope could be rekindled regarding the 'search for Donnelly".
BTW I also on that day conducted a fruitless search for Giles....As a kind of
test question let's see who knows what and where Giles is (was)....Again I
got close, but couldn't satisfy myself that I was really there...I've got a
couple of pictures taken at Giles in 1953, but I couldn't get an identifying
landmark to tie it into the landscape as I found it last September.
Is there help for me out there???.
Pete
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