Casey Jones

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John Luther "Casey" Jones (March 14, 1864 – April 30, 1900) was an American railroader, who worked as a locomotive engineer for the Memphis-based Illinois Central Railroad. Noted for his exceptionally punctual schedules, which sometimes required a degree of risk, Jones became famous when he was killed in a collision with a stalled freight train in Vaughan, Mississippi. While the degree of Jones's responsibility for the accident, if any, is still debated, it is universally agreed that Jones's skillful slowing of his locomotive in the final moments prevented an even worse disaster, saving the lives of his passengers at the cost of his own. His heroism was immortalized in "The Ballad of Casey Jones", which quickly became a popular folk song.

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