Great Crush Collision March - Scott Joplin

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Great Crush Collision (March)
Composed by Scott Joplin in 1896, in response to a train collision (see below)
Played by me on 13-11-15

Crush, Texas, was a temporary "city" established as a one-day publicity stunt in 1896. William George Crush, general passenger agent of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad conceived the idea to demonstrate a train wreck as a spectacle. Two trains toured the state for months in advance, advertising the event. As a result, 40,000 people showed up on September 15, 1896, making the new town of Crush, Texas, temporarily the second-largest city in the state.

The trains, pulling cars loaded with railroad ties, were rolled to the opposite ends of a 4-mile (6.4 km) track. The engineers and crew opened the steam to a prearranged setting, rode for exactly 4 turns of the drive wheels, and jumped from the trains. Each train reached a speed of about 45 miles per hour (72 km/h) by the time they met near the anticipated spot. When the trains collided, there was a large explosion. Debris was blown hundreds of feet into the air. Some of the debris came down among the spectators, killing two or three and injuring many more.

Scott Joplin, who was performing in the region at the time and who possibly witnessed the event, wrote this piano piece to commemorate the crash; the composition was dedicated to the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railway. It was copyrighted on October 15, 1896, a short month after the event.

(Source: en.wikipedia.org)

The text in this video (at some passages) accompanies the sheet music there. The notes were put in the sheet music by the composer.