Well, Spaw, they're two different wrecks and two different songs - but both were at least partly written by Carson Robison. This version is very close to Gene's transcription of the Marty Robbins version.
-Joe-

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The Wreck of the 1256
(Carson Robison, AKA Carlos B. McAfee)
(as recorded by Vernon Dalhart)

On that cold and dark cloudy evenin',
Just before the close of the day,
There came Harry Lyle and Dillard,
And with Anderson they rode away.

From Clifton Forge they started,
And their spirits were running high,
As they stopped at Iron Gate and waited,
Till old Number Nine went by.

On the main line once more they started,
Down the James River so dark and drear;
And they gave no thought to the danger,
Or the death that was waiting so near.

They were gay and they joked with each other,
As they sped on their way side by side;
And the old engine rocked as she traveled,
Through the night on that last fatal ride.

In an instant the story was ended,
On her side in that cold river bed;
With poor Harry Lyle in the cabin,
With a deep fatal wound in his head.

Railroad men, you should all take warning,
From the fate that befell this young man;
Don't forget that the step is a short one,
From this earth to that sweet Promised Land.


Source: Long Steel Rail, (Second edition, 2000) Norm Cohen, pp. 240-242

Cohen says:

The wreck occurred between 8:30 and 9:00 PM on January 3, 1925, on the James River Division of the C & O, eastbound out of Clifton Forge. The night was bitter cold, and the ground was snow covered. About seven miles east of Clifton Forge the train approached Rock Allen bluff. Here, around a left curve, a slode had occurred, which the engine's headlamp did not pick up until it was too late. The engine overturned into the James River and most of the cars left the track. Crewman Sydney Dillard found himself still in the cab but submerged in the icy water. Several hoboes who had been riding the cars helped pull him out of the river. They build a fre on the bank for warmth, not realizing that one of the overturned cars held a load of gasoline. The locomotive remained buried in the river for weeks, until special tracks could be laid to the water's edge in order to extract it. The engineer, Harry G. Lyle, was thirty-nine years old at the time, and engaged to be married in a few weeks.

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