These are wicked and miserable accidents and derailments, some of them
large-scale, caused by a single error of machinist or controller, big enough to
be recorded in history books... And yet, multitudes of bystanders keep looking
upon such carnage with morbid fascination, lost in time and perhaps in their
mind, wondering what really took place and how the catastrophe unfolded.
Your faithful black-n-white silent-movie renditions of these events... trains
were more widespread than automobiles, so train wrecks were all over the place:

Train wreck at Montparnasse in Paris, France, 1895:


(image credit: Studio Lévy and Sons)

Wreckage of Soviet Army train on the way to World War II battle lines, and a
wreck of the German supply train: