Here are some links on the Casey Jones story.
Casey Jones: (Jerry Skinner Documentary)
I liked the slow pace, lots of on-site-today images.
Sim Webb's Description of Casey Jones Wreck
Sim Webb is Sam Webb of the song and this is recorded first-person, on-the-train and in-the-cab testimony from the fireman with Casey.
Kentucky by Heart: Legendary train engineer ‘Casey’ Jones spent much of his childhood in Western Ky (Northern Kentucky Tribune July 26, 2022).
Of note to me, Sim Webb's description indicates that there were no warning lights nor the "torpedoes" on the track that it was the duty of the brakeman to place there to signal that the four cars of the freight train Casey ran into were on the main line instead of safely sidetracked. Torpedoes are small explosive charges that make a loud noise when a train runs over them. Signage you can see in the videos indicates the torpedoes and lights were properly placed. Sim is way highly persuasive in his testimony just in recounting the exciting time coming around that last curve. It is not that he directly contradicts the signage. That must have been put up later. It's not hard to see why that might be a manufactured fact.
