On January 14, 1878, at about 10:00 in the evening, a span of the Tariffville Bridge gave way, plunging a Connecticut Western Railroad train into the Farmington River twenty feet below. The train included two locomotives and eight passenger cars packed with people. Many of them were returning from a revival meeting in Hartford where they had heard the popular Protestant evangelist Dwight Moody and singer and organist David Sankey. The accident happened ½ mile west of the Tariffville station as the first locomotive, having passed over the first half of the bridge, approached the western abutment. The span broke, sending the two engines (the Salisbury and Tariffville), the baggage car, and three of the passenger cars into the river. The accident killed 13 individuals and injured 70.