In 1993 the US Railroad Service, which boasts of millions of riders a year, suffered the worst accident in its history when the Twilight Limited, traveling at 70 miles per hour through impenetrable fog, derailed and plunged into an isolated bayou in the Alabama delta, killing dozens of passengers and crew. The novel The Wreck of The Twilight Limited, inspired by these actual events, travels the path of a train from its departure point in Los Angeles, through Texas and Louisiana, along with those passengers and crewmen: a newly graduated physician, a retired couple finally taking the leisurely vacation they'd always dreamed of, a lone computer programmer and diarist, and a porter living paycheck to paycheck.On a collision course with the doomed train, five years after the fact, a truancy officer, a former fire rescue worker, and the daughter and the grandson of the reluctant tug boat operator found responsible for the accident come together, revisit the events, the site, in and attempt to understand what happened, and how the consequences of the tragedy still continue to reverberate.