A disaster unfolds in stark black and white at the top left of this broadside, where a train—its cars twisted and tumbling—careens off the tracks and into chaos below. The artist, José Guadalupe Posada, seizes the viewer’s attention with a single, urgent image: human figures flung from splintered carriages, their limbs splayed amid wreckage. The lines are sharp, almost frantic, echoing the violence of the derailment.

Above, the train snakes through the countryside, its journey abruptly ended, while the clustered buildings in the distance hint at the world that will soon awaken to tragedy. The composition leads the eye from the serene landscape to the heart of disaster, forcing us to confront the suddenness with which catastrophe can shatter ordinary life. This print belongs to a world where news traveled on paper, and calamity was immortalized in both image and song. Published in 1920, it is a classic example of the Mexican corrido broadside—a popular form that paired sensational woodcut illustrations with ballad lyrics recounting real events.

Such sheets were sold cheaply on the streets, their stories of misfortune, heroism, and loss devoured by a public hungry for news and narrative. Posada’s work became iconic for its ability to distill national anxieties and everyday tragedies into unforgettable images, shaping popular memory in the process. Today, little is recorded about the journey of this specific print, but its presence in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection invites us to linger over its details and imagine the voices that once sang its story aloud.