FIFTEEN KILLED

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 209, 17 June 1935, Page 5

FIFTEEN KILLED

TRAINS COLLIDE. ' DISASTER NEAR LONDON. PARCELS TRAIN AND EXPRESS. NOISE LIKE AN EXPLOSION. RESCUERS' HEARTRENDING TASK (United Press Association—Copyright). LONDON, June 16. • Urgent telephone messages received at King's Cross station just beforo midnight reported a serious train smash at Welwyn Garden City station. An express train from King's Cross, laden chiefly with Sunday newspapers, crashed into a duplicated portion of a Newcastle-bound express which was standing in Welwyn station. As a result 15 persons were killed and many injured seriously. The parcels train telescoped thereat coaches of the express, the wreckage being piled across four main lines. Local people heard a noise like an explosion. They rushed to the scene in cars and on bicycles and took up the work of extricating the passengers, which was done with the utmost diffi- / eulty. (Some time elapsed before even a few ilares were available. The local cottage hospital, with only eight beds, was soon overflowing with injured passengers, and others were taken to Hertford;. Under the light of flares and acetylene lamps the rescuers hacked and tugged at the debris, amidst which it seemed impossible that anyone could be alive; yet a little girl and several men and women were extricated by superhuman effort. Passengers who were lucky enough to escape with bruises turned immediately to help the less fortunate, Nurses presented a strange spectacle in mud-bespattered uniforms, heavy rain having fallen. ■' ', ' WORST ON COMPANY'S LINE. EIGHT CARRIAGES INVOLVED. OVERTURNED AND TELESCOPED. (Received This Day, 8.55 a.m.) p , . , LONDON, June 16. The crash was the worst in the his- 1 tory of the London and North-Eastern Railway. The parcels express carried a few passengers, and was travelling at the rate of 7d miles an hour at the time of the collision, while the Newcastle Ekpress was carrying 200 excursionists the majority of whom were women. The first arrivals saw a ghastly scene of eight overturned telescoped carriages "from which the moans rind soream3 of the victims arose in the darkness NURSES' HEROIC CONDUCT. MANY PATHETIC INCIDENTS. BEREAVED MAN DEMENTED. (Received This Day, 10.0 a.m.) .LONDON, June 16. Toiling through a heavy thunderstorm the breakdown gang cleared the line at Welwyn at 4 p.m. Nurse Violet Miles, aged 22, .after Scape from death through leaving her ampartrnent . where her neighbours yanted to sleep, worked throughout the night tending the wounded, after which she collapsed and was taken to a restaurant. On being revived she was acclaimed as a heroine. She lost her money in the wreckage. A man who was uninjured became demented when he found his wife and •iJaughter dead. Many women who rushed from their .homes to render aid, fainted when they. saw the appalling scene. A woman who was injured and taken > to hospital cried, "Where's baby." A nurse and policeman hurried to the wreckage and found the baby dead. The majority of [the victims were women. W. Powell, a Welsh international footballer, who. was a passenger on the Newcastle Express, despite injury worked for hours rescuing others. Firemen, using blowlamps, extricatKl the last victim a 5 a.m.. The driver of the parcels train said fee was travelling fast when he saw the Newcastle train ahead. He jammed on the brakes and watched the crash coming. Then he jumped. The guard of the leading train was killed outrigbt.