A TERRIBLE RAILWAY JOURNEY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 88, 15 April 1899, Page 5 (Supplement)

A TERRIBLE RAILWAY JOURNEY.

; 'A man who Involuntarily travelled from London to Grantham under a railway carriage is interviewed in the February 'Temple Magazine.' He says: 'I was bent Sown, standing on the ground beneath the •arriage, which was a composite one, When I felt a jerk, and was aware that : |he train was moving a little forward. But as this was usual, owing to the taking off of the hand brake before the actual start takes places, it did not at all alarm me, and I set it down to the-fact of the hand brake having been released. So I moved on slowly with the train for a step of two. Suddenly I became aware that the train .was moving faster, and I had to get actually on to the brake itself to be safe. I simply kept my presence of mind, put my leg over the transverse rod beneath the carriage, and lay down on the brake, I now first really grasped the awful fact that the train was on, without any doubt. But I feft so confident of being rescued from my terrible position before many minutes had passed that I did not feel greatly dismayed at the circumstance. I called out loudly for help as the train glided along the platform, and at the end of it I saw several people, who distinctly heard my cries, looking about to locate the sounds, but they were all looking at the top of the carriages, or at the windows, not at the bottom; and before I could shout to them where I was, we had passed too far away for them to have heard me again. Next I saw an official running across some of the metals and I thought my plight had become known, and that he was going to call the Signalman to stop the train. So hope revived again of an early rescue, but It seems I was mistaken, for instead of Blackening of speed the train's mbtion began te get faster and faster. And then the awful prospect fairly dawned upon me, and I must confess for a second or So I was nearly overcome by it. I was in for a two hours' ride, over a distance of 1051 miles, at. a terrific speed—in some Places nearly seventy miles\an hour—and I had. only this rail and the brake to hold .On by for those terrible two hours!' : .