CRASH!

Bruce Herald, Volume XXXXIV, Issue 61, 6 July 1908, Page 7

CRASH!

AN ACCOUNT OF SOME CURIOUS COLLISIONS.

('Pearson's Weekly.') The recent lamentable collision between the destroyer Tiger and the cruiser Berwick" off -Portsmouth *is easily attributed to the pitch darkness in which the manoeuvres were conducted. : Other extraordinary collisions that have taken place during the past few years, however, t have not been so easily accounted for. One of the oddest accidents on record occurred at Pound Creek, New Jersey, some months ago. A train laden with holiday-makers was crossing tue trestle unuge aorwi.t> tne niti;, .« ..i;u a liilge ilillu iu-JU i *r, t-.c

tIUU - L laiU Otil" images. Hi very ijutuouru »vua lorii away, and tue wiuciows smashed.

ino miracle k that tue train was. nob upset altogether and Llirown into tile .creek. As it was, there was an ugly panic, and • a number of people were -badly hurt in rustling for the doors at tiio ends of the long American care.

This may be, as American papers boast, the first instance on record of a train colliding with a boat; but a collision which happened at Portsmouth a few years ago was in every way far more strange. A night attack by torpedo destroyers was in progress. Many readers have seen Portsmouth harbor, and know iiow narrow is its entrance. A destroyer, with all lights out, was tearing along from the west, keeping as close to tho shore as possible to avoid the flare of the moving searchlights when suddenly the full blaze of a light fell across her deck. Blinded ly tiio glaro the steersman .turned too soon. Instead of entoring the harbor mouth, tho long, lean craft'dashed at full speed up the shelving beach, driving half her length out of the water. A road runs along the beach, and a cyclist happened to be spinning along it at the very moment. _ Tho black bows suddenly shot across his path, and his machine hit them so that he fell off. He is certainly the only cyclist in the world who ever collided with a vessel of his Majesty's navy. Ships sometimes collide with icebergs, but it does not fall to the lot of every vessel to run into a floating island. This is what happened to the 3000-ton tramp Vigo off the mouth of the Orinoco. Tho area of the island is said to have been nearly half an acre, and the ship crashed into the very middle of it before sho could bo stopped. Fortunately the only thing damaged was the island.

Collisions with fish aro less rare, but some odd incidents of the kind aro recorded. The big Japanese cruiser Takachiho, when off Korea in March, 1904, ran straight into an enormous whale. She was doing eighteen knots at tho time, and the shock was so heavy that almost every man of the crew was knocked down. The unlucky whale waß nearly cut in two. Trains occasionally perform strange antics. Tho Cambrian railway was the scene of a very strange collision a few months ago. A heavy goods train was leaving Abermule station when in somo way the last four waggons became uncoupled. As it was pitch dark the driver did not at first notice his loss. When he did he slackened speed. Almost at once the lost waggons, which had gained terrific speed down a 1 .ug incline, dashed into the rear of the train. Three men were killed, and the damage was very extensive. One horse-box was thrown off : ts wheels into an adjacent field, yet its wheels into an adjacent filed, yet its occupannts, men and horses, were unhurt. This train actually collided with itself.

The freakish results of railway collisions are notorious. Not long ago two trains met end on near Chicago. The engine of one was left balanced right on top of the other engine in such a way that the weight of one man was enough to set the ponderous bulk of tho top locomotive gently swinging. In another case a small shunting engine met a huge steam plough, and, aided by tho slant in front of the plough, ran right up on top of it. It was lifted clown with a crane, neither locomotive being much the worse. For a sequence of collisions, it would bo very difficult to beat tho following: One spring day a char-a-banc, with eight passengers, ran into a bank and upset on the road near St. Denis. An officer drilling soldiers near by despatched a man to fetch a doctor. The soldier galloped off in a frantic hurry, and rode straight into a heavy dray. His horse was killed, and he was pitched nearly thirty feet. The driver of the dray was knocked out of his cart and run over. The dray horse bolted, and smashed into an electric tramcar, breaking up the dray. At the smash a cab horse took fright and ran away, running into a van. In all ten people were badly hurt. ..