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TERRIBLE RAILWAY ACCIDENT.

TEN LIVES LOST.

(FROM OUB CORRESPONDENT.)

(Bγ Telegraph frost the Blttff.) MELBOURNE, December 16. The following telegram has been received by the Argus from Albany, dated London, November 14fch :— A terrible disaster occurred on the Great Western Railway, at Norton Fitzwarren, near Taunton, early on the morning of November 11th, when a special train conveying the passengers ex the Norham Castle, from Plymouth to London, coL lided with a goods train that was standing on the line. The passenger train left Plymouth shortly before midnight on the 11th, and reached Norton at about two o'clock in the morning. It was pitch dark, and the rain was coming down smartly. The goods train was on the way from Taunton to Exeter; but in order to allow the down night mail to pass she was shunted on to the upline at Norton. The night mail, which left Paddington at 9 p.m. passed safely, and before the goods train could be moved to the down line again the special train came up. The driver of the special seeing that the signals were all right was letting his train run through the station at the rate of about fifty miles an hoar when it came into collision with the goods train about 100 yds on the Taunton side of Norton. The signalman, lieorge Rice, who had been in the employ of the Company for thirty-eight years, had forgotten the goods train, and gave the signal "Line clear" to the special. The driver and stoker of the goods train seeing the special approaching, at once apprehended danger, but there was no time to give the alarm, and the express was upon them in a second. The impact was terrible, five compartments being telescoped outright. The force of the collision was so great that the tender of the passenger engine was forced through the first three compartments of the carriage next to'it. The carriage was smashed into matchwood, pieces being found lying in a field at a distance of quite thirty yards from the scene of the accident. The men who were sitting in the compartment next to the engine must have been killed instantaneously, and their bodies weie wedged into the side of the carriage, mixed up with debris.- ■ Those in. the second and third compartments were frightfully injared, and seven succumbed ttfter lingering in terrible agony for an hour or more; The horror of the situation was , "heightened by the splintered woodwork , being ignited by •the fire from the 'engine. The whole carriage was speedily in a * blaze, and six of its occupants perished miser-; ably by burning, being unable to extricate themselves from the wreckage. It was several hours before all the passengers were extricated, and it was found that ten had been killed, while eight were seriously and about a dozen slightly injured. At the inquest a verdict of manslaughter was returned against Rice, the signalman, who is sixty-four years of age, and was recently run over by a train and seriously injured. . ______

Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP18901223.2.56

Bibliographic details

Press, Volume XLVIL, Issue 7742, 23 December 1890, Page 6

Word Count
504

TERRIBLE RAILWAY ACCIDENT. Press, Volume XLVIL, Issue 7742, 23 December 1890, Page 6

TERRIBLE RAILWAY ACCIDENT. Press, Volume XLVIL, Issue 7742, 23 December 1890, Page 6

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