TRAIN SMASH.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18549, 26 November 1925, Page 8

TRAIN SMASH.

MEMPHIS DISASTER. SCENES OF HORROR. (SPECIAL TO "THE PRESS.") AUCKLAND, November 25. Writing from New York, the "Herald's" special correspondent gives details of the recent terrible train disaster in which 19 persons were killed and 53 injured, when the "Sunnyland," the finest express of the St. Louis and San Francisco railroad, was derailed near Victoria, Mississippi, in the early morning of October 27th. Four Pullman sleeping cars, three standard carriages, and the luggage and mail vans, broke loose from the engine of the train while it was travelling at between 45 and 50 miles an hour, and crashed over a 4t)ft embankment. Tli© locomotive did not leave the track, and continued running for nearly 200 yards past the scene of the accident. The cause of the wreck was said to be an invisible defect in the rail. The train carried approximately 250 passengers. The first call for help came irora the section foreman, who heard tho crash and soon afterwards the cries of the injured. Word was sent to the town of Memphis, Tennessee, 33 miles away, and two relief trains were got together with all possible speed. Nurses and doctors were mustered, and every ambulance in the town hurried off to the scene of the disaster. The general manager of the railway, Mr J. H. Fraser, happened to be in Memphis, and he personally directed work at the wreck. Scores of Memphis residents motored out, and soon crowded round the mass of wreckage. Many of them were seeking relatives or friends expected "by train. Driver Saw it All. A vivid account of the accident was given by the engine-driver, It. B. Herring, of Memphis, who, with liis fireman, T. S. Young, was quite uninjured. The driver said he was two minutes late when running over the particular stretch of track. He heard the ,;naj> of the connexion and the air hese (between the tender and the luggage car, the first carriage on the train, and, looking back, he was horrified to see his train fall away, leave the track, and crash down the embankment. Stopping his engine, he and the fireman ran back to the scene of tho tragedy. 'They found that a negro day coach, or standard carriage, had been the first to hit the bottom, and the other cars piled un top of it, causing a frightful death-roll toward what had been the front of the train. A passenger in one of the carriages immediately behind the negro car, Mr R. C. Hawkins, of Fulton, Mississippi, who escaped unhurt, said ho was ! pinned underneath a seat when the crash came. When he extricated himself he found ho was. literally surrounded with mangled bodies. Homes in Victoria were opened to the injured, and women residents of the town did noble work in caring for the unfortunate victims of the disaster.