EXPRESS RUNS AWAY

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 26943, 20 January 1953, Page 10

EXPRESS RUNS AWAY

41 INJURED IN WASHINGTON (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) WASHINGTON, January 15. A runaway express train crashed into Washington’s big Union Station today, injuring 41 persons. Its whistle shrieking, the Pennsylvania Federal Express failed to respond fully to air brakes when it was running at 50 miles an hour through the station yard. Slowed a little by the hand brakes as it rolled into the station, the train crashed through a concrete and steel buffer, and ground over the assembly concourse, collapsing the floor. The big electric locomotive and one carriage dropped down into the basement luggage room, just short of a crowded waiting room. It had smashed througfi the stationmaster’s office and flung other structures aside, causing most of the injuries with flying wreckage. The whistle and a warning from the signal box had alerted the station staff on the concourse to rush people out of the way of the oncoming express. A reporter on the train said many persons were reaching for their luggage when they realised the train was going too fast when near the station. Then the motion became jerky, followed by a crashing halt. Glass flew everywhere and the carriages were enveloped in a great cloud of dust, but there was no panic. Two hours after the train crash 24 firemen and watchers were injured when a building exploded in another part of the city. The explosion flung firemen and debris into the street.