SERIOUS TRAMWAY ACCIDENT.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIII, Issue 105, 4 May 1907, Page 5

SERIOUS TRAMWAY ACCIDENT.

■■aRUNAWAY CAR OH THE BROOKLYN LIKE. WILD PLUNGE OVER A BANK. A PASSENGER KILLED. ' FIVE OTHER PERSONS INJURED. A "-oaring noise, a rumbling, and finally a tremor of the earth made householders near tho tramway line on tbo Brooklyn heights fear thai an earthquake had visited them la&t evening, at about half-past five. The cause of the disturbance was a large electric car, of the new palace pattern, which left tho rails while it was whirling down at terrifis speed and plunged pver a bank. There were only four passengers, including one woman, Mrs. Eliat Bell, wife of Mr. Thomas Bell, a shcap-farmer of Muroliison. She was crushed under the framu. Her husband and the other pasaengers wero cut and bruised, but were not seriously injured. Mr. Bell was taken on a stretcher to a neighbouring house, and received attention from Dr. Hogg, pending hio removal later oaUo a. private hospital. The other passengers divorced, and weie soon lost from view. The motorman, John Rea, and tbc conductor, Arthur D, Perkins, weie dazed by knocks on their heads, and wCTe taken home soon after tho accident. / THE SITE OF. THfc, ACCIDENT. The car bounded from the" rails in a line roughly at right'^iilgleis to the top end of Nairn-street. After rounding a curve at tremendous speed it swept along a. straight strip for som& distance, and then forsook the metalled way. The outside wheels scoured out a deep groove in the ballast for a doz-cn yards, and then tho rear bogie was teft behind- At this moment the car must", have been turning on its side, on tho slope of a' bank, and after pkidding about ten 'yards, the body was jolted from -the front bogie, and the whole of the car body was pitched on its side, with the bottom towards the raila. Fragment-! of the lower woodwork were left along the hillside as the vehicle plunged over tha cari.k. CRASH IN THE DARKNESS. Though there waa'o/'sad fatality, tho Joss of life was piovid&'ntiiilly light. The wotormnn had 'ost his trolley -heaa-~il' was found last night two- or threeJiundred yards up from the scene of) the janasi — and his car was therefore in dai'kness. Imprisoned without light, with the car flying alpng tb& steep down grade, the passengers .realised that something had happened to the vehicle, but befoVe they could think much about their po:il their eais were filled ,with the crash of wood and gla&2, and the agonising journey wai suddenly at an- end. A few score yards away a car was coming up from town with forty people on board. Those persons were suddenly conscious that the runaway, though "tLey could baTely &co the object' that wan whizziug so swiftly through the gloom, was coming at them, and the fear of collision muE havo chilled the blood of some of them, but their agony, too, was brief, for tho onrushinj car went ov-st the bank just in front of "them. Even if this" up car had not bsen present the four passengers in theother runaway ooald not have hoped to escape serious injury, if not death, if the car nad did from the mils a little lower dwn towards ihe vi\duct. . AROUND THE WRECK/ The up car slopped, and the passengers ware quickly' around the wreck. Dr. Hogg, was among tLs earliest arrivals, and he made his way to the place where Mrs. Bell wus- pinned down. She had one arm free, but it was limp. The pulso had stopped. ■ At oiic.2 Hhere- was a call for aid to lift the car from Mrs. Beli's body, and persons hastened to get poles and" appliances to raise up the great mass, ten or eleven lons. These optrr.tions were difficult in the darkness, lor tho car had crashed against or.o of the proles and affected the current that fed tho aralight there. Curious persons ako clustered ill profusion, and though all weie only too willing to work, moat cf them wer-s merely in the way, and were ft great hindrance to the men who remained cool enough to set about the task of lifting tho car. A 6crcw-jack \tr3 brought up, but it broke under the sttaiq< but used, and with these various operations, conducted wilh t-ko aid of lairterns, the Tescuers laboured to free the body of Mrs. Bell. By half-past six tho tianiway currtnt was fed to a set of portable lamps, and this made the workers' tack lighter. In tbo meaptiaie men v/ers crashing through the prostrate car, and hacking at the timbers. At 645 the body was released from its fatal bondage, nnd the position thoweJ that Mis. JJell had fallen with her leet towardr, Ifc 3 line. The head hai! been crushed. THE MORBID. By this tiuio thjro were soveral nun dred peoplo crowding the track, and csveral police had great, difficulty in hcop' ing-. tbo morbidly curious from prescing •on tho men who were lilting tho body from the ground. A couple of cars wero now! on tho town side of the break, end in one of th^se tbo body was placed for removal to the morguo to await an inquest, Mon atid boys endeavoured to cijoivd into tho vehicle, and ouo individual .oven clambered over the rail of tho rear ,platform. Tho polico wero hardly sovero onough .?ith thesa offenders against the decencies THEORIES ABOUT THE CAUSE. SoUio timo baforo tlio accident happened, the cur Was making down the hijl till tho motcrm&n or tho conductor observed that another was coming «?. Then a retreat was made to a loop, and tho up-car passed. Ouo of tho passengers 3tr.tca that ho heard somo ono on the up-car fay : " What aro you doing horo? You're out of your turn," and then tho down crj ru-start-ed. Going down the slope, which the recent drizrlo had made greasy, iho trolley-polo left tho overhead wiro, and tho car gathered speed at an alarming rato. Thevo were three brnkes-— hand, r.iagnetic, and electric — and each should Viavo V>°en efxectiyei oven wilh the trolley-polo off tho wire. Examination of tlio bogies last night showed that the magnetic brako had been put on, but had failed to pull up the cur. Tho gear of the electric brako had been turned through three notches out of six, And the inference is that thfi motor-man was devoting his attention to this brake just before the car jumped from tho rails. Thera is no doubt that the car got out of hand, and hiusb havo been travelling at the rate of lit least forty miles an hour at tho finish. When this figuro wai mentioned to Alr._ 8011, he exclaimed : " Moro like 140 ' mile 3. I havo nover known anything to go so fast." Of course to him, m that dreadful darkness, the speed would appear extremely high, but even with a pace approaching sixty miles an hour it is haul to imagine that all tho passengers except Mrs. 801 l could have escaped broken bones. Even Mrs. Bell might havo fared no worse than tho others if she had not fallen through one of the aide doors. Apparently, just when tho car was coming to rest after ita violent leap, Mrs. Bell slipped through a door-way, and so was caught under the side of the car. «