18 Killed And 73 Injured In Leeds Train Smash

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 August 1947, Page 5

18 Killed And 73 Injured In Leeds Train Smash

LONDON, August 10.

Eighteen persons were killed and 73 injured, of whom 43 were detained in hospital, when the LondonLeeds express ran into the rear of another train near Doncaster station.

Both trains left King’s Cross station for Leeds, at an interval of 15 minutes. They were both filled. The London and North-Eastern Railway Company said that, four coaches of the first train were completely smashed and another was derailed. The locomotive and three coaches of the second train were derailed.

All available ambulances and taxis were pressed into rescue work. Rescuers searched the wreckage for four hours before all the trapped passengers were released. An ambulance man crawled under the wreckage and administered morphia to a trapped woman who died shortly afterwards. Doctors at the Doncaster Hospital worked in relays setting broken limbs and fractures.

Many Families Among Train Passengers (Rec. 11.50 a.m.) LONDON, August 10. Break-down gangs worked all today clearing the wreckage of the train disaster near Doncaster. As doctors fought to save the lives of several critically injured passengers, queues of men and women lined up at the station, the Doncaster hospital and police headquarters to inspect battered suitcases, torn clothes and oil-smeared toys. It was, as a rail official said, a “family train smash.” Each train carried people returning from or going to holiday resorts. Ronald Huffingley, aged 28, of Leeds, the fireman of the second train, said: “We rounded the corner at Balby, near Doncaster, with the signals at ‘clear’ when I saw a standing train 40 yards ahead. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The driver, Bob Foster, aged 64, grabbed the brake-levers and hung on, but we crashed.” Two ex-nurses, Mrs L. Barlow and Mrs E. Law, were the first of 200 women from nearby streets who worked for six hours side by side with the official rescue squads, tearing up 300 sheets as- dressings, many tablecloths and towels, all ransacked from their homes. One woman and two men of 18 dead are still unidentified.