NOTHINO LIKE IT EVER BEFORE.

Gisborne Times, Volume LVI, Issue 6319, 23 February 1922, Page 3

NOTHINO LIKE IT EVER BEFORE.

HOW A TRAIN PASSENGER WAS

KILLED

Nothing definite can be established to account for an astonishing accident which occurred on the L.B. and S.C.R., and which resulted in the death, later, in hospital, of a Mr Price, of St. Margaret’s, Beckenham. The 7.30 ordinary fast train from Brighton to Victoria was running (says a London paper) at full speed between Burgess Hill and Haywards Heath, when the passengers in a third-class carriage behind the front guard’s brake, was startled by a terrific crash. A piece of iron about 2ft square and half an inch thick'had been hurled through the window on the off-side, striking Mr Price with such violence that his skull was fractured. At first it was supposed that the train had been struck by something projecting from a passing train, but subsequent investigations established beyond doubt’', that the piece of iron that had crashed through the window was really a part of the engine attached to the *7.30 train, and formed one cf the strengthening stays of the side-step. It is assumed that this had worked loose and finally dropped, and that the speed at which the train was travelling caused such a terrific rebound from the ballast that it was carried through the side window o. the carriage. Experienced railway officers ex pi ess the belief that the accident is unprecedented" ui its character. Instances of trains being struck by projections and ’ flying ballast are. common. Connecting reds of engines have been known to break and scatter tlie permanent way, but there is no record of a piece of the locomotive rebounding into a carriage cf the same train.