THE FATAL ACCIDENT ON THE SHREWSBURY AND CHESTER RAILWAY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1483, 13 September 1865, Page 3

THE FATAL ACCIDENT ON THE SHREWSBURY AND CHESTER RAILWAY.

. (From the Times, June 7.) One of our Parliamentary reporters, who was a passenger by the train to which this terrible accident has occurred, has furnished us with the following statement

" I will venture, an eye-witness to give you some faint description of the dreadful accident on the Great Western Railway at Rednal, on Wednesday. The excursion train left Birkenhead at about a quarter to 11 o'clock, being about 25 minutes behind the appointed time for starting. After arriving at Chester, there was another delay of half an hour, and the train was, therefore, about an hour late when leaving this station. The train consisted of 35 carriages, propelled by two engines, and every compartment was as full as it could be comfortably packed with passengers. Between Chester and the other stations upwards it was evident the engine-drivers were endeavouring to make up by extra speed for some of the lost time. After passing Grobowen station the rapidity of the train's progress was a matter of remark among the passengers, forced as it was upon their attention by the clouds of dust that were thrown up on each side of the carriages. For a considerable distance before reaching the point where the accident took place men had been engaged in raising the rails and sleepers, and the line was consequently in a somewhat unsettled condition, the ballast having been removed from about the sleepers. Over this part of the line it was the duty of the driver to proced slowly, but the speed was not the least slackened and the passengers soon had warning of the coming catastrophe. There was a violent oscillation, during which the passengers were unable to keep thsir seats, and this was shortly afterwards followed by the bumping of the wheels of more than one-half the train upon the sleepers, the latter part never having got off the line. "The scene which followed will never be forgotten by those who had the misfortune to witness it. The

engines got off the line, and parted company, the one rushing to the right and the other to the left, and in a moment the work of destruction was complete. ISTofc less than nine or ten souls were instantly crushed out of their mortal tenements, and four or five more received such injuries that they survived but a short period. Numerous, however, as were the deaths, it was a matter of surprise to all who witnessed the wreck that many more were not killed. On the left there lay, first, the engine, which had run some short distance down a siding, torn up the rails and twisted them, ploughed into the field adjoining, and then capsized. Further along lay the tender on its side. Further along still, towards the front of the train, | but away from the main line, lay a first-class carriage, a complete wreck, with several persons underneath it, some evidently not dead. On the j right of the train, the side on which the doors were locked (in the 'latter part of the train the doors were locked on both sides, and the passengers were obliged to got out at the windows), the other engine lay embedded in a ditch, and immediately behind it were the remains of a first-class carriage, the pieces piled upon each other as if broken up for firewood. Close beside this again, lying on the down line, was another first-class carriage, which had been thrown off its wheels and turned over on its side. How any of the passengers escaped here with their lives is a miracle. Several bodies were extricated with great difficulty from beneath the wreck of the first carriage. The other carriages were chiefly, it not all, second and third class, and remained m a line. The first was raised in front by the wheels of some other carriage, and it was left like a house without a front, with all the doors, windows, and boarding torn away in the front and on the left side. The first seat was earned away, but the others remained. Yet many escaped entirely unhurt out of this carriage. Beneath it, however, and under the one adjoining, there was a heart-rending spectacle. A child, apparently three or four years old, lay on its face covered with the mud, with the exception of its legs and hips, which werenaked; at its feet lay its mother,and at her side a man with his head completely severed from his body. Another woman and alittle girl, about ten years old, lay dead on the left of the line, terribly blackened and disfigured, and all around were faces streaming with blood : some had broken arms, others broken legs, and many, still more severely injured, were gathered up and conveyed on stretchers made ot the doors of the broken carriages to a shady spot in a field adjoining. One man had his cheek laid open, and he walked about a ghastly spectacle, unable to speak to those who addressed him A woman had her face cut in several semi-circular lines from the fore- , head to the chin, and she presented a most extraordinary appearance. JSot : less than fifty persons were injured more or less. Mr. Leather, a surgeon

well known in Liverpool, was in immediate attendance, having been a passenger by the train, and he rendered valuable assistance. The accident, however, having occurred several hundred yards below the Rednal Station, and there being no village or inhabitants near, _ the means of alleviating the suffering was very limited, and there were two dreadful hours of pain and anguish before assistance arrived from Shrewsbury, which is about twelve miles distant. A train at length arrived, in which the wounded were placed, and taken to the infirmary at Shrewsbury, under Mr. Leather's charge. I shall not attempt to describe the excitement of the people as they rushed out of the carriages when the accident happened, the joy of some on finding their intimate friends and even fellow-passengers safe, nor the bitter sorrow of those who had to lament the loss of a relation, or who had to tend a seriously injured friend. One poor woman lost her husband, and she could not identify him among those whose bodies were recovered, and she wandered about as if demented. One engineman was killed, and the other so frightfully injured that he is not likely to recover, and therefore, if any fault lay with them, they will be beyond calling to account in this world. It was remarked by one of the company's servants that the engine which lay on the left of the line had been previously in a similar position, having once before run off the line, causing a serious accident. It is to be hoped such an opportunity will not again be presented to so ill-fated a piece of machinery, and it might be well to inquire whether the tires of the engine were in a sufficiently safe condition.

''It was a late hour before the uppasseDgers were conveyed to their destination, and the general traffic Avas very much delayed during the remainder of the day."