LOCOMOTIVE BURSTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11538, 24 November 1900, Page 2 (Supplement)

LOCOMOTIVE BURSTS.

BOILER IS CARRIED SIXTY YARDS AND KILLS TWO MEN. Tnis terrifying spectacle of a locomotive being hurled sixty yards through the air was witnessed the other day at Westerfield Station, the junction for Felixstowe, on the Great Eastern Railway, between Ipswich and Yarmouth. A goods train was awaiting the signal to start when the engine boiler exploded with a terrific report and all the upper part of the engine was torn off its frame and carried a train's length away. The driver, John Barnard, and William Mac Donald, the stoker, were both killed, the charred and mutilated body of the former being found in a coalynrd 150 ft distant, and that- of the fireman in the fourth truck from the engine. The boiler, twisted into fantastic shapes, passed over the heads of two men in its flight, and, alighting on the permanent way, rebounded on to the top of a porter's hut, which was crushed to splinters. A telegraph post was also torn down and fell upon a constable, who now lies in a critical condition in the local hospital. It is reported that one of Smith and Son's boys was in the hut when it was destroyed, and had a miraculous escape from death. The permanent way was destroyed where the engine fell, but after a delay of half an hour traffic was resumed on a single line. An inquest on the bodies of the driver and fireman was opened at Westerfield, and after formal evidence had been given was adjourned.

Later in the day the engine of a train from Felixstowe ran off the metals about a hundred yards from the scene of the morning's disaster, and the passengers had to be transferred to another train. :