A RACE WITH DEATH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17145, 26 April 1919, Page 2 (Supplement)

A RACE WITH DEATH.

TRAIN SMASH AVERTED. „ Few things in railway history could have been more desperately dramatic: than that of a signalman rushing along the line, lamp and detonators in hand, to stop a train mailing to disaster— train in j which he knew his own daughter to be 1 travelling 1 Such was a grim drama played in the case of the mirket train returning from ] Bath to Higbbndga and intermediate &a- < t»ns recently. , Whit had happened was that a heavy | goods train had just passed Midford sta-' ] ion, on the Somerset and Dorset railway. | ( A coupling snapped, and a number of ' trucks began to run bact:wards down a| t steep incline. At that moment the pas-1 ( senger train from Bath was due, and, as ] the line was a single one, a smash seemed ' 1 certain. Near Midford station was a long | tunnel from which the passenger train \ < must presently emerge. Realising tho 11 disastrous situation, Signalman R. Payne : < dashed off on foot towards tie tunnel, ': carrying a lamp and detonators. Ii Though tie guard of the goods train [ l*d managed to bring the runaway wag- ' gons to a standstill, the passenger train/ was still coming on. ii But as it left the tunnel it exploded the | detonators, and they, with the gallant sig- \ nalman's swinging lamp, told its driver of j' his danger, so that he was able to pull up in the nick of time* only a few yards from the stationary waggons. ' Such was the position of the goods train ■ that a collision must have caused many ! deaths, the line there being on a high timbankment.