COLLISION ON RAILWAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19986, 30 June 1928, Page 11

COLLISION ON RAILWAY.

DARLINGTON TRAGEDY.

ANOTHER VICTIM DEAD.

SUFFERINGS OF THE INJURED. EXPERIENCE OF THE DRIVER. Australian and N.Z. Press Association. LONDON, June 28. The deaths caused by the tragic railway collision at Darlington, Durham, have been increased to 23, one of the in-jul-ed victims having since died. The accident was the most disastrous since that which occurred at Gretna Green in 1915.

The people living in the little village of Metton-le-Hols were tragically afflicted. Fourteen women from there were killed. They were returning from an outing of a mothers' union at Scarborough. Many of the villagers, also, were badly injured. There were poignant scenes to-day when the bodies of those killed in the collision were laid out in rows and identified in an improvised mortuary in the goods yard.

The driver of the excursion train which was wrecked says the distance signal was set in his favour, and he went through. Suddenly he saw tho engine and van coming from Darlington station. He applied the brakes, but it was impossible to avoid the collision. When the engines crashed, the driver says, he was hurled off the footboard of his engine, and when he recovered consciousness he heard heartrending screams.