RAILWAY DISASTER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21916, 27 September 1934, Page 14

RAILWAY DISASTER

HOLIDAY TRAIN WRECKED . _ i EIGHT PERSONS KILLED OVER FIFTY OTHERS INJURED Plight persons were killed and over CO injured in a railway accident at Avignon, France, shortly after 3 a.m. on Sunday, August 12. Several of the injured were not expected to survive. As far as could be learned there were no English either killed or injured. The accident occurred when the Geneva-Ventiiniglia express, which left Geneva at 8 p.m. on Saturday night, was derailed 200 yards from the station at Avignon. The enginedriver states that lie was driving at only 12 miles an hour as prescribed by regulation. Two hundred yards from the station the locomotive passed over some points, but the two carriages immediately behind it, one a mail coach and the other a first-class carriage, went off the rails, crashing into a goods train standing on the next track. Both carriages were demolished. .. The locomotive then jumped the rails and hurtled into the station P^®L^ orI ?' which, fortunately, was empty. Ihe 1U remaining coaches turned over, them being thrown the width of threo of four railway lines away by the force of the impact. Holiday Travellers . The train was packed with holiday travellers on their way to the Riviera, an overflow of third-class passengers having been allowed to occupy the first and second-class carriages, which received the greatest damage. Hundreds were pinned underneath the wreckage. Red-hot ashes from the overturned locomotive started a fire which spread and added to the horror of the scene, but the fire was quickly put out by firemen, who were among the first to arrive at the scene. Within 10 minutes a large force of police and troops from the Avignon garrison was also there and engaged in rescue work. The first four persons removed were dead. Within an hour 15 injured had been removed to hospital. By noon most of the injured were in hospital. A preliminary investigation shows, it is alleged, that the train was travelling at least 30 miles an hour, and that the brakes were not functioning properly. . _ , Alleged Excessive Speed

One of the passengers, M. Vernet. whose 15-year-old daughter was lulled, and whose wife was seriously injured, described the accident. "I was surprised on seeing by the lights of the station at Avignon that we were going so fast," ho said. "When we passed the signal post I was frightened. I could not imagine our going through the station at such a speed. Theji we crashed. "I had been sitting in ihe corridor and was thrown some distance. There was a shower of glass and splinters of wood. My only thought in the darkness was for my wife and daughter. "After dislodging a man who had been killed, I managed to climb through the wreckage to the compartment where I had left my family. There I found my daughter dead and my wife gravely injured. The speed gauge record was unfortunately 'destroyed by the fire from the furnace. '