CATASTROPHES CAUSED BY TRIFLES.

New Zealand Times, Volume LVIX, Issue 3007, 19 December 1896, Page 2 (Supplement)

CATASTROPHES CAUSED BY TRIFLES.

SOME REMARKABLE RAILWAY SMASHES.

Terrible as tho annals of railway accidents are, tlioy arc filled with strange and most unlooked-for occurrences. On a wet, foggy afternoon, fire years ago, for 'ckauiplc, an engine proceeded op the IQnnel from St. John's Wood Road Station, Immediately after, ,ft passenger train entored lha station and, while its occupants were hastily disembarking, back came tbe engine at full speed and dashed into it. No one was more surprised than tho driver of the engine at finding himself coming out at the Wrong end of the tunnel. It was found that, owing to the greasy state of the rails, the engine, which was working at low pressure, had stopped when] about onc-third of a mile up the incline and started back ; but, as the wheels continued to revolve, neither driver nor brakesman perceived tho change of direction in tho darkness. As everyone knows, tho Westinghouse brake owes its excellence partly ts the fact that if tho small tube connecting the carriages gets broken the brake closes ort every Wheel in the train. This very properly was the oauae of a curious accident on the Great Eastern line. Some time back, a passenger train to Norwich had just passed through Manor Park (it ft speed Of thirty miles an I hour, when tho driver felt himself being pulled up. Shutting off steam, he went to j examine the brakes, just as he discovered, that the air-tubo had burst, a Chelmsford express dashed into his train with terrific force, smashing carriages, breaking legs and arms, and doing an Immensity of damage. In 1891 a runaway mineral ran into a goods train that Was crossing Us lines, and tbe curious cause of the disaster was the fact that tho goods bad not sufficient steam to whistle and warn tho signalman of its approach, - - The trifling event of a toll of heWsfiaper web falling out of a Wftgg6n add getting among tho wheels wrecked a heavily-laden goods train at Leicester comparatively recently. And while ah express was careering from ■ London to Portsmouth, in 18-73, a bull leapt over the closed gates of a crossing near Guildford and charged the engine. Naturally ha got the worst of the encounter ; but, although tho engine and tender passed safely over him, the remainder of tbe train rolled off the line and down the embankment. Accidents of this kind Used, indeed, to b'e very common in England. Lot for the ffiOst extraordinary one that eVor happened we have to go to America. j-bpat twenty years ago an express wan travelling to Boston at a speed of forty-one miles when a horse had 1 waggon suddenly croisod the line. The waggon was instantly dcmblishpd, wMfl the; horse was dragged along \ifiVil the train j reached a statioi, \viien he whs forced by the 1 platfeTfil tinder the luggage van. His body sheared oil the rear wheels and the coupling broke. As each di tho four carriages came along its wheels were sheared off and the whecllesa body slid across the track, over a Biding, down an embankment four feet high, 1 through a fence and finally onmo t'd a standstill in a cornfield. Not a Single passenger was hurt or even a window broken I Tho terrible Abergele collision of 1868 arose from another trifle. At a little station outside Abergele a goods train was waiting at the top of an incline for the Irish mail to pass. Some vans had to be taken oat of the middle, and a porter uncoupled those at the rear, neglecting to put on the brake. The engine took the middle vans into a shed, and returned for the rear vans, which were laden with petroleum. The moment It touched them oil thoy went down the incline. At first they moved so slowly that A porter ran leisurely after them to pub on tho brakes. But they soon outstripped him, and dashed at a frightful pace to meet the Irish mail that was coming on to its doom at forty miles an hour. When tho trains met tho oil deluged the mail, and, like a flash of lightning, tho front carriages warn In a blaze, thirty-throe people being burned to death before thoy could even cry out. I’hey were all very rich people, and when tho fire was at an end almost the only traces left of the victims were the diamonds, rabies, gold watches and chains that strewed tbe line.

Fortunately tho rear carriages, which contained, among others, the Irish Viceroy's family, wore uncoupled and drawn away. Two years later the Irish mail again met with a strange accident of a kind which has not occurred more than half a dozen times altogether in this country. As it was going through Taraworth at forty miles an hour, the pointsman turned it into a siding. But tho stop-block was carried away as if it were so much paper, and the train plunged down the twenty-foot embankment into tho river Anker, drowning and mangling many of its occupants. The people of Ramsgate remember a similar occurrence. An excursion train, which was fortunately empty, ran into the ieiminus at great speed, dashed through the wail at the end, killing a fish-hawker at tbe other side, and didn’t stop till the engine catered a yard at the other side of the road and lodged itself in a stonemason’s shed. At Merthyr, in 1871, a runaway coal train rushed suddenly into tho station, struck a heavily-laden passenger train and forced it through the wall and across the street. And, sortie years previously, the officials at Kings Cross were startled 16 see a huge train of thirty-five carriages come into tho terminus at a tremendous pace, mount the platform, pass through the wall, run down the incline, and come to a halt at a'little distance off. Different, but no less curious in its results, was the Christmas Day accident at the North. Wall, Dublin, ten years ago. Tho lower part of the signal cabin was occupied by the signalman’s family, and in the upper part he worked tho lovers. Early on Christmas morning, While tiic wife and children were at church, on engine which had been in collision took refuge in the living-room and threw tho upper pan of the cabin, levers, signalman, and all, into the street below.

Sometimes the telegraph causes an accident, as in the terrible Yarmouth case in 1871. The lino was single, and it was the habit of the Yarmouth mail train to wait at - Brundall for tho express to pass. One night the express was late, and the Norwich station-master wrote a telegram telling tbe mail to gome on, and left it, unsigned, in the ollioe. In a few minutes the express came in, and be let it pass, thinking that tbe clerk would not have despatched the unsigned message. To his horror, he found that the message had been sent, and, on wiring to Brundall to stop the mail, he was informed that the mail bad started and was beyond recall. Then they knew that a terrible collision was inevitable between two heavy trains rushing 1o meet each other at full speed. Belli, in fact, were hurrying unusually fast, for each driver believed that the Other-train was waiting for him. Tho consequences need not bo described. But a curious feature in the accident is worth noting. So little was the shock felt at the end of the express that two gentleman in tho last carriage, finding that the train had stopped just beyond their homes, got ont and walked away, not hearing the shrieks of the wounded in the storm ; and it was not till next day they learned of the accident. This immunity from shock of the carriages at the opposite end from the point of collision is quite frequent. Near Noltinglum, in 1860, a mail train ran into Ihc rear of a delayed special, smashing several carriages, killing seven passengers, and injuring twelve. But-scarcely any shock was felt in tho fifth carriage from tho rear,

and while the wounded were shrieking and groaning, the occupants of the rest of the train were singing and laughing, not knowing what had happened.— GatsdVs Satvtfda’y Journal*