Passengers Still Trapped

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23320, 2 October 1945, Page 5

Passengers Still Trapped

(12.30 a.m.) LONDON, October 1. At least 31 persons are believed to have been killed and 94 injured in the derailment. Some passengers were trapped for nine hours. It is feared that about 40 are still trapped in one coach which the rescuers have not yet reached. It is buried under the wreckage of two other coaches. The engine, after leaving the rails, crashed down a 20 foot embankment into a field, dragging the tender and three coaches on top of it, leaving five of the other 12 coaches splintered and telescoped across the rails. The driver and fireman were killed instantly The death roll is now 39, including 37 passengers and the driver and fireman. Rescue workers this morning arc still digging into the vast mass of twisted steel and shattered woodw’ork of the wrecked Scottish express trying to reach a coach in which an unknown number of people are buried. Railway workers. American Army personnel from a nearby airfield, firemen and police worked ceaselessly all night. Powerful cranes tore aside debris and lifted aside wreckage, but a great mass remains to be shifted before the buried coach can be reached. Three more injured died in hospital. The Press Association says it is still too early to estim: ,':e the final death roll. A morning mist is hanging over the scene which is stated to be similar to that prevailing when the smash occurred. Pathetic evidence of identity, such r.s shoes, scarves, an occasional suitcase, a soldier’s mess tin. being recovered from time to time, is taken by the police listed, and set aside for identification The officers In charge of the rescue squads anticipate working through another night They will not give up until every body is recovered, but the hope of finding anybody alive has been abandoned. The fast up and down lines have been cleared for traffic, but there is still obstruction of the slow lines. Among the killed was Ernest Hall, for 30 years an attendant on the Royal train, who was returning after servin’?, their Majesties on their tour of Scotland. He was this year decorated bv the King with the silver medal of the Royal Victorian Order for personal services.