STUDENTS SMASH TRAIN ON RETURN FROM RELAY RACES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18045, 4 January 1927, Page 5

STUDENTS SMASH TRAIN ON RETURN FROM RELAY RACES.

WILD “ RAG ” RESULTS IN GREAT DAMAGE. (Special to the ‘'Star.”) LONDON, November 21. Undergraduates returning to Oxford from the inter-Varsity relay races at Cambridge indulged in a wild rag while travelling by special train between Cambridge and Bedford. After trying without success to board the footplate of the train, members of the party smashed the windows of the corridor coaches, broke the glass of the lamps, and tore down the luggage racks, which they threw out of the windows. Among the passengers were about twenty women, but the compartments which they occupied were spared the general destruction. A man who saw the wrecked train on its arrival at Oxford said that it looked as though it had undergone an artillery barrage. In two whole carriages everything which lent itself to destruction had been destroyed. Guard’s Story. “ The trouble started at Cambridge,” the guard said. “ The rival students were there to give Oxford a rousing send-off. There were scraps on tJie platform, and a lot of good-humoured horseplav. “ We got the attackers clear of the train before anyone was injured. Straightaway the destruction began, and before we. had reached Bedford two new corridor carriages and part of the third were wrecked. The lights in many of the carriages had been destroyed, and the fight went on in darkness.” It started with a student smashing a window and with the shout, “ Up, guards, and at ’em!” The battle spread from one compartment to another. Every window was smashed. The big plate-glass windows in the corridors were broken by beer bottles and boots. Luggage racks were pulled from their sockets and luggage flung out of the window. Coats were wrenched from students’ backs and flung out of the window. Women Warned. The guard had foreseen trouble, and had advised the women passengers to keep together in the front part. The students stormed into this carriage, but finding only women in the compartment they apologised and passed on. The door of the brake van had been locked, since any tampering with their control might have involved the train in disaster. There was a party of students in the carriage beyond the van. Thwarted in their attempts to reach them, the others smashed in the door and forced their way through the brake van. The compartments bej'ond were also wrecked. The youths who invaded the luggage van were driven out by the guard. “ All this,” said the guard, “ went on in d frenzy of noise and fury. 1 moved amongst them trying to quieten them. 1 was powerless. They were utterly irresponsible. After Bedford the riot subsided. The chilling wind of the windowless train travelling at sixty miles cooled their fever, and many of them sank into a drunken sleep.’ The affair is being dealt with by the University authorities.