TRAINS COLLIDE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 29 June 1928, Page 5

TRAINS COLLIDE.

A SHOCKING DISASTER. HEAVY DEATH ROLL. Pi ess Association- Electric Xelegraph-Copyrig LONDON, Thursday. A crowded excursion train from Scarborough to Newcastle collided -with a goods train outside Darlington Station just before midnight. Two coaches telescoped and there were distressing scenes. The North Eastern Railway state that twenty-two were killed and fortyseven injured. Twenty of those injured have since been released from hospital.—Australian Press Assn.—United Service. DISTRESSING SCENES. LONDON, Thursday. ■ The excursion disaster at Darlington is far more serious than was first reported. The collision occurred at 11.20 o’clock but it was many hours before it was possible to extricate the bodies. The scene of the disaster is 300 yards south of the Darlington Station.

The train had at least five hundred passengers who were crowded in ten corridor coaches. The train was not scheduled to stop at Darlington but approached the statioii slowly. As it came to the Darlington south crossing an engine left the station with a van for shunting purposes, into which the excursion train dashed.

The passenger engine hurled aside the shunting van. The electric lights were instantly extinguished, but it was plain that the passengers in two coaches were shockingly mangled. Cries and groans were heard in the darkness, which was only broken by a line of smoke belching from the engines which apparently were on fire. Rows of seats wore crushed on top of each other, with human beings between, their arms and legs hanging by threads of skin, many being women and children, whose erics for help were pitiable.

The rescuers were at first unable to do anything to mitigate the worst horrors, though they were assisted by the uninjured, who crawled from the wreckage.

Frantic efforts were made to hack and prise the woodwork to release those least hurt.

The third coach of the passenger train had telescoped into the second. Men used saws and axes in order to cut into the wreckage and a breakdown crane on the scene within twenty minutes.

The Darlington Eire Brigade and residents, who were roused from their sleep, gave assistance to the railway gangsmen, but the rescue work was all too slow.

Doctors administered morphia in order to fortify the sufferers during the ordeal of their being extricated. — Australian Press Assn.—United - Service.