REMARKABLE RAILWAY DISASTER.

Wanganui Herald, Volume L, Issue 14746, 27 October 1915, Page 5

REMARKABLE RAILWAY DISASTER.

IRISH MAIL WRECKED. EXTRAORDINARY CAUSE. LONDON, August 17. A shocking railway accident, involving the death of nine people, serious iujuries to a score, and minor injuries to many others, occurred last Mit-.uday morning on the London and NorthWestern Railway, seme thirteen miles south of Rugby. Deplorable as the icsiilts were, it u really miraculous that the human toll was not vastly greater. 'The catastrophe stands out from among its predecessors cn this particular system for the reason that it was not due to the failure of any human elemeht, but won the result of a mechanical failure which railway engineers have been striving for years to prevent. W'hat happened waa this. Two sipres# trains, running in opposite directions, at a speed of fully 60 miles an hour, were approaching an embankment about a mile south of Weedon station, and a few yards north of Stowe Tunnel. The Irish mail was going north from Eustou to Holyhead cu the down line, and the other, an express from Rugby to London, was on the up main line. Just after passing Weedon station, the train going to Huston was suddenly involved iu a serious trouble by the breaking of the connecting rod of the locomotive on the right-hand side between the two sets of rails. As is generally the case in accidents of this character, the failure was near the poiut of fixing which "couples" or “connects” the two righthand driving wheels. A STEEL FLAIL. Instantly the long, heavy steel rod wan (lying rouud like a powerful flail with enormous force, smashing and tearing up the ballast and the ends of the sleepers. Just at this moment the Irish express, drawn by two powerful locomotives, was coming at full speed out of the north end of Stowe tunnel. Just In-fore reaching the point of passing, the heavy steel rod of the up engine broke under the strain of the ipighty blows it was delivering upon the permanent way, and the broken portion was, unfortunately, hnrled on to down rails in front of the Irish mail. The obstruction threw lioth locomi tivea off the rails, and with enormous momentum they ploughed up rails, sleepers, and railway chairs. The great weight of the locomotives dug them deep into the balla-st and brought them to a very sudden stop, which broke them away from the long train of heavy carriages. Within a second or two, at th« most, of the up-train having passed the whole of the Irish mail roaches, there waa a terrible crash of the carriages of the mail, which was beard for mile*. Their momentum was deflected both to the right and to the left. EXTRAORDINARY SCENES. The five leading carriages leapt to tho right over the up-line of metals, where a second before tbe train from London waa passing, and two of them jumped over the embankment into a field adjoining, while the third reared itself high on the top of the second coach against a telegraph pole, all three being reduced to a great heap of wreckage. The next two caches, including a postal sorting ran, had their momentum deflected to the left, and fell ntiside down in a mass of wreckage in a turnip field, while several carriages further in the rear rose in tho air and had their front portions entirely swept clean of their compartments above the heavy iron framework of tho coaches in an appalling state of ruin. Thus, within a few seconds, the splendid express had been reduced to three distinct hea|H of wreckage--onc on the right of tlv' embankment itself, a few yards nearer the end of the train. Several other coaches were derailed, but did not leave tbe permanent way. Their broken windows and shattered sides were eloquent proofs, however, of tho force of the e ncussion. The railway embankment is. happily, very low at the scene of the accident. Had it occurred a few hundred yards further along tho _ line, where the embankment is ranch higher, the, loss of life would probably have bees much heavier. That the up-train waa not involved in the di-vaster was indeed providential, and happily for the living temporarily imprisoned in tho Irish mail wreckage, there was oqly one small outbreak of fire, and that wss speedily subdued by chemical extinguishers - .