THE AMERICAN EARTHQUAKE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1373, 18 October 1886, Page 2

THE AMERICAN EARTHQUAKE

The following is a description of tba effect of the great earthquake recently experienced in America on a running tram. At the time of the earthquake a train waa mnning along at full speed, and when about a mile south of Jedburgh It encountered a terrible experience It was freighted with hundreds of excursionists returning from the mountains. They were all gay and happy, laughing and talking when all of a sudden, in the language of one of them, the train appeared to have left the track, and was going “ up, up, up into the air, this way like a rising wave. Suddenly it dececded and as it rapidly fell it was violently thrown over to the east, the heads of the oars appaarently leaning over at an angle cf leas than 45 degrees, then the train righted, and »aa hurled as with a roar of artillery over to the west, and finally subsided on to the track, and took a plunge downwards. Evidently decending the ware the engineer put down the brakes tight, but so great was the original and added m imentum that the train leaped ahead It Is said on trustworthy authority that tne train actually galloped along the track, the front and the rear coaches rising aud failing alternately The utmost confusion prevailed. The t aio was then taken back in the direction of Jedburgh,