TRAINS COLLIDE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 70, Issue 108, 20 February 1950, Page 3

TRAINS COLLIDE

HEAVY DEATHROLL FEARED ONE DRIVER ARRESTED j t / (N.Z.P.A.—Copyright) NEW YORK, Feb. 2S. It is feared that the deathroll from a railway collision on the Long Island railway last night will reach 34. Twenty-nine persons were killed outright or died of injuries, and fivo others are on the critically ill list. Thirty-seven others remain in hospital. In the nation’s worst train accident for nearly three years two Long Island electric trains crashed head on near the suburban station of Rockville Centre last night. There were SOO passengers on one train [and 200 on the other.

The front carriage of the eastbound train ploughed down the left side and the full length of the front carriage of the westbound train, and no one on that side of the car could' have survived.

Practically all the dead and injured were in the first carriages of both trains, which were almost completely demolished. The second carriages were wrecked.

Both trains had 12 carriages, and the end carriages of each came to a slow halt., Passengers from them were able to walk through to the second carriages and help to get out the injured. 'Men with acetylene torches crawled over the roofs to cut away steel plating, while others inside attacked heavy girders. Many injured were' trapped for hours after the collision.

Fifty doctors were soon on the scene. Doctors literally* sawed and hacked mangled bodies dut of the wreckage. The bodies were carried' across the street to a small church. William Carpenter, a mechanic in a nearby garage, who rescued many passengers, said: “I was in the Navy and saw some pretty tough scraps, but I never saw as gory a thing as . this. Most of the bodies cannot be recognised. They were mostly piled on top of one another at one end of the car. One pile had 10 together as if stacked that nvay.” Railway officials said that the eastbound train should have waited on a ciding for the westbound train to pass. 'The Long Island Railway is at present bankrupt and .is being operated by trustees. It operates out of the Pennsylvania depot, New York City, carrying 'thousands of business people every day to small towns outside the city. The police said later that the driver of the eastbound train was arrested. He will be charged with second degree manslaughter,, for which the maximum penalty is imprisonment for 15 years and a fine of 1000 dollars.

ANOTHER DERAILMENT * YORK, Feb. IS. Seventeen persons were injured today when 12 carriages of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad’s express were derailed near Gulfport, Mississippi.