HAWES RAILWAY DISASTER.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1090, 31 March 1911, Page 5

HAWES RAILWAY DISASTER.

ELECTRIC LIGHTING RECOMMENDED. By Telegraph-Press Associati-on-Copyrli:ht London, March 29. The official report on the railway disaster near llawos Junction, .Yorkshire, in which thirteen lives were lost on Christmas Eve, has been published. ■ A- Glasgow express crowded with holi-day-makers, wiiile travelling'at top speed towards : Sc6tlan(r;"rail'"iiitb"tw6 light engines which wero proceeding, coupled together, at a slower pace in tho same direction. Tho force of the collision was so great that both engines of. tho express and tho two light engines were thrown off the rails and the first two coaches of the train-a guard's van and a thirdclass passenger coach—were telescoped. Somo of the passengers in the second coach were killed on' tho spot. Others met with a more terrible fate, for the wrecked train caught fire and they wero burned to death, beforo they could bo released from the woodwork which pinned them down. Tho report recommends tho uso of electricity instead of gas for lighting railway carriages, and discourages the introduction of steel carriages, which would increase the risk of injury to passengers in case of an accident.

Tho first two coaches of the express wero telescoped and completely wrecked and the next five coaches jumped tho metals, only the last two maintainim* their position: The passengers who had escaped serious injury in the rear of the train hud barely time to alight beforo fire broke out in I lie first coach and quickly spread to the next six, the covered passages in the corridors connecting the rear carriages forming'practically narrow tunnels through which the iiames stretched from' ono to another. The fire was attributed to the explosion of gas in a tank under ono of the carriages. "The Times" reporter wrote:— the fire burned tho first seven coaches of the express down to the wheels, and all were smouldering and throwing out an occasional spark when I arrived on the seeno in the dusk of yesterday. I lie wreck was complete. At previous railway accidents one has seen cushions, racks, bags, newspapers, and othe" articles heaped up on the line. There was no such spectacle to bo seen yesterday. The whole tram, with the exception of the engines and the last two coaches, had been utterly consumed. Onlv a mass of-wheels, sprawling in the air, and of ironwork, twisted and broken into strange and fearful shapes, remained grim witnesses of the disaster. Mr. .Toh-i M'Ncil, of Glcnalmond, Prestwick, an engineer, who was a passenger on tho train,-in a letter to '' Hie limes _ a few days later, said: "In these clays ot steel construction it becomes a question whet her carriage bodies should still be timber structures, and whether a framework of steel with panelling of aluminium or asbestos cardboard, would not be tli-o'i"or, lighter, and cheaper. Anyway they would'be non-inflammable, aim th* pai>"ls removable by one's loot or fist or noc*"* knife. I do not presume to <io nioro'than make suggestions which experienced railway men may possibly ac upon, but as an engine*? who has had !he experience of two railway collisions, and with the impressions of Saturday's still vibrating Dinnigh nie, 1 feel impelled to lay them before you and your readers.