Terrible Railway Accidents in America

Feilding Star, Volume VIII, Issue 91, 8 February 1887, Page 3

Terrible Railway Accidents in America

By Electric Telegraph.— Copyright [ekutke'B telfgraxs. I Washington, February 6. An express train from Boston" to Montreal ran off the rails on the Hudson River bridge on to the ice. The train took fire and 40 of the passeng- I ers were burned to death. Later. The express train from Boston to Montreal, which ran off the rails on the Hudson Eiver Bridge on to the ice, and which subpequently took fire, was burnt in thirty minutes. From the position of the tram it was impossible to render any assistance, and 70 lives were lost. £Per Mail Steamer at Auckland.] A body of conductors and gnpuien on the Geary-street and Sutter-street cable roads, San Francisco, had reached the stage of outrage on the 14th. A car and dummy while, in motion and filled with passengers, was blown up by -dynamite, and the people thrown some 1 5 feet by the concussion have established a competing line of oai nib uses on both roads. A disastrous collision occurred on the Southern Paci lie Railroad on December 21st, 300 miles west of, San Antonio, Texas. Nine Mexicans were literally roasted to death in the wreckage, which took fire after the smash up. Auother accident occurred on the Canadian Pacific Railroad reoeufcly. Tw-.» cars of a passenger train on the Jio'eky Mountain division became detached, and ran three miles down a h«avy erade, and* were smashed. An express niessehger was killed and 20 passengers were badly shaken up. Ohio papers are full of graphic accounts of one of the most horrible and heartrending accidents, by a collision on the rails, that, ever occurred in that State. It happened near Republic, about eight miles west of Clevelandj at 1 o'clock on the morning of the 4th of January. An eastern bound express train, running at the lightning speed of 63 miles an hour, struck a freight train that was stationary on the line. The engines of the two trains reared into the air, and then settled down on the track, driving into each other till the cylinders touched. The force of the collision jambed the baggage cars into the tender of the first train, the express car into the baggage, and the smoker into the express. There was a mass of wreck which, in less than 5 minutes, took fire, roasting alive the unfortunate occupants. Their shrieks and the roar of the flames had an almost maddening effect on the survivors. When all was over, here and tkere could be seen sheets of blood, and pieces of half -burnt frozen flesh, workmen still dragging portions of bodies from the smouldering wreck. Some 25 or 30 were killed or burnt to death. The cause of the disaster was that the . conductor of the freight train, thinking he could reach, a certain point before the express was due, started out, but the night was so bitterly cold that he found great difficulty in keeping up steam in the engine, and fidally Ms train came to a standstill, where it was found by the lightning express with. the deplorable result mentioned. ' On the same morning a broken wheel threw six cars from the track at Mittenague station, near Springfield, Mass., and a general smash was the result. The usual destruction of cars by fire occurred, and several passengers were burned to death, aud many were more or less injured.