A TERRIBLE RAILWAY ACCIDENT IN IRELAND.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 18, Issue 1087, 5 August 1871, Page 2

A TERRIBLE RAILWAY ACCIDENT IN IRELAND.

A serious accident attended with fatal consequences, recently took place about half a mile from Belfast, on the County Down Railway. The 8.30 passenger train was coming into Belfast when i| came into collision with an engine and four waggons, and two persons have been killed and between twenty and thirty injured, a dozen of them very seriously. Two or three are not likely to recover,. They are at present lying in the Belfast General Hospital in a very precarious condition. As far as can be at present ascertained, the catastrophe occurred in the following manner; —The liue is a single one, and on the arrival of the 8.30 o'clock passenger train in Belfast, a goods train starts. This goods train was being got iuto order. The driver was off theengine, and the fireman started the engine, up the line with four waggons attached for the purpose of shunting them back, to couple them with the rest of the train in the station. He proceeded too far, and through some mismanagement got into an unfinished siding. The wheels of the engine became embedded in sand, and when he found what he had doue he ran off. The passenger train came on with her usual speed down a great incline at this place, and ran with a terrible crash into the goods engine, and with the result already mentioned. About an hour afterwards the fireman, who must have been intoxicated at the time of the accident, was arrested in a drunken cons dition in bed at his own residence. He is at present in custody. The two persons killed are Miss Bailie, Belfast; and John M'Craig, a student at Queen's Collego, Belfast, and a native of Ballamoney. The scene of the accident has been visited by thousands of spectators.