TRAIN DISASTER

Hokitika Guardian, 27 December 1933, Page 6

TRAIN DISASTER

FUNERAL OF THE VICTIMS.

(United Treat -A seociation—By -Electrio i’^lfegrdph—Copyright).

(Received this day at 12 noon). ■PARIS, 'December 28,

The president and members of the Government will.attend the funeral service to the Lagny victims at Gare de Lest'on December-27. The great hall of the station has been converted into a chapel, di*ape<l in ■'black and silver, with the catafalque on a dais in the Centre. The ceremony will be of the simplest. The victims include an American and several Central Europeans. The rest are all French. •The driver and fireman have been charged with dashing into a thick fog at over sixty.nhles an hour ; into a stationary trajiin • Which properly (obeyed the signals, •which were plainly at danger.

SIGNALS PROVE FAULTY.

CONFLICTING EVIDENCE

(Received this day at 1.5 p.m.) }' PARIS, December 26. The/ driver of the Strasbourg train, Dudi'g-ny, stated he suddenly saw. the rear red light s of the ’Nancy express twenty yards distant. “I applied the brakes, but hit it with a teriffic crash. We‘ had just missed two open signals, and did not hear the warning detonators,- or ‘the Alarm whistle, which should have .automatically operated if the* danger .'signals "iTOr© ignored.” Passengers on the last -'Strasbourg coach • Confirm ! that the detonators exploded only when their Carriage, passed/ On the contrary, the guard of the Nancy train' 'descending the track just before tha 'crash, contends he saw the signals at “danger,” ‘'while a gatekeeper says he heard the warning whistle. In view of the conflict, a test engine traversed the' line and established the fact that the signals were slow to act owing to frost.