IN A SEA OF FIRE.

Mataura Ensign, Volume 6, Issue 335, 29 February 1884, Page 6

IN A SEA OF FIRE.

One of those disasters peculiar to the oil country shocked the people of Bradford, l J a, on January IS. An entire p is-enger train on the Bradford, Borwell, and| Kinzun Narrowgauge Railroad was des royed by fire. The train ran through a river of oil, which had escaped from a bursted tank on a steep hill, and coursed down over the snow and into the bed of the track, down which it* ran for nearly half a-mile. The grade at that point which was very steep, allowed this great leeway. The train consisted of an express car s nd passenger coach both wellfilled with passengers. The engineer was not aware of the dangerous ground on which the train wa9 travelling. The moment the furnace came in contact ,\vith the furnace of the engine it ignited and at once enveloped the entire train in a mass of flames. The engineer (Patrick Sexton) applied the air brake and reversed the engine. 7he halt was very brief. The track for over 600 ft was a roaring sea of flame, and great clouds of dense black smoke ascended heavenward. The engineer opened wide his throttle,and away thundered the train through the smoke, fl a me,and oil. The speed attained was terrible, and acted as a huge fan to the conflagration. The engineer saw a sharp curve ahead, aud, quickly reversing his engine, he, with his fireman (Mike Walsh) jumped into a snow bank which lined both sides of the road. Both were ierr.bly burned. The entire train was derailed and thrown down an embankmet. In the fire-hemmed coach the scene beggared description. Locked in, and helpless in the burning cars, travelling at the rate of fifteen an ho>\r, the passengers' anguish knew no bounds. Men of nerve lost their head, women fell on the floor in a swoon, and the cries and lamentations of little children pierced hearts of iron. There was death through the doors, and the sweeping flames cooked the flesh and singed tue hair on the faces and heads of the imprisoned passengers. It was everybody for themselves, and men in their desperation jumped from the speeding cars, and fell urostrate to the ground, burned and mangled. So intense was the heat that one minute after the train entered the sea of fire every window was cracked. Two-thirds of the passengers jumped {through the narrowwindows a imajority escaping with severe burns, while 4 a lucky few escaped without a scratch. Three of the passengers were burned to death. The victims were all women. Mrs L. C. Fair was burned to death. When taken from the ruins her body was found to be burned almost ,'beyoud rocognition. Her husband, who was in the baggage car, was powerless to render her aid; He escaped with a few slight burns. George M'Cartuey, a newsboy, who is badly burned about face, head jand hands, will recover. He could have escaped without injury, and he was nearly ont of ,the car when he heard the cries of Mrs Fair, and attempted to help the woman out, but at the critical moment. she lost •• her presence of mind and fainted. In order to save himself the boy jumped through a window, and landed in' a pool of burning oil. John Burke, of Dunkirk (N.Y.), with his sister Mary, was on the train. They occupied seats near the centre ;of the car, and escaped with slight injuries. Mr Burke said : " The train was running at the rate of . fifteen miles an hour, when suddenly the car became dark, when jets of flame leaped up . on all sides and through the ventilators of the car. The glass cracked with a snap and. . the heat became unendurable. I knew at once that we were passing through an- oil fire. On all sides was heard the crashing of : glass and the deafening roar of a sea of flame That car was a regular hell. In less than three minutes after ifc caught fire the car was filled with the cries of women and ' children and the groans of men. Women' i. were picked up by strong hands and bodily thrown through the crackling windowß. Those who jumped out of the windows fared . better than the few who dashed through the doors into the ocean of flames. Those who jumped from the windows landed in huge drifts of snow, while those who went through the doors had their hands and faces and their clothing badly burned. The car swayed to and fro like a ship in a heavy sea. The windows offered the only means of escape. I picked my sister up and dashed her head first^through a window. I then picked up, a little girl who was crying, and threw her out of the same window, and then I made a jump myself, landing in a snowdrift. My moustache and hair were only slightly singed. My sister rolled down the bank, and escaped without a scratch." An eye witness of the disaster said : " For a distance of nearly half a mile the road waß covered" with oil. At points it was over the rails. The moment the gas came in contact with the fire box it exploded, firing the oil, and in less than one minute the engine and cars were developed in flames. The driving wheels of the engine, which was dashing along, scattered the oil over everything, with a rush aud roar which might have heeni heard for a mile. The flmies leaped fully 250 ft ahead of the locomotive, which -\\ a» thus compelled to run through a vertical bea of fire."