TERRIBLE RAILWAY ACCIDENT.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 304, 26 December 1874, Page 3

TERRIBLE RAILWAY ACCIDENT.

The Marquis of Wa'erford, who-appa-rently inherits some of the .family eccentricities, is said to have offered the Great Western Railway : Company liberal-com • pensation for all losses if-they would "only

afford hi in the opportunity" of seeing, two trains (empty, oi course) run into- each other at express speed from opposite directions. The Great Western Company did not think the game worth- the candle, and refused to do anything of. the sort; but, had his Lordship only known when the affair was coming off, he would have found that' the Great Eastern Company were able to gratify him. Had he been at a certain spot on the line between Norwich and Brundall, on .the evening o the 10th September, he could have wit-r. nessed the desired spectacle without paying anything at all, and with more thrilling accesories of full, instead of empty trains. At Brundall station, between Yarmouth and Norwich, the lines become single, and the up night mail from. Yarmouth shoul i pass the down express just before reaching that place. If, however, it arrived at Brundall without passing the express, it remained there for orders from Norwich. At Norwich, if the express was twenty-five minutes late, it was the rule to order on the mail from Brundall, and of course, if the express arrived in the. meantime to detain it until the single line was clear. Considering what was at stake, a heavy responsibility rests on the directors, who allowed the safety of the trains to depend on a happy-go-lucky system like this, where everything rested on the clear-headedness of one or two overworked men, without any mechanical check, as in the " block " or " staff"- systems. -For years it answered, but at last there came the inevitable break-down of so flimsy a measure. On the night of the 1 Oth ultimo the express from London was late as usual, and the night inspector at Norwicfa ordered up the mail from Brundall. Within the next two minutes the express arrives at Norwich, and, through some misunderstanding between a telegraph clerk, "the night inspector, who had ordered up the mail, and another inspector, it is sent on down the single line, up which the mail is now whirring. The mistake was discovered just too late, and the consternation at the station may be imagined. T,he inspector who had ordered up the mail was, according to the witnesses at the inquiry, "like lysed with horror," and another officiaj. tore-off his coat and rushed down the line in a futile attempt -to catch the express. All in vain. No human power could nowavert the catastrophe. There was nothing to be done but to prepare for the 1 worst.- Carriages were lighted, the country scoured for surgical aid, places provided for the reception of the dead -and dying, and all these provisions were actually being made while the victims were sitting in life and health, and utter unconsciousness of. danger. In all the sad long history of such disaster, never has there been so weird a feature as this. The'crash came, and it -was heard for miles around. The two. engines, from their positions afterwards, must have reared up perpendicularly, and then fallen over backwards. The inextricable confusion of tortured, humanity and debris was something appalling. Altogether in this terrible catastrophe twenty- five people have been killed, and about seventy, injured. The coroner's jury have found verdicts of manslaughter against the night-inspector who ordered up the mail from. Brundall, and the telegraph clerk who sent the message. The moral blame, however, is not removed from the directors of the company by this finding, and ' Punch,' in a clever cartoon last week, hits the right nail on the head. He is depicted pointing towards a number ,of railway employes, and confronting a pompous-looking director, to whom he remarks .with severity—"No, no, Mr. Director, they're not much to blame. It's your precious false economy, unpunctuality.and general want of system that does all the mischief." It is due, however, to the Great Eastern Company to add that a second line between Norwich and Brundall was actually being made, and that part of it had already been completed, and notice for its inspection been given to the Board of Trade ten days before the accident. "It never rains but it pours," is an adage which seems to apply more particularly to railway disasters than to any other occurrences—except suicides perhaps. Since the Brundall catastrophe, accidents on the railroad have been of almost daily recurrence, and in one no less than twenty people were injured.