TERRIBLE RAILWAY ACCIDENT IN AMERICA.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 260, 1 November 1872, Page 1

TERRIBLE RAILWAY ACCIDENT IN AMERICA.

O (From the New York Herald). An appalling disaster occurred on the 11th- July on the Chesapeake and Ohio railroad, 14 miles west of the White Sulphur Springe, in which six persons were killed outright -and nine were wounded, three of the latter mortally. The news reached the Springs half an hour after it happened, aud in company with an engineer and two physicians, theHerald correspondent set out on an extra train for the scene of the terrible catastrophe, which waa found to be at the second bridge over the Greenbrier River. Immediately preceding the bridge on the railway is Harvey's tunnel, 1200 feet long:. A material train, consisting of a small engine known as the David Anderson, and five small flats, loaded with crossties, aud having on board some 15 employes, emerged from the tunnel, going at the rate of four miles per hour. Steadily it moved on to the bridge, which was 300 ft. long and 54 feet high from the bed of the river. The fated train advanced cautiously. and was soon on the bridge between heaven and earth. The centre was reached in safety; in a moment more it was passed, and now the train nearly covered the last two spans of the bridge. Just then a noise was heard, and a few spectators observed the bridge to sink gradually for a second or two, when down went the Btructure with a crash, the five flate with their living freight following, and dragging the tender and engine after them. The noise is said to have been like the prolonged discbarge of a park of artillery, and the whole train was precipitated into the bed of the river. Not a living being escaped without injury. The poor engineer, with the instinct of self - preservation, jumped from the engine, but it was only a jump for death. The engine followed, and the driving wheel buried him in the bed of the river. At this time the spectacle was horrifying in the extreme. The yells and cries of the wounded, mingled with the screeching of escaping steam, the creaking of dismembered timbers, and the hissing of the waters, while the people on the river banks added to the din by their frantic cries. The wreck of the bridge and train were now; a mass of broken timbers, twisted rails, smashed iron, and the mangled forms of the victims. Mr. Baird, the telegraph operator, who has his office at this point in a car, was the first to rush to the rescue. He waded into the stream, and, reaching the engine first, found the engineer dead behind the driving wheel, with his face badly scalded, probably after death. Baird was followed by others, and the fireman was then found, still alive, under the tender. He was the first extricated. Proceeding then to the flats, one by one the wounded were taken from the mass of debris, and carried to the river bank, where they lay moaning piteously. Next the removal of the dead followed, and in two hours the whole number on the train, the living and the dead, were lying side by side, surrounded by negroes, who did everything they could to alleviate the sufferings of the wounded and care for the dead. The bridge is 300 ft. long and 54 ft. high. It is a deck bridge, constructed by Clark and Eives, of Philadelphia. There are three masonry piers, and two abutmeuts of the s<ime material upon these piers, whice are only 22ft. high. A shallow and rickety trestle work is erected, on the top of which the track is laid. The whole structure is only temporary, and was built so as to allow of the erection of an iron bridge on the same foundation. The contractors are responsible for this disaster. The officers of the road never doubted the firmness of the bridge, though they might have had it properly tested and inspected before using it.