APPALLING RAILWAY ACCIDENT.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 17, 11 May 1876, Page 2

APPALLING RAILWAY ACCIDENT.

All appalling railroad accident, involving a heavy loss of life, occurred at the narrow passage bridge in Shenandoah County, nea :Iy mid v, ay betwee .1F dmxurgh and Woodstock, 011 v/nat- is known as the Valley division of the Baltimore and Ohio R.v'lroad, the section leased from the Old Orange, Alexandria, and Manassas Gap Railroad, on Bf&rcli accident occurred to the known as the mixed train passen®js3PXsonibineu, part oMpT'Valley at half-past J?He train loft Harrisonburg ori'tina®, vv as a very long one, carrying cattle, hogs, sheep, flora - , clover seed, ifcc., besides a number of passengers. It -went well until it reached the narrow passage bridge, the highest bridge in the valley, being 118 ft. from the bottom of Narrow Creek, fr. 111 which it takes its name. At this point ilie accident, which makes one shudder to" think of, occurred. The train was drawn by one of the Baltimore and Oliio Company's engines, and known as a camel back. A gentleman who lives near the bridge describes the accident as one of the most fearful sights he ever beheld. He saw by the moonlight the doomed train as it approached the bridge ; saw the huge engine as it went down into the abyss below, and all the cars, with their freightage of human life and dumb creatures, take the fearful plunge upon tl:e,rocks more than a hundred feet] below.' The train of cars were piled up for thirty or forty feet. The wonder is that anything on the train that had life was not instantly crushed. Of the laxge number of cattle, and sheep, and hogs, but a solitary steer showed a sign of life remaining. When daylight broke upon the scene the cars were found broken into fragments, making the wreck complete. The bridge comllienced going down as soon as the engine lrad fairly gotten on the first span. It was a wooden structure, old, and was known to be unsafe for very heavy trains. Indeed the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company had been making arrangements to rebuild it, the timbers and materials for the work being upon the ground.