FEARFUL RAILWAY ACCIDENT.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 467, 30 April 1890, Page 5

FEARFUL RAILWAY ACCIDENT.

THE SCOTCH MAIL IN COLLISION. SOME KILLED, MANY WOUNDED. The direct mail brings accounts of a terrible collision on the London and North Western Railway at Carlisle. The Company have been particularly fortunate of late years in the matter of accidents. It was quite a boast amongst the officials that they had lost fewer passengers than almost any great line in the world of late years. The story of the recent catastrophe is as follows : The Scotch express left Euston as usual at eight o’clock. At Tring, some 40 miles from London, a van was detached from the train, and a passenger who asked the reason was told that the vacuum breaks had broken down, and they would have to work with the common ones. On nearing Carlisle the train was halt an hour late, and, owing, it is presumed, to the slippery state of the metals, the brakes failed to act, and the train rushed through the station at the rate of twenty miles an hour. THE COLLISION. A short distance beyond the platform it came into violent collision with the other engine, which was comiDg up to the platform. The Caledonian Company’s engine was driven back a considerable distance down the incline, while the express engine remained on the line. The first two carriages—a third class and a composite first and third class—were telescoped. In the two foremosb compartments there were no passengers. In the third compartment were three passengers, a lady and two men, all of whom were killed. The two compartments behind were also wrecked, and a young man in one of them was killed. The officials at Carlisle Station came at once upon the ecene, and medical assia'tance was obtained. The work of rescuing the occupants of the train was immediately commenced. The four deceased persons had evidently been KILLED INSTANTANEOUSLY. The most remarkable part of the accidenbwasthat the destruction of rolling stock, and the loes of life and injury to passengers, were confined to the two coaches next to the tender which telescoped so completely. No van separated the coaches from the tender, which was immediately followed by the first coach, consisting exclusively of third-class compartments, with a luggage locker in the centre. Through this vehicle the next coach tor Aberdeen was projected with fearful momentum, stripping it nearly from end to end. A heavy sleeping saloon behind the Aberdeen carriage probably saved the remainder of the train. Three of the killed were taken out of the first coach,'and Miss Lowson was taken out of the second. Crooks, the driver of the Caledonian engine, who was thrown against his engine and rendered insensible, is suffering from shock, but is doing well. All the injured are progressing favourably, the most serious case being that of M unroe, who had both legs broken; Mr Neale, general manager of the London and North Western Railway, who was going to the opening ot the Forth Bridge, remained in Carlisle in consequence of the accident,

DR. AIILNE’S STATEAIENT.

A medical man—Dr. Milne, of Accring- . ton—and his wife were passengers to Aberdeen. Dr. Milne says : “We joined the train at Preston, where we ac first intended to enter one of the forward compartments, in which the majority of the injured people were. We got into a secondclass compartment in the second carriage, and it was over an hour before we could get out. I was unable to assist much, because I was almost the last to be I was pressed down by the compartment in front of us. A lady in the carriage with us was under my knee all the time; she was shaken, but not seriously injured. The lights went out in the carriage, and glass and splinter's went flying about, while the carriage was rocking fearfully.” The Duke of Athole was a passenger by the train, travelling in a sleeping saloon, which was the next vehicle to the two injured carriages. Colonel Hambro, M.P. lor South Dorsetshire, who was also a passenger in the train, was much shaken. As will bo seen from the list, his valet was killed.

Four persons were killed instantaneously, and thirteen dangerously injured, besides many who were badly shaken.