RAILWAY DISASTERS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVIII, Issue 81918, 16 February 1907, Page 4

RAILWAY DISASTERS.

WHOLESALE LOSS OF LIFE. ■SAX FRANCISCO, ,1a 11. 3. Fifty-three person's were killed and three-score were injured in a train wreck on "the Baltimore and Ohio Railway, three miles from Washington, on tiie night, of December 30th, through a collision between a passenger train from Fredericksburg (Maryland I and eight empty pass-'nger cars. The engine driver of Ihe empty train failed to see a signal 011 account of tile fog. At Terra Cotta, where the wijeck oecurred. a number of passengers were waiting to take the Fredericksburg train. On,v two of these escaped, the rest being either killed by being drawn under the 'train or bring injured by flying wreckage. The tra n men have l*een arrested, and it is believed that the blame will rest with the enginedriver of the empty train, who declares that the fog hid the signal from h:m. The train dispatcher stales that there was a fog but that it was not heavy enough, to hide the red light from the sight of the engine driver. The Jailer, who is in prison, seenrs to be dazed by the magnitude of his error, and by the terrible experience through which he passed, and can make 110 further explanation than the simple declaration if the red light was displayed he did not see it. The scenes at the wreck were indescribably hois rible. A despatch from Topeka (Kansas) dated January 2nd, says that two white men, a negro train porter, and about thirty Mexican laborers lost their lives, and fifty persons were injured, when two passenger trains on the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railway; collided head on, four miles west of Vollaud (Kansas) at 5.10 this morning., The exact number of dead will never be known, as a number of Mexicans were completely cremated in the flames aaid their charred bones wese crushed to ashes in the removal of the wreck age. The trains went ou a sharp curve with a fearful impact. The tire spread with great rapidity. A nineteen-year old telegraph operator at Yolland is responsible for the wreck. lie failed to stop train iS'o 29 at his station after beiug ordered to hold it there until No 30 had passed. The boy quickly realised li s blunder, and tried in vain to signal the train, lie then wired the Central Ollice: '•Train No 29 has gone, and so have I." He tried to flee, but was captured. A curious feature of the disaster was the fact that relief trains were ordered out before the collision had actually occurred. Operators all along the line knew what was imminent, but had no means of signalling the train.